The Things We Don't Say  🔗 **Source:** [The Things We Don't Say](https://share.snipd.com/episode/c446199f-ebe3-4f3b-bfe8-16a799c9c137) ## Highlights - **The Fundraising Dinner That Felt Like A Date** - Steven Pinker compares fundraising dinners with romantic dates because both parties understand the underlying exchange without naming it. - At Harvard, a donor receives intellectual companionship and prestige while the university seeks a massive gift. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Steve, as an eminent member of the Harvard faculty, you are sometimes called upon to help the university president raise money. Tell me what this is like. Do you have to wine and dine potential donors? Steven Pinker Well, there was one episode that sticks in memory. That was when the president of the university recruited me to have dinner with a, as they say, a high net worth individual. That is a euphemism for filthy rich. This was one of the world's highest net worth individuals, as the fundraising office says, or to use another euphemism, the development office. And I took a train to Manhattan for the event. The goal, of course, was to solicit a very, very, very large donation, or again, another euphemism, a gift to Harvard from this high net worth individual. And it was at an expensive, quiet restaurant. We were, me and the university president were seated at a quiet remote table waiting for our partner to join us. We conferred and the president indicated that we would see how the conversation proceeded. We wouldn't bring up the gift, obviously. In fact, I wouldn't bring it up at all. Establish a warm rapport, a mood of conviviality, of intimacy. And as we were having this conversation in this dark corner of a rather romantic restaurant, it reminded me of something. It kind of reminded me of when I was single and I was on a hot date. Because, you know, both parties kind of know what you're there for, or at least what issue is kind of hanging over them. ([Time 0:04:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f2c6ba21-3cde-4909-8d5e-77ad631b9f6e)) - **Every Conversation Defines The Relationship** - Language communicates information while simultaneously defining the relationship between speakers. - A sentence can establish friendship, warmth, dominance, or a purely transactional partnership. Transcript: Steven Pinker Language has to do two things at once. It's a channel of communication. Bits and bytes are exchanged for particular purposes, sharing information, negotiating agreements. At the same time, it establishes a particular kind of social relationship. Are we just transactional partners, pure quid pro quo? Are we friends? Do we have like a communal, warm, intimate relationship? Is it a relationship of dominance? That is, is one person clearly the dominant and the other the subordinate? People care a lot about which of those relationships they have. And the way you often cement them is with explicit verbal declarations. In the case of a romantic couple, it's like, I love you, and then they reciprocate with I love you. Or it can be nonverbal cues, having a nice dinner together. ([Time 0:09:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71474061-7ef5-4003-908c-76b926766e85)) - **How “Bless Your Heart” Wins A Status Contest** - Nikki Haley answered Donald Trump's insult with “bless your heart,” refusing to enter a contest of direct insults. - Listeners infer that she feels confident enough not to be wounded or lowered in status. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam I want to talk about an example of indirect speech in the political arena. In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump insulted Nikki Haley, who was the governor of South Carolina. Here's how a TV station in South Carolina described the exchange. Steven Pinker A Twitter battle tonight between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, of all people. The Republican presidential frontrunner tweeted this message earlier today, and it said, quote, the people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley. Well, the South Carolina governor responded simply, bless your heart. Shankar Vedantam So, Steve, when used by Americans from southern states, does bless your heart mean bless your heart? Steven Pinker It does not mean bless your heart. And it was rather clever on her part because he was, obviously they were in a contest for dominance. One way to play it is with in-your insults. That's kind of playground trash talk. Hayley, rather than taking the bait and meeting him in the same arena, tries to step above it with the non sequitur. Bless your heart, doesn't make sense in context because that's not what you say to someone who just insulted you. So listeners have to then puzzle, well, geez, she's not just saying things at random. She had a reason to say that. Why did she say that? And to read between the lines, it's this kind of trash talk does not wound me. I consider myself to have a strong enough reputation and I have enough confidence that I can, I believe that I will not be lowered in status because of the content of your insult by not Playing that game. Shankar Vedantam It is the case also that I think, especially in the American South, bless your heart is not just a wish for your continued