OPINION: America is forgetting how to listen. We used to be so good at it, what happened?

PixabayPhoto bymohamed_hassan

Getting in the last word has become an Olympic sport in society today, especially in American society. Whether it’s up close and personal at a coffee shop or on the Internet where no one can’t see who you are or what you look like.

We call them conversations but often they’re just opportunities to let everyone know how smart we are.

We “listen” to what is being said, but not to understand the other person but to know precisely when we can dive in with a rebuttal.

And the thing is, everything can be called into question.

Who you voted for in the last election?

How often do you shave?

Which deodorant works best without sticking to your shirt?

Even personal statements that relate solely to what a person thinks about themselves are open to comment.

I think I should spend more time with my wife.

No, that would be a waste of time. She doesn’t like you all that much anyway, better to hang out with us.

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In the past News programs were solitary affairs. A famous talking head would be introduced with appropriately somber music and then for the next 30 or 60 minutes he would tell us the latest news, the latest trouble spots and where they could be found, and all done with an air of authority

You trusted those guys. They were well-informed. They studied the news. Ate it for breakfast and lunch and if they discussed what shoes you should wear during a broadcast, which sometimes happened, guess where you would be on Saturday morning.

But today there are panels. Men and women who know more than any of us, who spend 30 to 60 minutes telling us what the news is and what it means, not generally, but to us in particular.

They let us know if it’s good news or bad news; if it’s likely to go away, stay, or get worse and what we should do when it happens.

It’s not exactly known what makes up a panel – four or six or even eight people all vying for our attention. All shouting simultaneously until the program sounds like a pep rally at a St. John the Baptist’s home basketball game.

And the thing is they all have differing opinions. They're nuanced. One may like a certain candidate but not his policies. Another will like his policies but think he’s not fit to serve.

And yet another thinks the other two are incorrect but will vote for him anyway because the other candidates are even worse.

Thus, that certainty we had at the end of the evening news, whether deserved or not, is now replaced with a sense of confusion and doubt.

We're told that everything out there isn’t going well for the most part, but that there are some things out there that aren’t going well, less often. So, they’re doing better – sort of.

And when we take what we learned during these panel discussions and bring it to the Internet to side-check, we find that there are far more people online who know even less, because they’re generally relying on the same panel to get their content.

So, like a memo that gets copied and recopied a hundred times, the final version is blurry and gives one a headache trying to read it.

***

And while finding News that works and seems right and fair is getting harder to do, based on the number of times they are proved wrong, we keep going back to the same source.

The same panels with the same catchy names, offering the same take, as we get a bad case of whiplash watching one pundit after another trying to get into a fair and balanced discussion.

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All of this makes it difficult for the normal people who watch them, to then have a normal conversation with other people without behaving like they do, antagonistic and in your face.

Listening was once essential, being the only way, anyone could find out what was going on in the world around them. Go back three hundred years and peddlers were great sources of information on what was happening in the village just down the road.

Coach drivers got free beers at the Pub if they would tell everyone what they knew about what was going on in the city. If the governor was still in office or if taxes were going to be raised.

People asked intelligent questions because there was limited time before the peddler or coach driver was off to another town. So, they listened.

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Information has always been needed and wanted. It’s how we stayed connected. How “their” lives became relevant to “our” lives.

The quietude of isolation does have its perks but after a while, even a long while, we need to mingle again. To find out who married whom. What teams won, and why the price of corn is dropping?

But today, most of our information is nonverbal.

We have alerts coming in at all hours off our feeds with varying opinions depending on political affiliation, college attended or what’s trending on X or TikTok.

And these distillations are several steps removed from what happened, meaning we’re not really talking or listening – we’re reading.

We’re digesting news that has already been predigested, with added fillers and opinions until metaphorically, the world seems flat and the sky down.

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The media portrays communication as it sees it. Confrontational, adversarial, and openly unfriendly. All characteristics it believes need to be present for the truth to be extracted from whatever story is in the news.

It portrays people as constantly in conflict with others. Review the list of the top Reality TV Shows and baking challenges are at the bottom. The Best Funeral Ever, Bridezilla, Love After Lockup, and other confrontational formats head the list.

This pattern might be “entertaining” but it doesn’t work long-term outside of that bubble. Real, real people need to communicate to get along. No one can be in constant conflict, using breakup to makeup to generate drama forever.

So, if we find conversations less fulfilling these days and so confrontational that they’re not worth having, then something is wrong. Because we’re still having “conversations” only they’re all long distance and far from the real source. And being led by others.

We can agree to disagree as long as it’s not 24/7. Our opinions are important, and so are theirs. Listening is where it all started and what needs to be happening now.