Martinovski, B., Traum, D., Marsella, S.
Journal of Group Decision and Negotiation
(Springer, January 2006)
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Contemporary technology urges us to believe that it improves communication. One result of such a belief is increased negativity towards “failure” in communication, which is cured only by more communication or by force. A second consequence is a focus on the view that language is a vehicle for transmission of thoughts and a dislocation of the view that language and communication offer opportunity for ethical manifestation. This article proposes that ethics emerges through and in language: beyond the contents delivered and the linguistic structure it enforces, language inspires the fundamental response-ability between self and Other. It is exactly in the breakdown of communication that we communicate through the ethics of a caress. The contemporary dichotomies describing communication and meaning are due to a conceptual fusion/confusion, which in its turn is due to the post-world-wars’ breathless desire for speedy progress and recovery.