good health. It could also be, you know, another two or three word phrase that might be unprintable, but is couched in much more diplomatic language. Steven Pinker Indeed. And the language of diplomacy, as with all of our speech that is not meant to be taken literally, and that's a lot of it, there's a lot of interpreting in context. And the way that humans do it is by adhering to a principle of relevance and of cooperation. That is, the ground rules are the listener thinks to himself or to herself, what did they mean that would explain what they just said? And so any socially competent listener can say, she is signaling, you have not wounded me. I'm not playing that game. ([Time 0:14:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eb6809ba-76e4-4a2f-9848-a8e984cf13e2)) - **Why Kind Fictions Hold Relationships Together** - Compliments and polite fictions protect relationships built on mutual goodwill, even when private judgments differ. - Calling a friend’s artwork “beautiful” preserves the assumption that neither person stands above the other. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Steve, if we were to sketch something of a taxonomy of indirect speech, one of the first on the list might be the lies that we tell in order to protect the feelings of the people we love. Can you talk about this idea, perhaps with some examples, Steve? Sure. Steven Pinker Someone shows up in an outfit, you know that they've taken a lot of effort to beautify themselves. And even if you think that it might be in ghastly taste, you might say, oh, that's beautiful. You look great. Or even more fraught is often if someone is an artist and they show you their objet d'art and you have to comment on it. And, you know, there's so many ways for that to go wrong. It could be if it's a painting of a red barn, it could be kitsch. If it's too abstract, it could be incomprehensible. So you have to say, you know, beautiful, striking, powerful, strong, even if you may think privately that it's hideous. Again, the goal there, again, let's tie it back to the underlying explanation, is that there is a relationship to be cemented, and each one wishes the best for the other. Neither one is superior to the other. Each would do anything for the other. Those are the fictions that underlie a relationship of friendship. I call them fictions because they can't always be true, but that's the background assumption that makes friends friends, that makes lovers lovers. ([Time 0:19:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/64b65533-1348-4fab-96e1-781476b9ec50)) - **Diplomacy Runs On Symbolic Equality** - Diplomacy relies on symbolic equality and mutual respect even when countries differ dramatically in power and wealth. - Shared dinners, apologies, ceremonies, and exchanges help lubricate negotiations between unequal nations. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam So in 2011, then-President Barack Obama had a hot mic moment where he expressed his sentiments about dealing with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. What happened, Steve? Describe this incident, because in some ways it peeled the curtain back on what's actually happening behind all of this diplomacy. Steven Pinker Yes, it was a hot mic moment. I discovered it when I clicked on some bait at the bottom of a webpage, the 10 most embarrassing hot mic moments. And one of them is when Barack Obama confided to Nicolas Sarkozy that, you know, what both of them knew, namely that Bibi Netanyahu was a pain in the neck. I don't think they used that euphemism. Now, that was almost an international incident, even though everyone knew that. There's an old saying from the journalist Michael Kinsley that the definition of a gaffe in Washington is when a politician says something that's true. Now, by the way, that has been made somewhat obsolete by Donald Trump, who has blurted out what in earlier times would have been considered gaffes. That's a whole other story of the different rules that he plays by. The default rules are that leaders of parties within a country, leaders of countries in international relations have a relationship of mutual admiration and respect. Shankar Vedantam So in this hot mic moment, Sarkozy apparently told Obama, I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar. And Obama says, you're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day. And it's the kind of thing that people might talk about at dinner parties. But to realize the same thing is happening probably at the level of international relationships is really striking because you hear so little of it when you see the polite diplomacy That happens in these international forums. Steven Pinker And the tension is that for agreements to be negotiated, it helps when two parties consider themselves to be in a communal relationship. That lubricates getting to yes. ([Time 0:23:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/329530a3-f6e8-4b2a-a2a2-1f2ec8fa7791)) - **Why Saying It Aloud Changes Everything** - In When Harry Met Sally, Sally says a romantic possibility becomes irreversible once someone states it aloud. - Explicit speech turns private, deniable knowledge into common knowledge that both people must confront. