By Jovita McCleod
Staff Writer
In “The Shadows,” Henry Miller wrote, “We do not talk —we bludgeon one another with the facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.”
This “bludgeoning with facts” is what people are doing to each other lately.
As the United States continues war in Iraq, people around campus and the world are all putting in their two cents.
But it is those who really listen to other people’s points of view who are reaping the rewards.
Listening is more than casually catching the drift of what another person says, while mentally forming your own responses to the other person’s statements.
Real listening is experiencing someone else’s reality.
Most people, including myself, seem to have a problem with hearing another’s opinion without stating their own — especially if the other person’s opinion is different than theirs. As Winston Churchill said, “Some people’s idea of (free speech) is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.”
There is a common assumption that people are naturally bad at listening. Actually. people are great listeners. People have the capability to sit through two to four-hour films. In this time period people take in a large amount of information both audibly and visually.
But movies are more than just entertainment.
Behind what people find funny, sad, disgusting or thought provoking in a film are writers, directors and actors. All of these people have set out to tell and show the viewing public a message. And for this experience audiences pay around $8, just to watch and listen to these collaborator’s ideas.
Then there is music. Eminem, Tupac, the Beatles or whoever your favorite artist is. Most people know the lyrics to the songs of their favorite music artists and even those artists they can’t stand.
Tupac’s lyrics are poetry, Eminem’s lyrics are practically debated in Congress and the Beatles’ lyrics are nearly as re-interpreted as the Bible. Why? Because people are listening.
The question now becomes, who are people listening to? Should only those with a record label, movie contract or political position have the right to be heard? Surely this would be a grave waste of the freedoms allowed in the United States.
The First Amendment states that people have the right to free speech. However, how beneficial is this freedom if no one is listening? To make the voice of the average person heard, average people need to start listening, and not just to media, but to each other.
This may not be as easy as watching the news, reading a magazine or listening to music, but it may prove to be much more enlightening.
Many college students already realize this from the insight they may have received from living among people from different backgrounds. Sometimes it is only through other people’s stories, ideas and experiences that a person can finally understand and appreciate his or her own stories, ideas and experiences.
While “to live is to listen” is pushing the limit, maybe to listen better is to live better.
Perhaps it will never be normal for people to sit down and listen to a stranger at a café for two hours. And most people will probably always grow bored of hearing a 4-year-old tell all of the knock-knock jokes he knows — which number in the hundreds.
But maybe just once in a while people will really listen to each other. Then the next conversation they join in, they will have more to share than the words of Ted Koppel or what happened in the latest cracker-jack box film that grossed in the millions.
April 03, 2003