6 forms of nonlistening

                In chapter 6, I learned six different forms of Nonlistening.  For example, Pseudolistening means that one is pretending to listen, but they were not paying attention actually. Refer back to myself, when I get bored in a conversation, I will be Pseudolistening. Since I feel that information was not important, I will choose to think about other random things when I looked like I am listening. In Monopolizing, people show that they are not interested in the speaker by changing topic. They take the conversation away from the person who is talking and focuses it on themselves. Selective Listening, people only choose to pay attention at topics that they are interested. When the speaker said something related to things that they are interested, they will start to pay attention. Defensive Listening means that people show their criticism in the conversation, usually if someone’s hurt, their replies tend to be disrespectful, in order to protect themselves. Ambushing means that one listens very carefully and prepares to attack the speaker. In a debate, one will memorize the point that their opponent mentioned, and restate the point from their perspective. Lastly, in Literal Listening, people are not sensitive to others feeling, or they just got the wrong point from the message. 

Hate Speech

According to the Free Speech Museum’s Hate Speech page, hate speech is a disrespectful speech that used to critics someone based on their ethnicity or culture. Although hate speech is an evil speech, it is however allowed in the United States under the protection of the first amendment, freedom of speech. Since many people like to share their personal opinion on the web, such as writing a blog, there would definitely contain some hate speeches. I think it is impossible to fully ban hate speech, but it doesn’t mean that we can critics others publicly through the web. We can think about it reversely, what if people critics you openly? How would you feel? I don’t think there is a need to set up a law to regulate hate speech, because we are all human beings and we should have a harmless heart. If you really disagree with someone’s behavior or personality, you can stop contacting or even forget them, and there is no need to critics someone on the web publicly.

Metaphors For America Society

Both melting pot and rainbow are great metaphors for describing our American society in the past. However, time has changed where our society has become more diversity, people and their cultures are no longer unifying into the same pot. Therefore, I prefer one of Reverend Jesse Jackson’s metaphors, which is our United Stated is unifying as a rainbow. Each color represents different ethnicity and culture, and all the colors combine as rainbow, which is why we call our country as the United States. As we look at the rainbow, we can see all the colorful strips that made up the shinny little bridge. Just like people who are coming into America, they can easily tell our country is united by many different kinds of people, culture, and ethnicity. Although our country has many differences for everything, we are still a happy and united family, just like the colorful rainbow has given us the feelings of happiness and hope.

Attachment Styles

The concept I found interesting in Chapter 2 is the patterns of caregiving that teach us who we and others are, also known as attachment styles. I truly believe that we learn most of the attachment styles from our parents and other family members. Since we spend all the time living with our family members in our earlier life, we basically absorb all the things that they have told us. As a little child, we would not disagree with their theories, because we do not have that much thinking yet, and we always truly trust them. In addition, the first bond of attachment styles is really important since that is what we have first learnt and according to the text, it also forms the child’s foundation for later relationship. Just like mathematics, we need to have a good foundation of algebra 1 in order to go on to algebra 2, otherwise, you can hardly pass algebra 2. Therefore, parents need to make sure they communicate through attachment styles really well before their child go on to later relationship.

Race

According to the text, race is considered a primary aspect of a person’s own identity. Race sometimes is a useful way to classify people. We can identify people’s culture by their race, and learn their life style. However, people may come up with a wrong concept about some races. They may have an idea that all black people are bully and white people are really helpful. In fact, this is absolutely wrong. Black people are also helpful, and on the other hand, some white people can be bully. The Census Bureau should allow people to check multiple races, because many people have more than one race. They should have the right to declare all their races. In addition, we are in a united country, we should expect a person with more than one race. For example, when a half Chinese, half Japanese female marries a white male, their children would have three races. Therefore, we should not look at others’ physical appearance and determine what races they belong to. 

Genders Change Over Generation

I interviewed my parents who were in their 40s. My mom mentioned that when she was at my age, she was expected to help out with her family, since she was the only daughter in her family. She was also expected to be getting married and respectful in front of the elders. My dad said that at that age, he was expected to learn his own skill in order to support his own family in the future.

Then, I interview my grandparents who were in their 60s. My grandma said when she was at my age, she was expected to stayed at home and helped their family do all the housework. She didn't need to find a job and she couldn't divorce for any reason after she got married. My grandpa mentioned that he didn't need to do any housework but go to find a job. He was responsible to earn money for their family.

After I interviewed both my parents and grandparents, I found out that our behaviors really did change over generations. Both female and male are expected to go to college and earn a degree nowadays. We are not expected to get married in our 20s, and we can even choose not to get married in our whole life long. We could get divorced whenever we want when we had any problem. In addition, both female and male have gained equal rights and roles. Female could be independent and male is also responsible for taking care of the family.

Personal Knowledge

According page 24 of the text, Interpersonal communication fosters personal knowledge and insights, I learned that people have to understand each other's feeling in order to connect as unique individuals. Which corresponded with I-It to I-Thou procedure that I read. When the relationship between my friends and I becomes closer, I started to understand their background, and I would understand their concerns, and personal issues that happens on them. The text also mentioned that  sometimes people may even feel that their closest friends know themselves better that they do. I agreed with this statement. I believed my friend really know my personality better than myself, because when I shared experience with them, they know what I really can do, but not what I think I could do. I can always improve myself while communicating to closed friend of mine Also, when it turned into the I-Thou relationship, people create their own method to communicate in order to make each other feel more comfortable.

from I-it to I-thou

When I was in high school, I met one of my best friend. At first, I met her in my biology class, then I realized we also have English class together, so we started to talk to each other. That was an I-It relationship, which we don't talk much about ourselves. Basically, we were just hi-bye kind of friends. One time, there were a Bio project that we needed to work together, we had more time to communicate. Since we had to talk about details about the project, we exchanged our phone number and email address. That turned our relationship into I-You relationship. We chatted online about ourselves besides Bio project. After we got to know each other, I realized she is a really nice person. Then when I spent more time being with her, our relationship turned into I-Thou relationship, because we were really closed to each other. We started playing sports together, and sharing experiences about ourselves. Once our relationship became I-Thou relationship, we both treat each other as a very important person in life.