Listening Up

Madame M:

Two Can Play?  You’re making me feel like Holmes and Moriarty, lol.  And your post was so brief, readers might be thinking that either 1) you are subtly hinting to me to embrace brevity, or 2) you are being “short” with me for some reason. :)

Ah, so I surmise from your explanation that in those people there is mis-associative allegiance then, where the people end up voting or otherwise supporting something against their own interests, a la What’s The Matter With Kansas?

I’VE disturbed your focus?  My powers aren’t as feeble as I thought! :)

As for why we can’t be offended AND listen, I can surmise many reasons (a sampling listed shortly), but first I want to note that because we are disconnected, because we feel semi-isolated and vulnerable in a world that seems off-kilter and beyond our control, our sensitivity is heightened to extremes. 

So many of us, it seems, feel we are defending what we feel to be the essence of ourselves against a world that is uncaring (and sometimes cruelly uncaring) or even so fast changing that we feel stability and familiarity is besieged or destroyed, and equilibrium but a dream.  No one ever really tries to understand us first (and forget about deeply) before we are categorized and dismissed (and sometimes condemned) in some ridiculous oversimplification, or worse, a caricature based on false information or misperception. And infuriatingly, the dismissers then retreat into their electronics or other diversions, never valuing us enough to listen to clarifications.

When some (real, imagined, or twisted) moral precept—often arrogantly displayed from some position of supposed “superiority"—is inserted into the mix, we get the situation so well described by famous political scientist Hans J. Morgenthau: “Compromise, the virtue of the old diplomacy, becomes the treason of the new; for the mutual accommodation of conflicting claims, possible or legitimate with a common framework of moral standards, amounts to surrender when the moral standards themselves are the stakes of the conflict.”

In a call-in radio or tv program, or a town hall, people try to talk non-stop, because they’re afraid if they pause, someone might demonstrate the faulty foundations of their thinking.  Others keep talking because it’s one of the few times in their lives that others pretend to hear and care.

All not exactly conducive to connecting with our fellow citizens.

Sometimes I’ve thought that you and I should found The Center For Listening and Connecting, where people could go (maybe pay a nominal fee or maybe just a donation; haven’t thought through that part) and someone would give them 15 minutes of their undivided and silent attention, taking notes, and attempt to summarize what they said afterwards.  Where people could go to get things off their chests to a real person, in person (not via social media), where they can have their thoughts recorded on paper (well, electrons) and feel like they were understood.  Where people could rent a soapbox (not even used anymore!) and speak to a crowd of 5 or 10 people. 

Maybe after people felt their ids/egos/superegos were no longer under constant attack, where some other, REAL (not virtual) people tried to understand them, then they’d be more receptive to hearing what others had to say.  And maybe, just MAYBE, utter the words civil discourse longs to hear: “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I see that there’s more to some things than I thought.  I may change my mind about what I said before.”

Present me data, Madame, on how many regular practitioners of meditation initiate violence, and perhaps I can be persuaded to adopt your view!  I understand, however, your skepticism about any potential universalities in the human condition!