Green Thursday, radio program, December 19, 1974, source recording

  • RACHEL PINNEY: I talked.
  • We (unintelligible) and booed them, as the listeners.
  • Now, to that anti-homosexual guy,
  • we are as bigoted as he appears to us.
  • Now, I want you to get this because it's--
  • (unintelligible) do come sit down.
  • Get yourself a chair in the circle,
  • if you would be kind enough.
  • We are as bigoted as he is.
  • Now, this, I think, even in this conference we don't realize.
  • So, one of the things we've created,
  • this thing that we do, is very apt to this conference,
  • is, if I think I'm right, I mean I'm here,
  • and I'm going to go and see him.
  • I would go and find Lester, and if I'm lucky
  • he might bring him here.
  • I hope I will before the week is out--
  • that man that was so anti--
  • and listen to him.
  • Now, the way you listen to him is this.
  • I would say, "Lester, I am a member of the gay conference,
  • and I go along with the gay conference."
  • Now, that's all I'm going to say about me.
  • And cut it to fifteen seconds.
  • "Now, I promise you, I'm not going to argue.
  • I'm not going to answer back.
  • I'm not going to confront you at all.
  • Please, explain to me why you've got these views.
  • I want to know."
  • And then you listen and recap.
  • Now, what happens to him, is he's being listened to
  • by an opposite, who has taken the trouble
  • to fetch him, or go to him, who's not going to answer back.
  • So, you, as Lester, you're being heard, by somebody who
  • normally would shut you down.
  • So, not only do I hear you, but you hear yourself being heard.
  • And two prejudiced people--
  • one, two, three, four-- we're all
  • prejudiced at this conference, that's why we're here.
  • Because our prejudice is the other chaps'
  • faith, and the other chaps' faith is our prejudice.
  • I mean we are prejudiced in favor of gay rights,
  • and Lester is prejudiced against gay rights.
  • So, two prejudiced people get nearer.
  • Now, I'm interested basically, in the peace movement
  • generally, and in why conflict happens.
  • And, two prejudiced people get nearer, as opposed
  • to two prejudiced people pushing themselves further apart.
  • Now, to bring it a little nearer home,
  • with the conflict that's arisen today, and it was a conflict--
  • (unintelligible) you and me, but, they--
  • and it was a conflict, I mean, I watched--
  • I wasn't concerned in it, so I just watched the emotions.
  • It was a conflict.
  • Now, what they're doing is, you've
  • got the group of militant females,
  • meeting, grouping, and pushing.
  • I don't know what the men did, I wasn't there.
  • But, what one of those militant females didn't do, didn't do,
  • was to go up to one of the men they were bellyaching about
  • and say, "Look I'm not going to argue about this.
  • Please, will you come in, and I won't go out."
  • Now, it's new, it's dynamite.
  • Now, can I give you my evidence for calling it new?
  • We're all confirmed homosexuals.
  • Yeah, who should I pick on?
  • Who?
  • Are you known to be homosexual?
  • I see you wear a badge.
  • Do people know you are?
  • Do people know?
  • CECIL: Some people know.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Some people.
  • Now has anybody who is anti-gay ever come up to you--
  • what's your Christian name?
  • CECIL: Cecil.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Cecil.
  • And said, "Cecil, I am anti-gay.
  • Now, please tell me why you are gay.
  • I'm not going to-- or why you believe that it
  • is right to have gay rights.
  • I'm not going to argue.
  • I'm not going to answer back.
  • I'm never going to ask you to listen to me.
  • Now, please come in, Cecil, and let me try and understand you.
  • At the end of which, good-bye."
  • Have you ever had that experience?
  • CECIL: No.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: No.
  • Now, I have, I suppose, talked at about five or six
  • hundred meetings (unintelligible)
  • around several countries.
  • And, I've always picked somebody in the audience
  • who has a faith, or a badge, or a dog-collar, or something.
  • And I've asked them that question.
  • And the answer is always no.
  • So, that's my evidence for calling it new.
  • Now, if he came up to you, he would really hear you.
  • You would really hear yourself being heard.
  • And both of you would be a tiny, little, microscope millimeter
  • nearer to understanding each other.
