The Art of Listening

[Dill]

(07-29-2019, 02:46 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Did you ever try asking other types of questions to your brother-in-law, like: "Did you always feel this way about Obama? When did you start seeing it that way?", or "Do you work with black people? Is that what you have seen?", etc. Not necessarily those questions, but you get the point. You know how to interview. But I disagree that an interview needs to lead to a confrontation. Why can't it be open-ended? I realize that that doesn't sell to an audience. But in personal conversations, who is the audience?

This is a critical step in that it directs the listening, actually gets a person to listen to himself.  This has a chance of working when it brings a set of stated ideals compartmentalized in one part of a person's mind into contact with contradictory behaviors and beliefs directed from another part.  But I think a lot of people will then sense the questions lead them away from where they want to be, and stop.

Arlie Hothschild, the author of SSF's article on the "political bubble" thread, is very skilled at this. She does long interviews with Trump supporters in which they largely explain why their choices make sense to them. E.g., "I Don't let my kids watch the Discovery Channel because we don't believe in Evolution." There is never a point where she directly challenges beliefs. Sometimes she does a minimal dot connecting between votes for Republicans in the pocket of Big Oil and deteriorating environmental conditions in a community, which her interviewees complain about.  If I remember though, her goal is to help liberals understand "them" better, resulting in less divisive politics. It is not to convert "them."

I don't think Dino meant "confront" in the sense of creating a confrontation by abrasively challenging "errors" and "telling them like it is." He just meant (If I understand him) that at some point an alternative interpretation of beliefs and feelings and the like must be introduced, or the speaker will not move beyond where he is at. 

This discussion puts me somewhat in mind of Socratic/platonic dialogues, in which Socrates affirms he knows nothing and just asks questions, which eventually lead his challengers into contradiction. Not only is Socrates listening but constantly presents himself as willing to be converted, if only some of his interlocutor's logical inconsistencies can be overcome.  The inquiry is thus open-ended and the result (with few exceptions) an aporia. The dialogue begins with someone who presumes to know what "virtue" or "piety" or "love" is.  And ends with most everyone agreeing no one knows. 

When we are talking about politics, though, and pressure to to formulate some policy or other, people must decide what such terms mean. The hope is that increased facility of reasoning means increased likelihood a policy will work. That presumes some point where policy makers are faced with alternatives and must decide which is likely to work best for the common good (if we are still thinking on the Platonic model).  That requires a review and assessment of at least two sides, with both sides understanding the common goal.