Are Phenomenologists Better Listeners?

I enjoyed Dr. Scheckel's talk last night, as I hope you all did as well. It's always fun to see how different teachers embody "the same" ideas. There is both similarity and difference. My hope is that Martha's way of doing phenomenology captured something important for any students in class who are struggling to find ways to embody their own ways of  being phenomenologically in the world.

One particular thing that stood out to me last night: Martha's claim that her phenomenological training makes her a better listener, and particularly empathetic to undergraduate students who are involved in a very rigorous and demanding professional training here at MSU.

I, too, would like to think that phenomenology has made me a better listener--and in this way, a better friend, a better teacher, a better husband and a better father. Of course, "better" is relative. I had a long way to go in each of these categories, and I obviously still do!

If there is no other thing that you take away from this course, I would like you to take away this: Listening is important.

Our society is the "society of the spectacle." Seeing, we are told, "is believing." We've built up a whole epistemology, one of aggression and possession, that seeks to bring people and objects under "disciplinary gazes."

Phenomenology returns us to a world of dialogue, to a world of soundscapes.

Levinas reminds us that listening is a moral act. Can you even hear the call of the Other? Does the face of the homeless , the refugee, the dispossessed, the physically and mentally sick, get through? Or do we just go about our days, avoiding encounters that might transform us? Hearing is a process of (re)training ourselves to be alert to the primal "prose of the world." The world's beauty, pain and suffering.

As I've said again and again, phenomenology is a moral enterprise. It seeks the good in concrete situations, where rules and theories are rarely helpful. It seeks to cultivate an empathetic and tactful listening, one that knows how to act in the concrete moments of our lives.

Of course, we always fall short. Our efforts are never guaranteed. But the existential struggle to make our lives more rich--self and other--is one that phenomenological listening can help us with!