Emotional Intelligence

In his book Emotional Intelligence (E.I.), Daniel Goleman explains skills that could enable a person to manage their emotions and, thereby, improve their life.  He credits John Mayer and Peter Salovey with originating the term “Emotional Intelligence.”  And with wonderful analysis and insight, he states that the fundamentals of emotional intelligence are “self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and the ability to manage relationships.”

He seasons his chapters with stunning observations like, “There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse.  It is the root of all emotional self-control …”. (Chapter 6, “The Master Aptitude”)

The knowledge he presents – the understanding – could be valuable to a counseling professional.  It could help them recognize difficulties for a client, and it could help them guide their client toward improvement.

It could also help a non-professional.  Someone could read this book and recognize learnable skills that they had never learned.  This knowledge could guide them toward some understanding of what they were missing – and some conception of where they are, informed by understanding how they got there – thereby, they could find some feel for how they need to push to move themselves toward making things better.

Social Intelligence

In Social Intelligence (S.I.), Dan Goleman explains that social intelligence consists of: Social Awareness (Primal empathy, Attunement, Empathic accuracy, and Social cognition) and Social Facility (Synchrony, Self-presentation, Influence, and Concern).

His observations include: “New thinking holds that our sociability has been the primary survival strategy of primate species, including our own.”

And: “Attunement is attention that goes beyond momentary empathy to a full, sustained presence that facilitates rapport.  We offer a person our total attention and listen fully.  We seek to understand the other person rather than just making our own point.”

The ideas in this book, rather like the ideas in his earlier book, could lead professionals and non-professionals to profoundly valuable understanding.

Community Intelligence

Recently, I started reading Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place.  Nora Ephron told me I should read the book.  As I read, an idea leapt from the page, like a Disney animation – “Community Intelligence.”  If a person learned to deal more effectively with their own emotions (E.I.) – and if they learned to deal more effectively with other people – emotions and communication (S.I.) – wouldn’t the next essential step be to learn to value – and to deal more effectively with – their community (C.I.).

I’ve seen the phrase Community Intelligence used to refer to intelligence that a community can have – or that could be designed or engineered into a community – a sociological concept.  And Ray Oldenberg’s ideas are sociological.

My thinking is taking this phrase – this concept – more in the direction of personal skill, awareness, and understanding – a personal intelligence.

I’m not sure the value of community – the essence – the need for community – could be explained more clearly or completely than Professor Oldenburg has done in his book.

He said, “Though proclaimed as offering the best of both rural and urban life, the automobile suburb had the effect of fragmenting the individual’s world.  As one observer wrote: ‘A man works in one place, sleeps in another, shops somewhere else, finds pleasure or companionship where he can, and cares about none of these places.’ “

Also: “To our considerable misfortune, the pleasures of the city have been largely reduced to consumerism.  We don’t much enjoy our cities because they’re not very enjoyable.  The mode of urban life that has become our principal cause of illness resembles a pressure cooker without its essential safety valve.  Our urban environment is like an engine that runs hot because it was designed without a cooling system.”

An understanding that emerges from Ray Oldenburg’s book is that our existence – our comfort and security – depend on the society that supports and protects us – as individuals – and as families.  By retreating into our McHomes – by responding as directed by our advertising culture and purchasing our own personal copy of each and every thing that we are told we need – small, mid size, and enormously expensive – by removing any need for us to ever leave our McHomes and deal with other people – we are abandoning our society – and essential skills and experience.

Like any other ecosystem, our society will lose it’s vitality and resilience.  Eventually and inevitably, it will atrophy to the point where it will lack the wherewithal to support and protect us – as families – or as individuals.  When that happens, as with our much abused planetary ecology, we may find that it’s too late to save what we failed to understand and cherish.  Our primary survival strategy, as a primate species, will have perished.

With emotional skills, there’s a range – a continuum – of skill and awareness.  Some people show little emotional skill, and what could be more alarming, they seem to have little or no awareness of the value of these skills.

There are probably few people who couldn’t benefit from developing these skills further.  Those who are more skilled in these areas would probably be the first to agree.

A nearly identical case could be made for social skills.

With Community Intelligence, we need to consider our skills, or our lack of skills.  If we lack skills, how do we define them and develop them?  And how do we foster an awareness of these skills, and of their value.

Through Dan Goleman’s series of books about emotional intelligence – Emotional Intelligence, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Primal Leadership, and Social Intelligence – his concise definition of emotional intelligence matured as his work progressed.  Sometimes five points, sometimes four, the essence persisted as the presentation evolved.

My first take on defining Community Intelligence is:

1. Recognize a personal need for community – the need to belong – to participate – to support –to defend and protect,
2. Foster a personal inclination – personal effort – to connect (talk – listen – share) with people in your community – especially (but not restricted to) your close community – shops and wherever you frequent – or even infrequent.

Future Articles

I’m working on another article exploring C.I. – “Community Intelligence in Film”.  I’ll be working to come up with other ideas about how to further explore this concept.

Beyond that, I invite readers to comment or make suggestions – by posting a comment to this essay – or by sending a message to the blog e-mail address.