Listening

AVI is planning a post on listening and asking us to think about the topic beforehand.

UPDATE: What kind of listening and Random Thoughts on Listening

OK.

I've an analytical bent, and I try to find solutions. This is famously not always what the situation requires.

Usually finding a solution demands finding out what's real, not merely what's perceived. I've noticed that exploring to find the real sources of the problems sparks explosions faster than almost anything else.(*)

So, "just listen." (which isn't the same as the "humble listening" and "humble questioning" discussed in a session Thursday about getting along with problematic colleagues)

But to listen, I have to ignore or reject a lot of nonsense. When protest leaders (e.g. Freedom Inc.) demand an end to the police it's hard to take them seriously, and hard to give them the benefit of the doubt wrt the looting.

I wind up suspecting that I'm not hearing all the voices; only the connected ones.

And some of what I hear is perception, and not objective statements about the justice system. I don't like lies.

Politics is perception, and perhaps pretending to share perceptions is the proper plan. Join some marches, say some words, give some activists sinecures, and let everything settle back down again. After all, it's a fallen world and there will always be problems and it isn't really so bad in America.

That's not exactly listening, of course, or being particularly honest. I understand there are situations where calming is more important than being accurate (e.g. with delirium), but that seems like a pretty insulting way to deal with a group. On the third hand, an organization isn't a person and doesn't deserve the same kind of respect.

I don't know about other people, but I prefer not to affirm something unless I've good reason to believe it. And "I hear how you see things" doesn't seem to satisfy--I'm expected to affirm that the justice system is structurally racist, and similar things.

I think my form of listening/evaluating is listening. I'm not sure everybody agrees about that.

FWIW, I am trying the exercise of taking Freedom Inc seriously and trying to figure out what sort of society they realistically could get--if they successfully avoided chaos and totalitarianism. If I succeed I'll make a post of it.

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(*) I'm accused of having "white privilege." OK, great! How can that be more widely shared?