When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows by Steven Pinker review communication breakdown

"Knots, RD Laing's 1970 book, was a collection of short dialogues illustrating the tangle of projection and misreading that characterises human encounters. The radical psychiatrist made clear the influence of unacknowledged baggage, the conscious or unconscious laying of traps for the other speaker, and helped us see more clearly the pitfalls of even our most routine conversations. In an era like ours, where global relations can contain as much psychodrama as private ones, Laing's Zen-like exchanges have more than just individual pertinence."

"The contrast between Laing's absurdist, tragicomic sensibility and Steven Pinker's crisp reasonableness is obvious. But there is more common ground than we might at first think. Pinker illustrates his arguments with piquant little dialogues, some of them worthy of Laing (You hang up first. No, you hang up first. Okay. She hung up on me!); this book is as lively an exposition of cognitive science as you are likely to find."

"The central theme is simply expressed: all acts of communication occur against a background of intricate, recursive assumptions (I know x; you know that I know x; I know that you know that I know x; you know that I know that you know ad infinitum). What Pinker calls common knowledge is both what makes intelligible exchange possible and what complicates it."

Short dialogues expose how projection, misreading, and unacknowledged emotional baggage tangle human encounters and create conversational traps. Routine conversations can carry hidden pitfalls shaped by conscious or unconscious maneuvers. Absurdist, tragicomic exchanges contrast with clear, analytical dialogue, yet both reveal common patterns: communication rests on intricate, recursive assumptions and shared common knowledge. Those recursive expectations make intelligible exchange possible while simultaneously complicating it. Strategic dilemmas such as the prisoner's dilemma illustrate how individual selfish narratives can undermine mutual benefit. Deliberate deployment of reason can help achieve outcomes that are good for everyone and resist self‑destructive narratives.

Read at www.theguardian.com