Thinking about non-verbal communication, I thought I’d look out the book that made the whole concept famous – Julius Fast’s seminal Body Language of 1970.
I knew that it had been a best seller – some three million copies have been sold to date – but I’d always assumed that he was some kind of academic who had done ground-breaking research in the area. Quite wrong.
In fact Fast was primarily a popular novelist. It’s true that he also wrote and edited pieces for a medical magazine, but even there he was dealing with the findings from other people’s work. The major research that Fast used was done in the 1950s and 60s by RL Birdwhistell, E Goffman and AE Scheflen.
What strikes one now about Fast’s Body Language is how dated it seems, both in its thinking and its photographs. Essentially the message appears to be: the effectiveness of your courting/mating rituals could be transformed if you were to master these ways of sitting/standing/moving. And of course, it’s all grounded in American culture, gesture etc. Not so very useful in China, India, Italy, Japan, France, Norway, Nigeria…
Those of you who have studied, for example, NLP will know how sophisticated and multi-purpose all this stuff has become over recent decades. So sophisticated that it seems to me to have reached a stage of willed manipulation, whereas in real life what people respond to best is genuine authenticity.
How to become skilled and yet remain authentic? Is that the challenge now?
I knew that it had been a best seller – some three million copies have been sold to date – but I’d always assumed that he was some kind of academic who had done ground-breaking research in the area. Quite wrong.
In fact Fast was primarily a popular novelist. It’s true that he also wrote and edited pieces for a medical magazine, but even there he was dealing with the findings from other people’s work. The major research that Fast used was done in the 1950s and 60s by RL Birdwhistell, E Goffman and AE Scheflen.
What strikes one now about Fast’s Body Language is how dated it seems, both in its thinking and its photographs. Essentially the message appears to be: the effectiveness of your courting/mating rituals could be transformed if you were to master these ways of sitting/standing/moving. And of course, it’s all grounded in American culture, gesture etc. Not so very useful in China, India, Italy, Japan, France, Norway, Nigeria…
Those of you who have studied, for example, NLP will know how sophisticated and multi-purpose all this stuff has become over recent decades. So sophisticated that it seems to me to have reached a stage of willed manipulation, whereas in real life what people respond to best is genuine authenticity.
How to become skilled and yet remain authentic? Is that the challenge now?
Posts
