Can Politicians Learn To Listen?

Chris Kofinis, writing for USA Today, said, “Democrats’ historic defeat shows they need to stop lecturing and start listening. The reelection of Donald Trump was an absolute repudiation of the Democratic Party, President Joe Biden’s record, and Kamala Harris’ candidacy, campaign message, and strategy. Writing for the Hill, Austin Sarat said, “Voters rejected a ‘woke’ America — time for Democrats to listen and learn.

There are both people and politicians who think they are so right that they can not listen to anyone. They will only listen to others who think exactly like them. Politicians are supposed to listen to the people they serve, but even there, they hardly listen. How many voters are into War? How many people want more mRNA boosters? How many people want Dr. Fauci to dictate their lives? How many want their towns and cities overrun by illegal aliens and are willing to pay their expenses?

Listening is not part of the model for human behavior in the modern world, creating a dangerous situation in the world and for families. Humble people listen; arrogant people do not. People who have any love for democracy give respect to the will of the people who exercise that will with their votes. The mass media don’t care about anything except delivering the worst, most confusing, civilization-shattering writings designed to create ill feelings and separations between different groups of people.

Going To Far

Yale psychiatrist called it ‘essential’ for liberals to cut off Trump-voting loved ones during holidays. ‘It’s completely fine to not be around [Trump voters] and to tell them why,’ Yale University chief psychiatry resident Dr. Amanda Calhoun told MSNBC. She suggested ways liberals who are devastated by Trump’s reelection this week can cope with the news, including separating from certain loved ones. “So, if you are going into a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you, it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why,” Calhoun said.

Instead of preaching humility and love, this expert advises separation. A loving person can listen to those they disagree with unless they are so into being right that they would cut themselves off from loved ones. Authentic listening automatically leads to conflict resolution. Unfortunately, this is an unknown art.

To listen is to suffer because we do not want to listen
to anything that might require a change.
To listen is to change.
We cannot change without listening.
Listening implies a change.
We need to change just to listen.

Some people are natural listeners, meaning they listen more than they talk. Others even have a hard time listening to themselves, to their own emotions, feelings, intuitions, and vulnerabilities, because their minds are so busy thinking that they leave little space to listen to the deeper internal spaces of being.

Love listens. Families are often the most dangerous places for women and children to be because, you guessed it, the poverty of listening breeds violence.

Listening is the ultimate social skill. Being with people who listen is much more pleasant than people who talk too much. Quiet people tend to be good at listening. People who talk too much are usually terrible listeners. When a person says ‘yes, but’ to something you say, you know they only listen to themselves and what they plan to say next.

We all love being listened to. We tend to love people who listen to us; we vote for people who listen to us; we buy the products and services of people who listen to us. The ability to listen is one of the most profound influencing skills available to us.

“Real listening requires that we get our own reactions and responses out of the way in order to hear exactly what the other person is saying. The first step is to quiet the feelings and thoughts jangling around inside of us and to put aside all reactions and “tapes” playing in our heads, spinning tunes of past feelings and ideas and future expectations,” said Christopher Hills. Mirroring is the quickest and most direct way to melt the separation that most people feel and experience with each other.

Mirroring is the basic technique in a process called Creative Conflict. It is not a very popular process because, as a first step, it demands that we learn to listen. Learning to listen is difficult, to say the least, for most people because it confronts us with our egos, which by its very nature does not want to listen to anything about itself it does not want to know.

Listening is the ecology of being; it opens the doorway to the heart.
Listening creates trust between beings; listening creates love.

Nothing shows off the quality of our love better than our listening skills; in essence, listening keeps people together. People who listen to each other end up wanting to be and stay together, for nothing connects us better than our listening to each other’s world of feelings and experiences. Listening is love, and love is listening. They are qualities of being that reflect each other perfectly. Love does not exist in human relationships without deep listening.

Wherever you find a poverty of communication you
will find a poverty of love, and wherever you
find a poverty of love you will find a poverty of deep listening.