Paul Grice was a guy who studied language, last century, and one of the things he came up with was a self-help book for lonely, shy, and bored people called Grice's Conversational Maxims.
That was false. He did not write a self-help book of any sort. But he did come up with theory of what the unspoken rules are for "How to Have a Successful Conversation with Another Human." Under this theory, when people are having a conversation, there is a set of rules that everyone uses. As long as we're all using the same conventions, we will successfully be able to communicate with each other!
[It turns out that much of linguistics just involves writing out, explicitly, things that everybody knows.]
Here's what to keep in mind, when you decide you want to contribute to a conversation:
1. Maxim of Quality:
Try to make your contribution one that is true.
- Do not say what you believe to be false.
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
2. Maxim of Quantity:
Make your contribution as informative as is required
- (for the purposes of the exchange).
- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
3. Maxim of Relation:
Be relevent.
4. Maxim of Manner:
Be perspicuous.
- Be brief
- Be orderly
- Avoid obscurity of expression.
- Avoid ambiguity.
Really now we say that most people follow the Cooperative Principle, instantiated in various ways in different places and circumstances. People who routinely flout any rules generally get a negative reaction from their surrounding humans. The Cooperative Principle says that any time you have a conversation, you are cooperating with someone else in a joint effort at communicating. Violations of the norms communicate something, too- hostility, or a funny joke, or a very different mindset, or a hallucinogen.
[I dearly love the phrase "Grice's Conversational Maxims" and I will never call them anything else.]
We were talking about Grice's Conversational Maxims the other day at a barbecue (as were the all the rest of you, I'm sure) and it suddenly struck me that all the problems in the government can be explained by the fact that President Trump doesn't obey the Maxims consistently. He's playing with different rules, and he knows what the rules of the game are and his interlocutors don't. Many misunderstandings and frustrations ensue. (Also there may be some other reasons too.)
I would not have guessed it, but this turned out to be a surprisingly successful tactic. Trump gets to assume good will and cooperation from other people, but he arbitrarily switches between Cooperative and Uncooperative, and very little communication happens, however long the conversation goes on. It's like playing bridge without deciding which bidding conventions to use first (surely a universally understood analogy). The resulting "conversations" are sufficiently confusing (and unexpected and unprecedented) that no one knows what to do or how to handle it. No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition! In the short run, he is winning, in the LARP game he thinks we're playing. As long as he is winning, he doesn't really care what you think the rules are.
If he were in a different game, though, where winning required obeying Grice's Conversational maxims, he'd be really bad at it and lose immediately. So all we have to do is get the Senate to create a place where Trump has to go, and where violating Grice has severe negative effects. It's a trap! Who's with me?
I'm gonna make t-shirts and signs that say "Always Obey Grice's Maxims!" and proselytize in DC, around Capitol Hill. Advocate strict enforcement. Convince some powerful politicians to take this seriously. Every meeting from now on, everybody has to sign an agreement to play using Grice Rules. Get the Senate to adopt the maxims officially in their Rules book. Then hold some meeting that the President will need to attend and speak. He'll violate a maxim in his first three utterances- immediately out of the game. (For the purpose of this plan, I am assuming that the Senate Code of Conduct and their Rules book override every other jurisdiction/authority, and that amendments to both involve short, straightforward processes. If this turns out not to be the case, some revision may be necessary.)
Flagrantly violating Grice Gricey is not an effective long-term strategy, anyway. We hope. People get really mad when you violate even one Maxim, and Trump ignores them all half the time, so everyone's getting more and more angry. Eventually nobody will play with the kid who's always trying to change the rules. His turn will be over someday. Unless he throws the board or changes the rules.
N.B. He does seem like the kind of guy who might throw the board or change the rules.
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