![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What Does it Mean to Listen?
Jun. 11th, 2019 05:11 pmSometimes I feel like "Listen to X people" just ends up being things like "I'm not X, so I just listen to X people I already agree with" or "I'm not X, so I just listened to the first X perspective I encountered" or "I'm not X, so whenever I want to push a perspective about X people, I find X people who already agree with me, and say 'Listen to X!'" or "I'm not X, so my arguments about how I treat X people or what's beneficial for them don't require any critical thinking--I can just say 'I listen to X!'".
And the thing is, people do need to listen to X people, whenever the context is that they have the capacity to oppress X people, but any and all of the uses of that statement that I listed above are misguided at best and actively malicious at worst, and either way, they can cause immense harm. I feel like this statement too often gets weaponized against the very people it's supposed to help. I think it's important to understand that listening should not be treated like a passive activity. It is an activity that requires critical thought and understanding, and requires one's active mental participation to understand nuance and context.
And yes, that means trying to understand what contexts in which one shouldn't inject their own statements and...avoiding injecting statements in those contexts. But I do not think its appropriate to position listening in contrast to critical thinking. Listening isn't the antithesis of critical thinking; rather, it requires immensely careful thought and reflection.
And the thing is, people do need to listen to X people, whenever the context is that they have the capacity to oppress X people, but any and all of the uses of that statement that I listed above are misguided at best and actively malicious at worst, and either way, they can cause immense harm. I feel like this statement too often gets weaponized against the very people it's supposed to help. I think it's important to understand that listening should not be treated like a passive activity. It is an activity that requires critical thought and understanding, and requires one's active mental participation to understand nuance and context.
And yes, that means trying to understand what contexts in which one shouldn't inject their own statements and...avoiding injecting statements in those contexts. But I do not think its appropriate to position listening in contrast to critical thinking. Listening isn't the antithesis of critical thinking; rather, it requires immensely careful thought and reflection.