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam I want to play you a clip from the 1989 comedy When Harry Met Sally. Harry has complimented Sally's looks a bit too insistently, and she accuses him of coming on to her. All right, all right. Let's just say, just for the sake of argument, that it was a come on. Steven Pinker What do you want me to do about it? I take it back, okay? I take it back. Shankar Vedantam You can't take it back. Why not? Because it's already out there. Steven Pinker Oh, geez, what are we supposed to do? Call the cops? It's already out there. Shankar Vedantam So, Steve, there's something very interesting here. Once something is out of the box, Sally is saying it can't be put back into the box? Steven Pinker In that scene in the movie, they had just met. They're sharing a ride across country. That's why there was some motor noise in that audio clip. And they were not in a romantic or sexual relationship, even though, as with my fundraising dinner, it had to be in the back of their minds. But there's a big difference between something being common knowledge, as Sally put it, out there, and something being known privately by each of them. They're grown-ups. They're two sexually mature heterosexual individuals. Each one has to know that the possibility of a sexual relationship has crossed their minds. But each one could think about the other, well, she doesn't know what's running through my mind. Maybe she thinks I'm dense. Or she could think maybe he thinks I'm naive. However, when it is, as she said, out there, that is when it is said in plain language, then the other person knows that you know. ([Time 0:26:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0820dc4c-fe09-4ab6-abfc-78d980a001e6)) - **The Humblebrag Hides Its Own Boast** - A humblebrag lets someone advertise high status while denying they are boasting. - John Maynard Smith’s claim that “any idiot can do biology” signals confidence precisely because his brilliance is already established. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Another kind of indirect speech is the humblebrag. Describe what this is, Steve. Can you think of some examples that you've come by humblebragging in your own life? Oh, yes. Steven Pinker I once saw a documentary with an eminent British evolutionary biologist, John Maynard Smith. It would be recognizable to any evolutionary biologist. And the British are champions, ninjas at humble bragging. And he was being interviewed, and I asked him why he went into the field, and he did. And he said, well, originally I was interested in physics, but I realized I wasn't smart enough to do physics. Any idiot can do biology. Now, this is a truly brilliant man. He invented the entire field of evolutionary game theory, a powerful idea. And he laughed when he said it. In it, he was doing kind of two things. And this was the genius of the expert Humblebrag. He was not saying that he was so coarse as to have a boast. Like, I realized that I was a smart person and I could make a contribution to biology because I was so smart. I was smarter than other biologists. But by saying any idiot can do biology, both saying I don't have to worry about people thinking me that I'm an idiot. If I call myself an idiot or compare myself to idiots, people will know to blow that off. I have the confidence to do that because my status is not in doubt. You know, by my lights, biology is hard. If he's saying any idiot can do biology, and I'm an idiot, the kind of idiot who can do biology, I'm thinking, well, gee, I find biology kind of hard. Does that mean that I am, you know, unlike Sir John Maynard Smith, I am not of the caliber that would find it easy. I find it hard, and therefore I'm even lower than him in intelligence than if he were to say it outright. So it works at multiple levels as, in general, wit, charm, tact, social skill, often refer to cases where the desired message comes not from the literal content, but from several layers Of thinking about what the other person thinks about what you think about what they think. ([Time 0:28:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/be961187-94e3-4a70-9b15-468b741e4e56)) - **The Mob Threat With Plausible Deniability** - In The Sopranos, mobsters pay a juror’s candy bill while implying that his family could suffer if he votes to convict. - The threat works because it remains clear to the target but deniable in court. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Another kind of indirect speech is the innuendo. I want to play you a clip that captures this from the TV show The Sopranos. In this scene, a member of the Soprano mob family accosts an old acquaintance in a store and pays for his candy bar. Steven Pinker Hey, how you doing? Hey. Listen, Danny, we just want you to know how glad we are. A guy like he was on that jury. That mob thing. That junior soprano trial. Not working guy. Wife and two kids. Performing a civic duty we should all take part in. We know you do the right thing. Shankar Vedantam So what do you hear that's being said and not said, Steve? Steven Pinker Well, that is an excellent example of a veiled threat. What's being veiled is if you vote to convict Junior Soprano, we will harm your family. And it can be effective by striking fear into the heart of the target without literally exposing themselves to