  • Now, for nine years I did absolutely nothing
  • but go around the country doing just this.
  • Mostly on the bomb, but anything Rachel Pinney
  • was opinionated on.
  • And recently, I've been doing it in the gay scene.
  • I've been going up to all the people
  • who've written anti-gay letters, and saying, "Now,
  • look I live with David Blamires who's written this book,
  • and you've written against it.
  • I'm a homosexual myself.
  • Please tell me why you feel like this.
  • I won't answer back.
  • I won't do anything.
  • And, please will you come in?
  • And I'm not going to answer.
  • And at the end it's thank you very much, goodbye."
  • Of course he'll come in.
  • Are you with me?
  • Are you with me as to it's possibility?
  • Now, before the week's over I'm going
  • to try and get hold of Lester and bring him
  • here and demonstrate it.
  • I've got lots of listens on this thing.
  • I think the best ever-- and I've got the tape of it,
  • I haven't brought it-- best ever was to Roger.
  • Wherever I go, I pick up the conflict, whatever it is,
  • and in the case I went to Sheffield University
  • and the local conflict was a racist called Roger.
  • And he'd written a pro-racist article,
  • and everybody had got at him for it.
  • So, I yanked him out, of course, and sat him down
  • to be listened to in front of a group of observers.
  • And said, "Now, Roger, I'm not going to argue,
  • I'm not going to answer back, I don't believe in racism.
  • Now, please explain your views to me, and I'm listening."
  • Immediately, I respected him.
  • He said, "Well I don't believe in being fashionable,
  • and everybody pretends they're anti-racist and they're not.
  • Don't like colored people.
  • I like to be honest, and I prefer
  • to be honest than not honest."
  • Well, you know, this came over.
  • This was a very real thing.
  • I'm just going to say it, then pretend it wasn't so.
  • He then went on to give his views, and I recapped them,
  • and he mellowed.
  • And Roger and I formed a relationship
  • which exists to this day.
  • I don't see him, but I'm not hostile to him.
  • Now, this is what I think we ought to be doing.
  • Instead of us, us-- no I wouldn't say instead of,
  • as well-- us meet here, us pat each other on the back,
  • and say we are good little boys and girls.
  • We're homosexuals and they don't understand us.
  • How many of us go out and try and understand them.
  • How many of us go and understand what it is
  • to have a deviant sex phobia.
  • It's bad enough to have a phobia of the dark,
  • or a phobia of cats, or mice, or spiders.
  • But a phobia's a phobia, whatever it is.
  • And how many of us really try and understand
  • the straight phobia of us?
  • You.
  • Have you ever really tried?
  • STUDENT 1: I've attempted to.
  • I've tried to explain to those members of my family
  • about being gay, and so on.
  • And, inevitably they come back with unexplained--
  • the way that they speak to me, they question me,
  • reveals their conditioning, and I
  • try to understand their conditioning, to see
  • where they could have got this.
  • So, just to a very limited extent,
  • yes, I suppose the answer is yes, to your question.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Now, the secret of the method--
  • Do join us.
  • Find a (unintelligible) in the circle.
  • There's one over there.
  • The secret of the method is, you can't switch off
  • answering while you've started.
  • You know, if our newcomer here was an outsider who
  • said he was going to castrate all homosexuals,
  • and started to say so, I would say, "But!"
  • Do you see?
  • I would say "but," because this is a human reflex answer.
  • But if I said to him, "Rachel is cut."
  • Rachel is not going to say "But, why
  • do you want to castrate homosexuals?"
  • Now, you can't switch off once you've started.
  • I can't, and I've never met anyone who can.
  • Once I start to be argumentative, I can't stop.
  • It revs up.
  • It goes off on its own steam.
  • But, I cannot start.
  • My favorite analogy-- and I can tell it to an audience like
  • this, but I can't always tell it to all audiences--
  • is supposing you--
  • no, I suppose it's the wrong audience to say this to,
  • but nevermind I'll go on.
  • Supposing you found yourself in bed with your sister,
  • in this country with the incest taboo being what it is.
