January Blog Post

I chose the sentence, "Stepping back from speaking and stepping up to active listening is one method of undermining the presumed entitlement to be at the center of the conversation, to speak in universals, and to determine the direction of the conversation and agenda." from Russo's Between Speech and Silence: Reflections on Accountability. I chose this because it was something that caught me off guard with how relevant it is and it really made we think about my own listening and conversations.

When I was younger my mom shared with me the thought that "every person just wants to talk about themselves" and she encouraged me to carry conversation by asking questions and not talking about myself the entire time. I've now read articles that share this same idea, an article from Inc. supports this idea saying, "People are egocentric--they love to talk about themselves. If you're asking questions and getting people to talk about themselves, they'll leave the conversation thinking you're the coolest. Even if the conversation didn't really give the other person a reason to like you, he or she will think better of you subconsciously just for indulging this or her ego." (https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/how-to-get-people-to-like-you-heck-even-love-you.html) My mom told me that she found it always works when you are trying to impress someone, carry a conversation so it's not awkward, or just being a good friend. Since telling me this I have realized that it's an easy way to take the pressure off yourself and boost the other person up.

The reading supports this idea as it makes it clear that we as a culture feel entitled to demanding conversation with our ideas and opinions, something you see so often when people debate ideas. It prompted me to think, what would our society be if we just stepped back and listened to each other? I think that we could all become more educated if we stopped trying to direct the conversation but instead allowed ourselves to listen.

With this, I think it is important to keep our conviction to share ideas. While I think that we should listen, I would hope that people would not reject their own opinions all together as this is what makes us all unique and independent. Maybe if we just scaled back a bit and balanced our listening and sharing, as a society we could still be convicted yet better educated.