the crime of extortion. Shankar Vedantam So what the mobster was doing in that clip from The Sopranos was basically offering something that had plausible deniability. If someone came up and said, is this what you really meant? The mobster could say, no, I'm just wishing this old acquaintance well. Steven Pinker Exactly. And the question is, how plausible is the deniability? And crucially, the level of plausibility for the speaker and the hearer have to be different for it to work. So you want it to be not so subtle that it'll fly over the head of the hearer, but subtle enough that by higher standards of proof, such as in a court of law, it would not meet that higher standard. Shankar Vedantam So if a motorist gets pulled over by a cop, telling the cop, you know, here's $100, let's make this go away right now, you know, that could get you in trouble because you're bribing the Police officer. But if you say, you know, is there some way we can get this resolved without, you know, having to do a lot of paperwork, that might send the message of what you're trying to say, but give You some plausible deniability if the cop turns out to be an honest cop. Steven Pinker Yes, enough deniability that it couldn't be the basis of conviction by the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a very high threshold. But in everyday conversation, we don't need that high a threshold. We can take our chances that, you know, oh, come on, it's pretty obvious what he said. So in that case, plausible deniability. ([Time 0:33:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1f916fba-d4d2-4aca-b5bf-64a9dcb89880)) - **Use Indirect Requests To Let People Save Face** - Use indirect language when making a risky request so the other person can accept or reject it without losing face. - A restaurant writer held up a $20 bill and hinted at a cancellation, successfully jumping the queue every time. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam A few years ago, the writer Bruce Feiler was given an assignment by a magazine. He was to try and bribe a series of maitre d's at popular New York City restaurants in order to get a good table. What did he imagine would happen when he did this, Steve? Steven Pinker So the assignment filled him with dread. He kept imagining the incensed retorts of some outraged maitre d', like, how dare you insult me? Or what kind of establishment do you think this is? Or do you think you can get in with that? As it happened, he instinctively couched the bribe in innuendo, in indirect terms. He would, instead of saying, if I give you 20 bucks, would you seat me right away? Would you let me jump the queue? He would hold the $20 bill in peripheral vision, not look at it, look the maitre d' in the eye and say something like, I was wondering if you had a cancellation, or I was hoping maybe you Could fit us. Or, this is a really important night for me. The interesting thing is, it worked every time. Despite all our fears, all maitre d's in Manhattan are bribable. At least they were at the time we wrote this article. Which leads to the question, what was he, and by extension, all of us are so afraid of? That is, what would be so terrible if the maitre D rebuffed the bribe? I think the answer is that going back to our different kinds of social relationships, breaching the tacit assumptions of a social relationship, the common knowledge that cements The relationship, has emotional costs, which we experience as embarrassment, awkwardness, if they are accidental, if they're one time, or as disbelief, outrage, shock, if they Are intentional or repeated. In the case of a maitre d', you know, a maitre d', they're dressed in finery. They're wearing a tux or a nice dress. And they carry themselves with the authority that this is their kingdom. They get to seat people when and where they choose. That's part of the dignity of being a maitre d'. If you're tendering an outright quid pro quo bribe, you're kind of treating them like a sales clerk, like a transactional partner, undermining that aura of authority that they have. And doing it in cases where you don't know whether they will agree leads to that emotion of on the part of the speaker, it would be awkwardness. On the part of the recipient of the bribe, it would be outrage, at least in the imagination of the writer. And even in the case where it did succeed, which it did at every time, it may not have succeeded had he tendered the bribe as a naked quid pro quo. ([Time 0:36:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c020d730-de5c-4ff3-9cab-ceddc35aa0be)) - **When Indirect Speech Becomes Dangerous** - Korean Air 801’s junior crew members noticed danger but deferred to the captain instead of plainly declaring an imminent crash. - The tragedy shows when hierarchy makes indirectness deadly rather than socially useful. