Instead of describing ourselves in nouns or adjectives – ‘I am a liberal’, ‘I am a conservative’ – we would use verbs to say what we mean: ‘I want a smaller pay gap between the top and the bottom’ or ‘I want small government’.
Related Quotes
In all these cases, labels involve a particular part of speech: nouns. The trait “liberal” is an adjective, but the category “a liberal” is a noun. Saying that someone “runs a lot” uses “run” as a verb, while saying someone is “a runner” turns that action (a verb) into an identity (a noun).
Changing a verb-based description (e.g., “drinks coffee”) to a noun (e.g., “is a coffee drinker”) made it seem like that person’s attitudes or preferences were more dispositional, and thus stronger and more stable. Part of someone’s identity, rather than just an attitude they happen to hold.
We say things like, ‘You could … You should … I would propose that you … You’d do well to … If I were you, I would …’, ‘Do this, think that, get on with it just as I say.’
That ‘language of advice’ is itself an interruption of the person’s independent thinking. When we use that language, we are requiring the person to think like us, in essence to become us. So the person’s mind becomes defensive. People resist having to think just like someone else. This requirement is demeaning; it is diminishing of the self. And so, what is offered in the language of advice is usually only partially heard and often rejected, sometimes out of hand.
But if instead we use the language of experience – ‘I discovered that … In my experience, I have found that …’ – or the language of information – ‘the law says that … research is showing that … so far the facts here are that …’ – or even, ‘if I were in your situation, I would …’, the person engages readily, accepting bits, rejecting bits, questioning bits. They keep thinking for themselves. They keep their own mind. They have not been required to become us.
If I become interested in your view, I will have to adopt your values, and so I will stop being me; I will be an inferior person.
Reactive Language
Proactive Language
There’s nothing I can do.
Let’s look at our alternatives.
That’s just the way I am.
I can choose a different approach.
He makes me so mad.
I control my own feelings.
They won’t allow that.
I can create an effective presentation.
I have to do that.
I will choose an appropriate response.
I can’t.
I choose.
I must.
I prefer.
If only.
I will.