  • And your landlady knocked at the door and said,
  • "Hi Chuck, I forgot to tell you that's
  • your long-lost sister from Tanganyika come over here."
  • And you were mid-orgasm, you'd say, "Fuck off."
  • But, on the other hand, if she'd turned up at supper,
  • and introduced you to your long-lost sister
  • from Tanganyika, you would never got into bed
  • with her, the incest taboo being what it is.
  • I mean this is really--
  • it is a good analogy because the urge to interrupt
  • is so strong you can really put it
  • into the same category as sex.
  • And so, once I start arguing with you,
  • I'll be this bombastic animal you see.
  • But if I cut, I cut.
  • Now, I believe you were one of the militant female group,
  • weren't you?
  • STUDENT 2: No, I didn't go (unintelligible).
  • I was sitting with them, but I split with them on that.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Oh, you split with them?
  • That's a pity, because otherwise I'd get you on the listen.
  • I mean, I could go and find one of them.
  • Because what I usually do at this stage in a group,
  • is to go and pull someone off the street
  • usually-- a soldier, or a salvation army
  • officer, or something-- and bring them
  • in and listen to them.
  • This is my normal practice.
  • Because I think I'm going to find
  • it difficult to find something I fundamentally disagree with--
  • or perhaps I won't--
  • with somebody here for a live demonstration.
  • I don't think I'm going to.
  • Can I tell you the story of Felix, which is
  • an homosexual story about this?
  • Any Quakers here?
  • No?
  • No?
  • No.
  • David Blamires has written the newest Quaker book,
  • called Homosexuality from the Inside, and I live with him.
  • I would call myself the midwife to the book.
  • And of course, the opposition the book
  • has come out in the Quaker press.
  • And I travel in the Quakers.
  • I travel around with the Quakers.
  • After meeting one morning, I was the guest
  • of two homosexual men.
  • And they'd gone to a strange meeting, not their usual one.
  • And there was a beautiful cottage,
  • you know, beautiful hospitality, beautiful coffee,
  • beautiful biscuits and everything.
  • With my host, who was called Felix, and his wife, and my two
  • hosts-- two homosexual men.
  • And a man over here, turned out who
  • was married to one of our leading sex doctors,
  • do you see?
  • And I heard Felix blowing his top over there.
  • So I pricked up my ears, and I thought, what's this?
  • He said, "I'm going to write to the editor
  • and tell him off for wasting (unintelligible)
  • on all this sort of thing.
  • Why can't we talk about proper things?"
  • So I put pricked up my ears, and I thought, what's this?
  • I didn't dare catch the eye of my two hosts.
  • And there was Felix blowing his top off
  • at all this space being given to sex in the Quaker journal.
  • So, I waited.
  • I waited-- again, not catching my friends' eyes.
  • I waited until people got up go, and I went over to him
  • and I said, "Felix, excuse me, can I
  • have you in my study for two minutes please.
  • And I'll tell you this.
  • I want ten minutes in the study, and just wait, we'll come in."
  • So, I yanked Felix out of the sitting room,
  • sat him down in his own study, in his own desk,
  • and sat down by him like that, and I said, "Look Felix,
  • I live with David Blamires.
  • I know that book.
  • He's a friend of mine.
  • I'm a homosexual, and I think everything
  • that he wrote in that book.
  • Now, I'm never going to ask you to listen to me on the subject
  • ever again, ever.
  • And I'm likely to meet you again because I come to these parts
  • quite often.
  • Now, I'm never going to ask you to listen
  • to me, unless on another occasion
  • you specifically answer me.
  • Now, please tell me why you're so against all this
  • talk about homosexuality.
  • Please go on."
  • And Felix's first word towards me
  • is always a (unintelligible).
  • Always is.
  • As soon as they know you're not going to answer back
  • their first word--
  • on the march, on the bomb it used to be,
  • well, maybe you're sincere, but I wish you would wash.
  • Or, well, maybe some of you are all right.
  • It was always a (unintelligible).
  • His first word was, "Well maybe I
  • don't know as much about it as I ought to."
  • That was the first word he said.
  • Felix is a real, live person.
  • And then, I see, I see.
