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)