Chris Chittenden

Social reality is founded in what a community agrees to be real. Whereas physical reality exists independent of a human observer, social reality is built through human language in the form of ideas and categorisation. A country is a social reality. Money is a social reality. The legal system is a social reality. A democratic […]

We speak of love all the time but what does it mean to love someone? Is it a feeling? An assessment? A declaration? As with all emotions in this work, love is predominantly an interpretation of our sensations in the context of the situation. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks defined a number of types

Through our conversations, we also build up stories about our shared experiences. These stories form the basis of commonly held meaning and future interactions. In communities, over time these stories develop into bigger narratives into which come other people. For instance, families develop ‘meta-narratives’ about the family and its norms and traditions. We born into

Conversations are not just a means of sharing information, more importantly they are the vehicle for the creation of social reality and the coordination of action with others. Whenever we relate to another human being, we have conversations with them. When we come into contact with someone there are public conversations, but we are also

Our interpretations of the world include interpretations of ourselves as human beings. In other words, we build the meaning of who we are into our self-story, which emanates from our experiences particularly as they relate to our core concerns. Our ‘dignity’ refers to assessments of the respect held for our sense of self.  Our sense

In this work, authenticity speaks to the alignment between how we actually live life and our way of being and our self-story. This idea was explored in the notes on ‘Authenticity’ and put forward the premise that we are always authentic in our actions yet this sometimes does not match our self-story. If we can

It is all too easy to think of trust as binary – I either trust you or I do not. However, such an interpretation leaves little room to build better relationships. Furthermore, if we interpret trust as the four assessments of sincerity, competence, reliability and involvement then we can never completely trust anyone anyway. As

 An alternative approach to the Paradigm of Control is the ‘Paradigm of Trust’. Trust is generally seen as the basis of healthy relationships and with good reason. Whereas the Paradigm of Control has the speaker’s interests at heart, those using the Paradigm of Trust seek to take care of all those involved. This does not

 The concept of ‘control’ directly links an underlying need for certainty to the linguistic act of a declaration. This link is predicated on a belief that our declarations can create a definite future outcome. This addresses one of our core concerns, yet it exists in the inherent uncertainty of the future. Nonetheless, we strive for

In order to understand the role of authority, it is useful to develop an understanding of what has us declare authority for others or ourselves in the first place. To begin with, we can distinguish two types of declarations of authority – ‘collective authority’ and ‘personal authority’.  ‘Collective authority’, also known as ‘positional authority’, is