  • Maybe you don't know.
  • And then he went on with, "Well I
  • think they can't help being homosexuals,
  • but they should control themselves."
  • And I recapped it, "I see.
  • They can't help being homosexual,
  • but they should have to control over themselves."
  • "Yes, like a young unmarried man should control himself."
  • So, I said, "Oh, yes.
  • They should always control themselves?
  • Well, you know I don't mind if they're going to get married,"
  • I said.
  • STUDENT 3: So, you do intercede, but not in opposition?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Oh, recapping.
  • Rachel doesn't intercede Rachel recaps.
  • I talk a lot, But not from Rachel.
  • It's always recapping the other chap.
  • STUDENT 3: So, anything they say you--
  • RACHEL PINNEY: I reflect it.
  • STUDENT 3: You reflect it.
  • You'll repeat it, so they hear it--
  • well, they already heard it.
  • And then they try--
  • RACHEL PINNEY: They hear me saying it.
  • But I don't just repeat the words.
  • If they say, I ran up the road.
  • I say, you go up the road at a hell of a lick.
  • I translate their idiom into my idiom,
  • so that it really goes into Rachel and comes out again.
  • It doesn't just get churned out again with the same words.
  • STUDENT 3: What psychological position
  • do you think this puts them in?
  • Because, obviously--
  • RACHEL PINNEY: This puts them into the position
  • of being listened to.
  • And this is the whole basis of my work.
  • By the way, I work with groups, children, controversy,
  • teaching, and all lots.
  • And with children, all you have to do is listen, full stop.
  • And I teach this, listening full stop.
  • STUDENT 4: Yes, but do you imagine that by this method,
  • if you want to call it that, you diffuse prejudice and biases?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Mine own, yes.
  • I'm not concerned with him.
  • Rachel's concerned with Rachel.
  • I mean, I can't do his.
  • When I started--
  • STUDENT 4: Well, surely this understanding
  • of yours, which I'm sure is very easy to achieve.
  • I think it is easy to understand anybody,
  • and to understand the position which they are in,
  • even though they might be expressing
  • prejudice which is very different to your own view.
  • Even though this is possible-- it
  • is possible to understand somebody who
  • believes in aversion therapy.
  • It is possible to understand.
  • But what does that achieve?
  • Understanding is inimical to action.
  • Understanding is inimical to your own convictions.
  • One can understand, but that doesn't mean that one condones.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: That's where we need
  • a word in the English language.
  • And I've searched for one, and on my committee
  • we've got two linguists, and there isn't one.
  • So, I can tell you with authority that there isn't one.
  • We need a word in the English language
  • for receiving, which is different from understanding.
  • When I listen to my kids--
  • I do problem kids-- when I listen
  • to them, the scientists say, what do you do, you observe.
  • I am with the child.
  • Every child knows immediately what being with him means,
  • and every grownup argues and says, what is it?
  • There's not a word for it.
  • It's not understanding, it's with it.
  • When I listen to Felix here, I was Felix.
  • STUDENT 4: Yes.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: I didn't understand him.
  • I was him.
  • STUDENT 4: Yes.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: It's not an intellectual process,
  • it's an empathy process.
  • STUDENT 3: Do you not think though,
  • that if a person has got certain views,
  • and they're going to repeat them to somebody else,
  • that the reaction is very valuable to them?
  • Because, obviously, if they have the view that, say,
  • homosexuals should have their legs cut off,
  • or something like that, and they go around
  • and they keep telling people this.
  • Well, I would have thought the idea is
  • that if the reaction they get from everybody else
  • is against this, they would then question their own views.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: In actual fact, speaking from fourteen years
  • experience of doing it, and having
  • done it something like twelve thousand times,
  • it's the exact opposite.
  • It's that, if they are getting the opposition, that harms them
  • in their views, if they are received by me, or by somebody
  • using this method, then I go away rethinking my views,
  • and Felix goes away rethinking his views.
  • This practice is my observation.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Would you, in this process,
  • for example, if a man came to you, and would ask you, well,
  • what do you have against homosexuals?
  • And, he said, well, homosexuals chase people around bathrooms.
