blog post #1

Hi! My name is Kiley and I am going to be talking more in depth about custodians rip off. Dialogic performance is important to develop critical listening and being able to hold a conversation even through differences. A scholar Dwight Conquergood argues that dialogical performance is “one path to genuine understanding of others” (p.9). There are four pitfalls that Conquergood made up that should be avoided. One of the pitfalls that Conquergood made was called the custodians rip-off.  This is when someone engages with others for selfish reasons. Someone that is doing the custodians rip-off is it for their own good and uses the person to what they want to hear not really caring what the other person has to say. It could also be considered as selective listening because you’re only listening to what you want to hear. This way of selfishly engaging is conversation can take away from genuine conversation. 

Everyone has done this to someone. It could be not even intentionally such as ordering food and the worker ask, “how your day was?” but in fact you don’t focus on that because you’re only talking to them to order the food you want. Or it could be intentionally such as talking to someone because they have a higher status so if you build a connection it could possibly benefit you. Custodians rip-off is a selfish way that takes advantage of communication. It could be used by one person in a selfish way without the other person knowing or in some cases it could be mutual. For example, the relationship between a teacher and a student goes both ways for communicating. The student talks to the teacher to asks question to benefit their grades and the teacher talks to the student because it is there job. 

This concept is important because it takes away from genuine conversations. Whether it is intentional or not it takes away from engaging dialogically. Conquergood shows multiple flaws other than custodians rip-off that should be avoided such as, enthusiast infatuation, exhibitionism and skeptics cop out. These pitfalls take away from developing our ability to take on the stance of a critical compassionate listener.