Reading Postings

May 30, 2006 C. G. Prado

Too often we don't listen or don't read. That poses an ethical problem for human interaction.

Reading Postings

I've been doing articles for Suite 101 since March, and enjoying it. I've also learned from the postings on my articles. Unfortunately, there's a problem, and it's an ethical one.

The problem surfaced in some postings, and it's as much about postings on other postings as postings on my articles.

I several times ran a little experiment when I had large classes of a hundred or more. I'd tell the class we were going to try something, then I'd whisper a simple four-word sentence to the first student in the first row and asked the student to pass on what I'd said to the next student and so on to the last one in the last row.

As you've guessed, the simple four-word sentence never survived being passed on from student to student. I remember the funniest instance: the original sentence was "It's a lovely morning," and what I got back from the last student was "Saturday is in bed."

What's the point here? We don't listen.

When we're told something, we either miss or ignore some of it or, just as likely if not more so, we reshape what we've been told according to our own interests and inclinations.

I think this happens a lot in Web postings, both on this site and others. Too many postings address something that wasn't quite said, or said at all, in the original article or message. So not only don't we listen, we don't read.

What happens when we don't listen or don't read is that instead of communication we get mutual declarations or pronouncements. That's sometimes just fine, if the point is to state your views or position. But it's not fine if you're supposedly responding to what someone else has said or written.

What's the ethical point here? Well, one ethical point is that we break an implicit promise when we don't listen or don't read. We do so because engaging in conversation with another requires a commitment of attention. Otherwise we might as well not bother.

But there's a larger ethical point, too. It's a point related to what I said about cellphones in a previous article. When we fail to listen or to read, when we don't pay attention to what someone is trying to tell us, we chip away at the whole institution of human interchange or conversation. We cheapen conversation by making it ineffective.

The copyright of the article Reading Postings in Personal Development is owned by C. G. Prado. Permission to republish Reading Postings in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.