  • Would you say to him, and has one
  • chased you around the bathroom?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: No.
  • No.
  • Play it if you like.
  • It doesn't really work if you play.
  • Can I have that space?
  • Let me just look after these.
  • Just play it.
  • It doesn't work if you play it.
  • Now, please, I gather you're against homosexuality,
  • and I am homosexual.
  • I'm making my fifteen-second speech.
  • Now, please, I'm not going to ever ask you to listen to me
  • again-- this is acting now--
  • I'm not going to let him listen again,
  • please explain to me what you think homosexuals are.
  • I'm really listening.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, they're always out in restrooms.
  • I mean, you read about it in the paper all the time.
  • You don't even dare go into a restroom,
  • because you're going to be molested by a homosexual.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes, I see.
  • You don't go so (unintelligible).
  • So, they're always around the restrooms, you're saying,
  • and you don't dare go to a restroom
  • because they'll be chasing you around and molesting you.
  • Yes, please go on.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Right.
  • Right, right.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Please go on.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: And they go after little children, too.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes, I see.
  • And little children as well.
  • Yes.
  • Please go on.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I was just at a conference,
  • and I saw a magazine that had little kids on it.
  • What kind of thing is that?
  • Do you support that kind of thing?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes, I see.
  • So, you went to the conference, and they're after kids too,
  • and you saw a magazine, and there were a lot kids on it,
  • and you're asking me if I support that sort of thing.
  • Now, I'll give you an overall kind
  • of a recap, that if you can't even go to a restroom
  • because you'll be molested by a homosexual.
  • They're always chasing you, and they're after kids too.
  • And, you went to a conference, and you
  • saw a picture with a lot of kids on it,
  • and do I go along with that sort of thing?
  • Is that what you said to me?
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Yes.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Have I recapped you correctly?
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Yes.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Thank you very much.
  • Good bye.
  • Now, I repeat my promise that I'm never,
  • under any circumstances, ever going
  • to ask you to listen to me on this subject, ever.
  • Provided I recognize you, of course.
  • I might not recognize you.
  • But as long as I know that I listened to you in Edinburgh,
  • I will not ask you to listen to me.
  • That's an overall promise I am capable of making.
  • And I'm making it.
  • Thank you very much, Good bye.
  • Now, on the long-distance march from London
  • to (unintelligible), I had two hundred miles
  • of doing that to all the people on the sidewalk that
  • shouted rude things at me.
  • I'd go up to them after, and look I'm on this job
  • quite seriously.
  • I (unintelligible) to come here.
  • I'm quite serious.
  • I don't believe that the problem is (unintelligible) for fifteen
  • seconds.
  • Now, please will you come in, and I'm not
  • going to answer back.
  • And, I thought when I started, it
  • would be me that was changed.
  • Because I thought, well everybody's
  • pushing, why doesn't somebody pull.
  • I'll go out and get the other chap, instead of
  • the other chap pushing at me.
  • But it came as quite a surprise to me,
  • and I didn't expect it, that both people go away
  • rethinking their viewpoint.
  • STUDENT 4: But you evidently didn't.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: I evidently didn't?
  • STUDENT 4: Didn't.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Come in to the classroom whoever you are.
  • Ah ha!
  • Now, I'm not going to tell the story about you,
  • (unintelligible) I probably am.
  • But, come on in. (Pinney laughs) He's
  • come into my life in a big, big way, this lad has.
  • Yes, go on.
  • What were you saying?
  • STUDENT 4: I was just saying that you
  • claim that you both went away rethinking your position,
  • but you evidently didn't, because your conviction was
  • the same as it was when you started out.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: No, no.
  • Every single listen I do--
  • I've been saying ten thousand for so long,
  • and I'm sure it must be twelve thousand now--
  • every single listen that I do, slightly changes me.
  • Because, although I've heard all the standard pro-bomb
  • arguments, and all standard anti-homosexual arguments,
  • I've never heard them out of that particular person before.
  • So, each time I'm hearing something new,
  • and I'm each time doing a rethink.
  • And I'm never bored.
  • Never bored.
  • Even though they come out with the standard arguments.
