Before the advent of the internet some people thought the world’s problems were due to a lack of communication. Now that the internet is here, there is no lack of communication and things seem to have gotten worse.

Presumably the problem isn’t with the volume of communication, rather the quality of it. Having pondered the issue for a while, it seems to me that there are two problems with the quality of communication:

1. There’s too much talking, not enough listening.
2. In the few cases where people do listen to one another, they don’t then use their common understanding to move forward.

A recent response to my letter¹ to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) presents an interesting case study in “meaningful dialogue”. The responder asked to remain anonymous (the post was made in a private forum), but gave his permission for me to reproduce his comment:

“I know that almost everyone in [this private Facebook group] has nothing but hate and contempt for lawyers but they are a reality of the legal system. Submissions [to the ALRC] were invited on the material in the [ALRC’s Discussion Paper]. Whilst the letter may contain valid criticisms an invitation for submissions is not an invitation for intemperate, sarcastic letters. How the LRC deals with references is largely for it to determine - and reasonable minds may differ as to the approach taken. I fear that the first paragraph will lead to the immediate filing of this document in a nearby bin.

I’d strongly recommend a different approach be taken should a Royal Commission dealing with Family Law be held, lest it will come very close to contempt from which certain consequences might flow.”

The first thing that should be said about this response is that he read my letter and responded meaningfully, and for that he should be given credit. At least he listened. Other people commented but their comments went off on their own tangents. They are entitled to do that, of course, but it is hard to move forward when everyone’s talking about different things.

Since Mr X did me the courtesy of carefully reading my letter, I would like to do the same for him – but what does that mean in practice? As is often the case, I’ll lean on Edward de Bono and refer to one of his thinking tools. There is a tool called ADI² which encourages participants to put points of discussion between people under headings of Agreement, Disagreement and Irrelevant.

With all due respect to Dr de Bono, I will modify the headings somewhat in this case:

Points of complete agreement

• Mr X and I agree that the ALRC produced a discussion paper and invited people to comment on it.

Partial agreement

• I agree that the ALRC should be allowed to decide for itself how to conduct its investigations. But when you see a bus driver asleep at the wheel, you wake him up, right?
• Mr X says my letter may contain valid criticisms. I say it definitely contains valid criticisms.

Prefer to see things another way

• Mr X says that people from the private Facebook group hate lawyers. I would say that, yes, some of these people hate lawyers, but in most cases, it would be more accurate to say they blame lawyers. There is a subtle but important difference between blaming and hating - many people blame their spouses for various things without hating them.
• Mr X says my letter contains valid criticisms of the ALRC. I am more inclined to say that I make a single criticism (that the ALRC has been disrespectful) and highlight it in various ways.

Disagreement

• Mr X says my letter is sarcastic, I disagree. To suggest to a senior public servant on a salary of about half a million dollars a year that she is not “my little girl” is not sarcasm - it is a statement of the obvious and some much-needed fun.
• I disagree that my letter is intemperate. In fact, I think it is very measured and restrained.
• Mr X says the ALRC approach to its family law inquiry may be “reasonable”, but I disagree. I think the head of that inquiry, Helen Rhoades, was ill-suited to that role and I was pleased when I heard she had resigned.
• Mr X suggested that the ALRC would ignore my cheeky submission. I disagree that it was too cheeky and I don’t think they’ll ignore it. Within two hours of making the submission, I received a polite email from the ALRC thanking me (and no doubt all other respondents) for their hard work in making submissions.

No comment (possibly irrelevant)

• Mr X says that lawyers are a reality of the legal system.
• Mr X suggested that if I made such a cheeky submission to a Royal Commission, I might get “consequences”.

Conclusion

I think I have shown that by carefully examining someone’s correspondence, identifying where we agree, where we disagree, and why we disagree, I have learned a lot more than I would have just by responding “off the cuff”. Particularly interesting for me was Mr X’s apparent disinterest in elaborating on areas of agreement.

I will give Mr X a copy of my response, and whether he chooses to learn anything himself will be up to him.

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¹ http://philbachmann.com/letters/3

² http://www.cortthinking.com/cort/3/agreement-disagreement-irrelevant