End of…Listening
/By Don Varyu
Jan 2024
n rare occasions, a news network or site will air a brief clip of some member of Congress testifying in the House or Senate chamber. The official might sound indignant or pleading or even clownish. But that one-shot of the rep masks the full picture; virtually no one is in the chamber to hear. Those vacant halls reflect overriding choices by fellow legislators to simply do other things; meet with staffers, take a donor call, or go to lunch. A citizien might conclude, “Oh, those idiot politicians—talking, but no one is listening!”
But are we really any better?
Decades ago, I worked with a journalist who was renowned for attending large meetings, but not saying a word—until the very end. He’d then demonstrate a detailed recall of what everyone else had said; and then magically distill all those comments into a single statement or question. He embodied the words of legendary television interviewer Larry King, who said, “I never learned anything by talking.”
Do we?
The rhetoric of today requires talking whenever one wants, and loud enough to overwhelm all conversational rivals. In this sphere, perhaps no one can eclipse political wanna-be Vivek Ramaswamy, who during GOP primary debates wielded a verbal Uzi, constantly firing at will at all comers. He left them spent and audiences irate because they could never tell what anyone was saying.
His act is intentional, but most people exercise this same lack of restraint innocently. Either way, it’s counterproductive.
Some people may call this a lack of manners; others, “my right to be heard!” But beneath is the real culprit, the companion plague of short attention spans. The average TikTok video is between 30 and 60 seconds. Instagram users are advised to keep their captions to less than 50 characters. Snapchats are there and gone—in ten seconds or less. To be fair, I know I am in an extremely small minority of people who actually like long text messages.
Liberals and conservatives alike complain about the habitual news consumption of their rivals— “they live in silos—they won’t even listen to what we have to say!” And to an overwhelming degree, they’re right. But that isn’t the worst of it. That distinction belongs to the huge group of consumers who refuse to read or hear any news. These are the willfully ignorant. They refuse to listen.
There’s one more impact that the refusal to listen sometimes engenders--the refusal to let other people speak at all. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the fallout from the Israeli-Gaza war. Heated battles over who should be allowed to speak, and how they should be allowed to speak, resulted in the resignations of two Ivy League presidents. That ignited fallout on U.S. politics that has yet to be fully measured. This rage echoed the similar calls of censorship after the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests a couple of years ago. For a nation of free speech lovers, we certainly have little problem trying to contain it.
As long as law-breaking is not involved, there is no place for censorship. Blockading free speech is antithetical to any free society. It is the tool of repression and control.
ell, if you’ve gotten this far, your head may be swimming. You well could be asking, “didn’t you start out complaining about people talking too much…and now you’re ending up saying people should be able to say whatever they want?”
Okay. The distinction I’m trying to make is this: please feel free to say what you want. But give other people the same opportunity. Spend more time listening.
To rephrase Lary King, maybe if we did that, we’d find out we got a whole lot smarter.
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