  • STUDENT 3: Do you think there's enough of us
  • here to surely, to have varying views that we could try it?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Well if I wish to demonstrate it to you,
  • I would have to find somebody that opposed me on something
  • fairly fundamental to me.
  • And, I think I could probably get it on the God issue.
  • I think I could probably find-- see,
  • the trouble with meetings that I'm invited to,
  • is they're usually people on my side, you see.
  • But, I think I could probably find an opposition on the God
  • issue.
  • Did you want to say something first?
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I want to ask one more question.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes?
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Now, if somebody had approached me,
  • as I just approached you, and I'm acting.
  • And, the person had said to me, yes,
  • they chase people around restrooms.
  • I would have been inclined to ask him,
  • did that happen to you?
  • And, if he had said, yes, I would have been inclined
  • to say, and it frightened you?
  • That is, in my listening, I would
  • have attempted to have him dig into his feelings--
  • RACHEL PINNEY: --You would have played the analyst.
  • Yes.
  • STUDENT 3: --Still with that opposition, though.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: --about what was happening.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: You would have played the analyst.
  • Now, that would be the Freudian technique.
  • I mean you would have played the analyst,
  • and made him look at his own feelings.
  • STUDENT 5: Played the what?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yeah, that's the psychoanalyst.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: (unintelligible) I wouldn't challenge them.
  • I would have just agreeably supported them
  • and expanded (unintelligible).
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes, you would have played the psychoanalyst.
  • Now, I don't even do that in my own psychotherapy,
  • but that's just my own taste.
  • I don't even do that with the kids.
  • I just receive them full stop.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: (unintelligible).
  • RACHEL PINNEY: But this is a different psychoanalytical
  • approach.
  • I had a session yesterday--
  • I had lunch the day before yesterday with a psychoanalyst.
  • And she said, "Don't you then say to the child,
  • what does that button feel like under that leaf?"
  • And, I said, "No, I don't.
  • You're a Freudian analyst and I'm not."
  • I just receive it, and she analyses.
  • You're doing an analytical technique for his sake,
  • whereas I'm doing a receiving for my sake.
  • Because we're a bloody bunch of bigots.
  • We are.
  • Let's face it.
  • Don't we look it?
  • STUDENT 6: You were saying that even though you put back at him
  • an accountant of his own speech.
  • You would interpret it.
  • You would rephrase it.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes, I said that.
  • STUDENT 6: Well, surely that's just
  • the same technique as a psychoanalyst, in that he
  • is just picking out what he thinks needs expanding.
  • Because you've changed his exact language,
  • you show where your prejudices are.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes, this can happen.
  • And, I've caught myself out on this once or twice.
  • I will put a tiny bit of me into it.
  • Well, if I do that, that's a mistake.
  • I don't do it on purpose.
  • It's just that if I'm going to really recap you,
  • I've got to put it in Rachel language,
  • because Rachel talks Rachel language.
  • So, it's not Rachel interpretation,
  • it's Rachel language.
  • STUDENT 4: Have any of these people ever come back
  • after a period of time?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: That's a fascinating story!
  • Here are the figures.
  • Here are the figures!
  • In the speech is, and I'm never going
  • to ask you to listen to me ever, not even on both our death
  • beds, unless on an entirely different occasion,
  • you come to me.
  • And it's got to be a different occasion, not this weekend.
  • Now that's my speech.
  • How many years now?
  • fourteen years, getting on fifteen now.
  • I reckon now it's been now twelve thousand times.
  • Twenty-five or six people have come up
  • and listened to me, of which four, exactly, have been come
  • back listens.
  • Now, my address is fairly well-known.
  • My name is fairly well-known.
  • They could all find me if they want to, but they don't.
  • But they don't.
  • STUDENT 3: Sorry.
  • The implication there is that--
  • I was just wondering what their reaction is.
  • They have this funny situation where
  • they're saying just what they want to say,
  • and you're not reacting.
  • You're repeating what they're saying,
  • but you're not reacting.
  • And, you say that this has the opposite effect.
  • So, if they go away, I would have thought--
  • what does it do to them?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: What it does to them, is-- my word is rethink.
