Pedantic rage: response-ability? Oh please.

So, I've been reading the anniversary edition of "The 7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey. Once upon a time someone recommended the book to me, but I didn't want to give it a go at the time (on the account of who was doing the recommending, let's just say) - but now, yes, I've decided to read it through.

I'm barely past the intro and into the first chapter and already getting irritated. Why? Because besides containing some admittedly insightful observations and various bits and pieces derived from meditative and philosophical texts of old... there are smatterings of, how shall I put this, turds here and there. Their effect is to stink up the rest of the material so that I can't concentrate on the good bits because at the back of my mind, I'm wondering:

"If I spotted that turd, how many am I not spotting?"

And that sort of takes the trust away a little.

I'll write about it more when I've read it through. Not looking entirely promising so far. Which is a shame because I really wanted to like this book.

Here's an example stinker:

Look at the word responsibility - "response-ability" - the ability to choose your response.

Excuse me? What? You can't just decide that an established word with real meaning and history behind it now derives from something that it does not, just because you fancy using it as a tool in your argument!

I was hoping that he'd quickly explain why he's chosen to pretend that the word responsibility derives from the words response and ability (which, just in case you were wondering, it certainly does not). Then I realised (to my horror) that he was being serious. He then bases an entire chapter on the various conclusions that lead from this statement. It made me really irritable.

I guess I chose to be irritated. Just like I chose to read this book. Silly me!

In another section, he mentions genetic determinism and then goes on to summarise that this, along with situational/environmental determinism can be summed up as a "Pavlovian conditioning response". Again, what? We can certainly control how we handle ourselves once fully constructed, but we can't (at least not in the current state of affairs) alter the building blocks all that much. If he meant to say that the way in which people go on to use "bad genes" as an excuse for bad behaviour, then he should have said so. What he actually said was quite different.

There are actually three social maps - three theories of determinism widely accepted, independently or in combination, to explain the nature of man. Genetic determinism basically says your grand-parents did it to you. That's why you have such a temper. Your grandparents had short tempers and it's in your DNA. In addition, you're Irish and that's the nature of Irish people. [SNIP] Each of these maps is based on the stimulus/response theory we most often think of in connection with Pavlov's experiments with dogs. The basic idea is that we are conditioned to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus.

How is the way we are constructed based on our DNA's instructions in any way connected to a stimulus/response action/reaction? Again, if he wanted to further stipulate that the stimulus/response he was referring to in this instance was the conditioning that a person may have received (from society, parents, whomever) to use one's DNA as an excuse, or a reason for a specific behavioural pattern, then he should have said so. And if he had said that, he'd have been correct, except that that type of conditioning would of course fall under one of his other listed types of determinism (the environmental kind). As it stands, his logic makes no sense.

I will finish this book, even just for the entertainment value provided by outbreaks of pedantic rage.

Comments

[Simon]

I understand being able to respond the right way in a relationship. Often, we forget this somtimes and I hope to learn more from it! Like the look of your blog, very unique!

[Crazy Like A Fox]

I tried to read that book about 8 years ago and found that I just had to skim over all the philosophical junk. I had just been hired into a managerial position and thought it would be helpful to read it. Pfft!

I thought I was the only one noticed the response-ability thing.

[Nukapai]

Madam Foxy - thanks for sharing that; sometimes it's good to know that others spot the same things we do... what I can't bring my head 'round to understand though is, how this book has been printed, re-printed, recommended, elevated - all the time containing these, ehm, "mistakes". In a way, I am now looking forward to reading the entire text because I can't wait to see what else I find! :D

[Michelle]

Well I think I will cross that one off my reading list...at least until I hear more of your thoughts on it. My reading stack is so high I don't want to spend time reading things with a high irritability factor!

[Nukapai]

Michelle, I'll be sure to write up my final thoughts on the book once I've finished it. And I hear you about the reading list - I've got several piles of books that are in the "to be read" stage... I've deliberately not worked out how long it would take for me to read all of them at my current rate of reading (everything seems to pile in and take over from reading sometimes). It's scary, let's put it that way! :o

[Crazy Like A Fox]

I think that a lot of the success of this book is the fact that it is packaged along with most of the Franklin Covey organizers. The company that I worked for gave these planners out to all their managers (this was before the popularity of PDA's). We in turn would read the accompanying book in an effort to become more organized and efficient.

While I found the planners to be very useful, the book was garbage in my opinion.

[Davin]

To criticize this book is one thing.

You can call it a self help book, but is it really that crappy that other people live by it , and also use covey's planner.

I feel that this critic concensus lives in small numbers.

It's a good book, i am really interested how you people help other people help themselves ?

Seek too understand first, than to be understood.

Signed,

Davin

[Nukapai]

Hi, Davin, thanks for dropping by! I'm really sorry, I don't quite understand your comment. Who are the "you people" you refer to? Anyway, if you see this, please do clarify! I always enjoy chatting with visitors here.

By the way, I do want to point out that I'm a little bit tongue-in-cheek with my critique of this title in the above post. Just in case it didn't show. ;)