The problem is that arguments like this always end with an implicit "QED" that dismisses surviving grievances regardless of how legitimate they may be. What we need to do is hear each other. Responding by saying, "this happened on every square foot of the globe" is implicitly a refusal to listen, a denial of standing to the other. When I read a comment like this, it sounds like a judge tossing a case out of court.
Your comment includes this in other ways too: changing the subject to horrible things the other side did is implicitly a way of saying "I don't need to hear you", and representing the other side as a straw man ("several hundred years ago should be brought forward to modern times") is a way of saying "nothing to see here".
Not at all. I mean hear as in really listen and take in what the other is saying. That's harder than it sounds. It's painful and frightening and almost no one is willing to do it, but I think it's the only way forward. Otherwise we're just going to get more violence and justification of violence, because no matter how deeply we try to suppress them, the grievances of the past will just keep reexploding.
Interesting that you seem to be assuming a particular result from "hearing", excluding the reaction of "I hear you, and I just don't care." which is surely a possibility?
I'm talking about hearing from the heart and not just in the technical sense that might say "Ok, you said your piece and I heard it, now can we just move on". I believe that most people won't respond dismissively to the suffering of others, if the conditions for hearing each other, really listening and acknowledging, are in place. But it's painful and we avoid those conditions as much as possible. For example,
I heard a story about a little girl at one of the residential schools in Canada where the teacher would stick a pin through her tongue when she was caught speaking her native language. It's really hard to hear something like that. Much easier to say "I don't care", although we normally put it that in more self-serving language. And underlying "I don't care" is something more like, "I can't bear this".
The concepts of empathy and active listening are well defined. Calling those concepts "undefined, non-falsifiable, linguistic drivel" is completely unsubstantiated.
It's harder to do over a text forum than in person, but it's not strictly impossible. The low hanging fruit is checking to see if a person is responding specifically to the arguments in your post, or just arguing against a strawman. You can take that a step further and try to determine if their response indicates they understood your argument. This is more error prone, but still a possible method of determining good faith.
I think the problem is when the speaker gets to be the sole determinant of sufficient empathy and listening. It leaves no room for disagreement.
>If you truly empathize with me and understood my position, surely you would agree with me. If you disagree, then you have not listened with sufficient empathy.
I don't like the word "allowed", as if there's some authority here, but if you want my opinion, certainly there is no obligation to agree about anything at all. However, that doesn't mean that listening from the heart is easy. Really hearing what other humans have gone through is not easy. There is a strong temptation to react with denial, because otherwise it's too painful. There is an obligation, I believe, to acknowledge what actually happened, on all sides.
First off, thanks for continuing to engage despite our clear difficulties understanding one another.
When I say, allowed, I mean under the moral and social system you are advancing. You propose that there is an obligation to acknowledge and "hear" what has happened. The problem for me is that you seem to believe that it is impossible to acknowledge and hear without caring, or care without suffering. It seems that you believe people have a moral obligation to share another's suffering.
My first problem is that you claim to be in a position to judge if this obligation has been met.
My second problem is that being heard is not sufficient for the speakers to turn the page on the grievances of the past.
I think it's reasonable to infer that "hearing" in this context doesn't literally mean only the act of perceiving sound. It's clearly referring to listening in good faith.
Your comment includes this in other ways too: changing the subject to horrible things the other side did is implicitly a way of saying "I don't need to hear you", and representing the other side as a straw man ("several hundred years ago should be brought forward to modern times") is a way of saying "nothing to see here".
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