  • What it does to them is to rethink.
  • Now, I did-- I modified this one to a very close friend
  • the other day about an almost-row that we had.
  • You know, we don't have rows, but we had an almost-row.
  • And, I said, well, thank you very much,
  • I've heard, now, I'm not going to ask for your feelings.
  • He said, I feel frustrated, for a short while.
  • And I said, well, how many people,
  • after a row, or a near-row, feel frustrated that they
  • haven't heard?
  • You go away from an argument thinking,
  • I wish I'd told the bugger that.
  • But with this, you go away and say,
  • I wish I would have though to ask her that.
  • The thing's in reverse.
  • They don't need to, because it's not something specific.
  • Shall we push out of it and make a circle?
  • But with a non-circle, it's horribly upsetting.
  • STUDENT 6: (unintelligible) That's all right.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: It upsets me.
  • (laughter)
  • You can for your sake, but for my sake
  • that's when you set the circle.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Right.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Depends how chivalrous you are, doesn't it?
  • Whether you do what you want, or what I'm asking you to do.
  • STUDENT 4: Not, entirely.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: And it's a piece, it's not a (unintelligible).
  • Can I have one?
  • STUDENT 3: Well, you have that one.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: I'll have that one, and you have that one.
  • It's all right.
  • I'll give you a run-through.
  • I'll give you a run-through in a minute.
  • The answer to the comeback listen,
  • is that people don't need to--
  • you see, the basic psychology of this
  • is that a unit of communication, if it's real between you
  • and me, if it's real--
  • and these are techniques to making it real--
  • if it's real you have grown, and I have grown.
  • And, I go so far now as I won't waste my time now.
  • I refuse tea parties.
  • Unless somebody grows, communication
  • is a waste of time.
  • Unless, you're dancing of course.
  • I've always let up on dancing.
  • But, I mean, dancing is a communication in itself,
  • and so is chess, that's why I carry a chessboard around
  • with me.
  • (laughter)
  • I don't play chess.
  • I play people.
  • (laughter)
  • That, by the way, that's one of my side lines, actually.
  • (laughter)
  • So, what happens is my prejudiced life has grown,
  • and your prejudiced life has grown.
  • So, we have met, and in the small confrontation we had,
  • two people have grown.
  • Now, going back to the conference--
  • because these chaps have only just come in-- this
  • is what I would have a conference do.
  • I would have every person at every minute of conference
  • time, either totally receiving-- which is what you're doing now
  • because I've given you what you asked for--
  • or totally emitting, which is what I'm doing now because I'm
  • giving you what you asked for, or observing,
  • which the others are doing and not interrupting.
  • So, at the moment, unless anyone's asleep over there
  • and I can't see them, everybody is in the role of listener
  • at his own request, speaker on invitation, or observer.
  • Now, this doesn't happen in a conference
  • as you know very well.
  • It doesn't happen at all.
  • There are very few moments like that.
  • STUDENT 7: There's only one speaker all the time?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: No, no.
  • Different roles.
  • This aggressive, bombastic animal
  • that you see here, over the weekend--
  • come in if you see me listening to somebody.
  • Just come and sit down, and be and observer.
  • And this aggressive animal, Rachel Pinney
  • with these techniques, totally switches off.
  • Now, the only difference between me and my mother,
  • who was very like me, is that she hadn't
  • got a technique in her pocket.
  • I've got a technique in my pocket
  • that I can pull out at my request and switch myself off.
  • Or, you, knowing I've got it in my pocket,
  • can ask me to take it out of my pocket and switch it on.
  • And then Rachel is totally cut, and in comes cousin Israel.
  • I won't tell the story again.
  • He's beautiful.
  • May I tell you to get it off my chest once more?
  • STUDENT 6: Okay.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: May I tell you?
  • It's the beautiful quote of the conference, he is.
  • I went up to to him, and I said, "You look as though you
  • come from foreign parts."
  • And, he looked at me, said, "Where do you think?"
  • Because I looked at him very hard, and I said,
  • "I think one of the Arab countries."
  • And do you know what his answer was?
  • It was pure music.