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Stephen Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University. He's the author, most recently, of the book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows, Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power and Everyday Life. Steve, there are many vivid examples of the importance of using direct speech. You talk about the crash of Korean Air 801 in 1997. What happened in that tragedy? Steven Pinker This was a case in which the pilot, in a social setting in which there was a clear hierarchy, and he was the authority, and the other pilots and technicians had to defer to him. In this case, it was clear to the second and third in command that a disaster was possible, that the plane was losing altitude, it was on a collision course. But they indicated there was a problem, but they didn't just blurt it out and say, hey, we're going to crash, wake up, do something, or let us take over the controls, resulting in tragedy. ([Time 0:43:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1ec437d7-34c2-447c-9502-39a3d73546f7)) - **Why Radical Honesty Could Destroy Friendship** - Radical honesty sounds liberating but would make every relationship transactional by exposing constantly changing private judgments. - Steven Pinker argues that friendship depends on withholding comments that contradict mutual respect and generosity. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam So there's a trend out there known as radical honesty, which holds that we should all be saying exactly what's on our minds without any indirection or euphemism. One of the leading proponents of radical honesty is a psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. Here's how he makes the case for it. Steven Pinker So the idea is being able to be happy and be related to people and not be guarded and careful and protected and afraid of being found out. That's a lousy way to live. It's a better way to live, to live out loud, let the chips fall where they may, have a few hard times now and then, but still they get all cleaned up because everybody tells the truth. Shankar Vedantam That does sound appealing, Steve. Do you think it always works in practice? Steven Pinker To put it mildly, no. That it is often a hellscape when everyone is almost with everyone else, and there are some comedies and science fiction plots that actually play that out for the amusement and sometimes The horror of an audience. But the reason that it doesn't is that this is a world in which there are no social relationships. Everything is transactional. There's no warmth. There's no friendship. Because all of us constantly have compromising thoughts about even our closest friends. Oh, that was a stupid comment. But blurting those things out just corrodes the tacit assumptions that make a friendship or a romantic relationship or even a stable relationship of respect of a supervisor and a supervisee Stable and sustainable. ([Time 0:45:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e3898386-22f7-42d5-9ac0-2ff7f5d84d07)) - **Steven Pinker Failed His Own Bribery Experiment** - Steven Pinker carried a $50 bill into the River Café to test his theory about hinting at bribes. - Two observant female maître d’s made him fear that any innuendo would be exposed, so he left without trying. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam So you've thought deeply about the costs and the benefits of indirect speech. I understand your wife recently challenged you to act on your own theories, and she took a leaf out of that story you told me about the magazine writer who managed to score great restaurant Tables with a $50 bribe. But what was the challenge she laid down on the table, Steve? Steven Pinker So we were having a lovely stroll in the Brooklyn waterfront, late summer night, and there was the River Cafe, a lovely restaurant with a gorgeous view of Manhattan. And we hadn't made a reservation, and we were getting hungry. And I had a $50 bill in my pocket, which was a rare occasion. And so she was saying, well, look, you've explained how it works. It would be, you know, it would be really good if we could get in there. You're the guy with the theory. Let's see if your theory works. And, you know, like the writer for Gourmet Magazine, I got to say it was terrifying. I don't know what I was afraid of, but it did require screwing up a lot of gumption. But I did, and I said, you know, if I have the courage of my convictions, I got to do it. And so I went in, but I was defeated by the sight that greeted me at the hostess station. There were two maitre d's, two elegantly attired, attractive women, both of whom smiled at me, and I realized that any innuendo that I tried with one would be immediately spotted by The other. Perhaps that's why they hired maitre d's in Paris. One of the revelations of this article in Gourmet Magazine is that bribing maitre d's is eminently possible. Now, of course, restaurants, the owner of the restaurant has an incentive that his or her maitre d's not be bribable, because then people would be loath to make reservations if they Could just be delayed and delayed and delayed by people jumping the queue with $50 bills. So there's some conflict there between the interests of the maitre d', which is to accept a little tip on the side, allow their palms to be greased, and the interests of the owner. And I'm wondering whether the owner had a pair of maitre d's there just for that reason. Shankar Vedantam So what happened? You had the $50 bill in your hand and you just put it back in your pocket? Did you do? Steven Pinker I skulked away, yes. ([Time 0:49:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dcecce55-adec-4e3a-a201-a072b865bb49))