A Listening-Centered Approach to Democratic Deliberation

Abstract

Chapter 4 proposes a listening-centered alternative to empathy-based approaches to deliberation. The chapter begins by discussing how the concept of listening is used in everyday language and then introduces a more systematic “theory of listening acts.” Using the categories of speech act theory to identify corresponding categories of the listening act, the author distinguishes between auditory, perauditory, and ilauditory listening. With this listening act theory, the author shows that listening is more than simply hearing what is said (auditory listening). Similarly, listening should not be equated with the outcomes it brings about, including consensus or mutual understanding (perauditory listening outcomes). We also act in listening (ilauditory listening). In listening to our fellow citizens we enact the deliberative ideal, acknowledging that their perspectives are relevant to our collective judgements and decisions. The chapter shows that fair consideration is predicated on ilauditory listening, or what the author calls “performative democratic listening.”

Narrative and the “Art of Listening”: Ricoeur, Arendt, and the Political Dangers of Storytelling

“…This, moreover, is consonant with recent developments in political theory, which argue that the act of listening has received comparatively little attention in democratic theory. The latter, they say, has normally focused on empowering citizens to speak (Bickford 1996; Dobson 2014; Scudder 2020). Inclusion and equality are usually put in terms of conferring the right to have a say in public affairs, so that, in general, we bear witness “to the eclipse of listening as a concept and practice worthy of theoretical attention” (Dobson 2014, 18).…”

“…Inclusion and equality are usually put in terms of conferring the right to have a say in public affairs, so that, in general, we bear witness “to the eclipse of listening as a concept and practice worthy of theoretical attention” (Dobson 2014, 18). Behind such a trend, it is argued, we find the problem that listening has often been unfavorably equated with something passive, a sign of weakness, dependency, and ignorance (Dobson 2014, 41–47; Scudder 2020, 84; Gross 2020, 35, 130–33). Listening, accordingly, is deemed suitable not for those who rule but for those who are ruled.…”

“…Even Arendt herself might have contributed to this tendency in more recent times through her characterization of speech and action as what allows us to enter “the human world,” properly speaking (Arendt 1998, 176). 11 This legacy, Dobson says, has deluded us into assuming that we surely know how to listen, that listening is easy and therefore need not be cultivated, both as a personal virtue—an “affective-cognitive disposition of citizen-listeners,” as Mary Scudder (2020, 16) has put it—or as a permanent feature of our institutions and collective practices (Dobson 2014, chap. 6).…”

“…As these two examples show, listening is not obvious and plenty hangs upon it. Hence the importance of taking it seriously as “a central act of democratic citizenship” (Scudder 2020, 1) and of articulating an adequate “politics of listening.” Hermeneutic philosophy, understood not only as the art of story telling but also as the art of story listening, partakes of these insights. 14…”

Democratic education in the fourth generation of deliberative democracy

“…As Emma González at #MarchforOurLives abruptly went silent for 6 minutes 20 seconds to express her anger and critical message to the US society, silence enabled people who are inevitably disadvantaged in the public sphere to be recognized and heard, thereby making the public sphere more inclusive and democratic (see also Rollo, 2017). Having said that, some deliberative theorists (Scudder, 2020) unpacked that silence sometimes functions as a refusal to take up the voices of others intended to reinforce the existing power imbalances. As such, in a different deliberative setting, same practices function quite differently.…”