Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Listening is a Virtue

We might call good listening a skill, but it is better described as a virtue, for it rests less on intellectual ability and more on an attitude of openness that is not just willing but eager to let the others have their say--in their language and from their perspective.  Otherwise they are reduced to the status of a self-justifying mirror in which we see ourselves as right because they are wrong and we are different from them.

Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Loc. 2132-35 Kindle Ed.)

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