
Saved by Brian Sholis
The Right to Listen
Saved by Brian Sholis
Being a good listener is one of the most important and enchanting life skills anyone can have. Yet few of us know how to do it, not because we are evil but because no one has taught us how and – a related point – few have listened sufficiently well to us. So we come to social life greedy to speak rather than listen, hungry to meet others but reluct
... See moreThe gist: We live in a world of constant noise. The power of anthropology is that it can help us listen to social silence, and, above all, see what is hidden in plain sight. To listen this way, it helps to embrace tools from ethnography about being an insider-outsider and borrow ideas such as habitus, reciprocity, sense-making, and lateral vision.
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