Listening Practice
Do we only have a choice between broadcasting loudly and retreating into silence, or is there an alternative?
Initially, the emancipating power of internet technology was warmly embraced: the marginalised could finally influence political debate, new voices could shake up the dominant world order. But constant scrolling has led to a ‘dizzying swirl of current events’, overstimulation leads to mental shut down. Can we learn to listen again?
Mirjam Rasch’s engaging philosophical essay takes as its inception bell hooks’s question ‘Who is talking? Who is listening? And why?’ and dissects the act of listening, layer by layer, complication by complication. With a lightness of touch, she takes the reader through concepts such as deep listening, active listening, performative listening and receptive generosity, drawing on the work of philosophers, writers, filmmakers, composers and anthropologists along the way.
First, Rasch delves into our technological experience where, according to Byung-Chul Han, we are invited to ‘produce’ ourselves, while technology listens in. Social media has monetarised opinion and real-time reflection on breaking news, leading to a constant state of fragmented attention. Next, two major challenges of our time play a leading role in the book: polarisation and climate change. Polarisation, and what you can do about it, drives chapters on dialogue and bearing witness. Finally, Rasch explores listening to the non-human (animals, plants, rivers, stones) as an alternative to domination. Paying attention to your unconscious desires and drives can bring you back into balance with the world around you.
This up-and-coming philosopher explores the ethics of listening with a generous, undogmatic approach. She advocates radical openness, person-to-person listening as a boundless and unconditional act.
Friction Ethics in Times of Dataism (2020), was nominated for the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize an won the Socrates Cup for best philosophy book
Talented young philosopher with a literary pen
References Michael Sandal, Emmanuel Levinas, Michael Bakhtin, Giorgio Agamben, Wislawa Symborska, Virginia Woolf, Jim Jarmusch and many more
Rights
Marijke Nagtegaal
m.nagtegaal@debezigebij.nl
“Astonishing, comprehensive and poetic.”
