Social Intelligence
By: Prof. Dr. Younes Megdadi
The author of the book Social Intelligence, Karl Albrecht, says that a person needs many soft skills to be able to live a normal life, and at the same time to be able to adapt and deal with others around him, whether at the level of family, job, or society, in a manner characterized by good behavior, insight, and intelligence, especially in light of living conditions and challenges. The surrounding environment, such as the cultural, intellectual, social, economic, and living attitudes and fallacies that impose themselves on the human being as an active individual who cannot be isolated from others, based on the theory of human interaction with the social environment.
Karl believes that soft skills are the ideal solution to address many human problems, which are in fact considered among the urgent skills of human life so that we can interact with others intelligently, and adapt to life’s circumstances and requirements in order to avoid falling into the corridors of life’s troubles and pitfalls, which often have undesirable consequences. Hence, we ask realistically: Do most of our life’s problems really lack these skills? Aside from criticism and from the perspective of observing many of our problems, we often find that the absence of these skills was one of the reasons for their exaggeration. Indeed, in many cases, we find ourselves in a quagmire of psychological and personal conflict and social disagreement with others in our homes and with our families, friends, relatives, co-workers, and others, despite the possibility of overcoming them. If these skills are available, they can be overcome intelligently or with self-diplomacy.
It is not far from our living and social reality that many cases and situations, which no one denies, were the result of hypocrisy, gossip, excessive chatter, engaging in talk and puritanism, the love of appearing and dominating within the framework of the language of the ego, imposing opinions, non-constructive criticism, the love of provoking excessive controversy, and staying away from commitment to the moral rules of dealing with others, which makes our lives as a whole far from the general conceptual framework of the theory of human interaction, which is advocated by many specialized thinkers and scholars, while adhering to its concepts and rules to ensure human relations based on mutual respect and appreciation among everyone.
We may agree to a large extent that we need these soft skills, regardless of our educational and cultural level, our social status, etc., to overcome many of our problems, conflicts, or personal conflicts with others, which have created embarrassing situations for us, especially when we do not use or choose the appropriate words in our speech and dialogue, which may It produces a complex culture that turns a person into a complex personality characterized by traits that may flaw him, and may even create an undesirable general characteristic that may overwhelm us and that may contradict the manifestations of human civilization.
Hence, we see that the human and social coexistence that we aspire to in its most beautiful forms requires us to have these smart life skills to practice within the framework of our personal and public behavior to get rid of the impasse of intellectual conflict with others, with a focus on dialogue and constructive criticism within the framework of the rules of dialogue etiquette. At the same time, we see that consolidating... These important skills for our lives are the responsibility of everyone, especially educational institutions, as they are among the most important inputs to the educational system in basic and university education and their curricula, as they are factories for generations, intellectually, cognitively, and behaviorally, to be the nucleus for building a societal culture dominated by the concepts of social intelligence skills, based on our relationships with others, and to be able to adapt and interact with circumstances. Life and its complexities, with intelligence, looking forward to building a society dominated by intelligent human and social relations governed by the art of dialogue and based on mutual respect and good morals to serve the sustainability of relationship between all.