  • He said, "No, I'm a cousin of the Arabs, I'm a Jew."
  • I think he's gorgeous.
  • Really gorgeous.
  • And you don't see the point, do you?
  • (laughter)
  • RACHEL PINNEY: What?
  • STUDENT 8: Well, its irony.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: No.
  • It's beauty, it's not irony.
  • STUDENT 8: All right.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: He meant it.
  • He meant it.
  • STUDENT 8: It would be nice if it were.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: But he meant it.
  • STUDENT 3: Positive, not negative.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: He meant it.
  • He's one Jew that meant it.
  • STUDENT 8: Because it's irony.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Not irony, just real.
  • STUDENT 6: It would only be irony, if I hated the Arabs
  • and I said that I was their cousin.
  • STUDENT 8: Well, and some of us might.
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Yes.
  • STUDENT 6: No, but the case was just between Rachel
  • and me, that's why--
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Now, we were just about to find an opposite here,
  • if we can.
  • I was explaining the tete-a-tete method.
  • The tete-a-tete method in controversy-- forgive me,
  • and I'll just bring latecomers into it.
  • It's published in my little black book
  • as the tete-a-tete method, I think
  • person-to-person is better.
  • It is, I think I'm right on whatever subject.
  • What am I here for?
  • I'm here as an homosexual, or, as a promoter
  • of creative listening, whatever I think
  • is right, that I can get somebody of equal integrity
  • to myself, equal intelligence, and sit him down in that chair.
  • And, he is my equal in every way,
  • and he thinks exactly opposite me.
  • I can go and find him.
  • He exists.
  • Now, stand up on a cloud and look as us two.
  • Look at Rachel-- let's call him Tom Jones-- and Tom
  • Jones sitting in that chair, and both of us thinking we're
  • right.
  • Now, you view this from up under a cloud.
  • Here are two people, both thinking they're right.
  • What do they do?
  • Rachel says, you bloody fool, Tom Jones, can't you see?
  • And, Tom Jones says, you bloody fool Rachel, can't you see?
  • And at the end of this-- which you're very familiar with,
  • and it happened this morning in the women's scene--
  • at the end of which both these prejudiced people, Rachel
  • Pinney and Tom Jones go away slightly harmed
  • in their prejudices.
  • Now, with this technique, I don't do that.
  • I say, Tom Jones, how can such a good-looking lad like you,
  • be such a bloody fool as to disagree with me.
  • (laughter)
  • You must be prejudiced, because the definition of prejudice
  • is somebody who doesn't agree with Rachel Pinney.
  • (laughter)
  • By definition, what prejudice is.
  • So, now, please come in and tell me why you think what you do.
  • You know I think differently from you--
  • you must (unintelligible), on that--
  • that's what I call a fifteen-second speech--
  • now, please come in, and I'm listening to you.
  • I see, you think the moon's made of green cheese, yes.
  • I see.
  • You think the moon's made of green cheese.
  • Yes.
  • And, you think all niggers should go back to Africa,
  • yes, because that's where they belong, yes.
  • And, you think that the Saudi Arabia
  • idea of castrating female girls is a very beautiful idea,
  • and wished they did it here.
  • Yes, I see.
  • (laughter)
  • And, now let me give you an overall recap,
  • and you think all these things--
  • Now, this is true, because that's what he's thinking,
  • and that's what he's saying.
  • And, I listened to him.
  • And, then I say, well, thank you very much,
  • and I'm never going to ask you to listen to me.
  • And, I have heard what you said, goodbye.
  • And it works.
  • And I was about to give a demonstration when you came in.
  • STUDENT 9: But it works in what sense?
  • RACHEL PINNEY: Two prejudiced people go away
  • rethinking their prejudices.
  • And, when I started, I knew that I was to be changed,
  • and it came as surprise to me to find that the other chap--
  • STUDENT 9: But one's opinions are changing all the time,
  • and one's opinions needn't be changed
  • in so artificial a manner.
  • One is receiving an influx of new impressions continuously.
  • And, I think with the influx of new impressions that you
  • are receiving, your prejudices, everything,
  • all your opinions are constantly changing.
  • (end of recording)