“Practically all the attention has been paid to speaking, both in terms of the skills to be developed and the ways in which we should understand what enhancing ‘inclusion’ might mean (i.e. getting more people to speak). The argument here is that both democratic theory and democratic practice would be reinvigorated by attention to listening.”
- Andrew Dobson, “Listening: The New Democratic Deficit” Political Studies 2012
Last week I joined 20 million other Americans in watching the first public hearing of the January 6 commission (officially the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol). I tuned in again earlier this week. And I will tune in for the rest of the month. I watched with social media turned off. I didn’t yell at or applaud the speakers. I tried not to smugly smile to myself (not always successfully). Instead I listened to learn.
As Andrew Dobson (whose quote opens this piece) and others have noted, we often pay too little attention to political listening. We tend (though not always) to focus on political talking. To borrow Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric, political communication is the art of discovering all of the available means of communication in a given situation. The ethics of political communication is mostly focused on what one ought to (or ought not to) say and how one ought to say it (or not say it). The focus is on political talk – fundraising emails, the role of consultants, speech writing, and so forth. For Aristotle and everyone after him, successful political talk requires understanding the audience so the speaker knows how to persuade them. Advocates usually listen to learn how to persuade, rather than listening to learn about an issue or idea.
Listening does get its due from civil discourse-good democracy organizations. For example, “Listening for Understanding instead of hearing to overpower” is one the National Institute for Civil Discourse’s key principles. Advocates of a more sane political square encourage people to listen to show respect, they argue that leaders should listen more closely to all of the people and not just select groups or elites, and that listening ensures people are seen “as political equals who are heard on their own terms” (The Politics of Listening).
Implied, but often explicitly absent in discussions of civil discourse, is the importance of listening to learn and possibly change our minds.
We listen to the news to learn about everything from Ukraine to the weather. We listen to mechanics to learn about the expensive sounding noise in our car. We listen to podcasts to learn about history or cooking.
But we tend to listen to politics to learn why we’re right. Even listening to understand is often listening to understand how otherwise well-meaning people could come to such daft conclusions, or how otherwise rational seeming people could be duped by such obvious buffoonery. Listening to understand rather than respond is often about learning how nice people got fooled into doing mean things, which makes it easier for me to show them what they should obviously do instead. We listen with empathy and say “oh, I see why you’re so misguided, it’s not your fault, here let me show you…” Even listening to understand is often instrumental.
Like many people – almost certainly like most people watching the January 6th Committee hearings – I have very strong opinions about the insurrection. Like many people, I would like to think that anyone listening – really listening, honestly and openly and not just to reinforce their preexisting beliefs – would obviously agree that Donald Trump attempted “a coup in search of a legal theory,” as US District Judge David Carter put it.
But what if that’s not what the hearings are showing? If the evidence were weaker and testimony less damning, would I change my mind? The case against the former president is pretty overwhelming, so I feel like I’m on good ground here. But what about less obvious topics like trade, natural gas as a “bridge” to clean energy, or immigration?
Democracy assumes no one person has all the answers. It assumes that we can only find the best way forward together by debating what the best way forward together is. One part of that debate is what we say and how we say it - the emails and the ads and signs and mail and rest of it. It is how we persuade because we assume the other side can be persuaded. Another part of that debate is how we listen, and what we do with what we learn.
Even as we persuade, we are also those people on the other side of someone else’s persuasion. We need to spend time with what we learn, we need to consider new information and ideas away from the maddening crowd and social media. We must be willing to say, “I’m not sure, I need to learn more,” or even “I used to think this, but I was wrong.” We demand that of those at whom we yell hear us and finally concede they’re wrong and we’re right. We need to be willing to listen to those trying to persuade us, and we need to be open to their persuasion.
Which is why I am watching the January 6th Committee hearings to learn. My opinion about Trump, his enablers and the attempted coup are unlikely to change. After each public hearing is over I will express my views in this space and elsewhere. I will talk to the press and my students. I am not a mere bystander.
But first I will listen to learn. Democracy demands no less.