Listening is more than hearing, and you can feel it when you see it.
United States President Barack Obama listens to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speak during a briefing on the response to Hurricane Sandy at FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Gloria Steinem and Jill Ruckelhaus listening to a question on NBC’s “Meet The Press” as they are interviewed at the height of the women’s equality movement, 1972.
Cheif of Staff, John Kelly as he listens to President Trumps first speech to the United Nations General Assembly saying he would “totally destroy North Korea”, and derisively refers to their leader as “little rocket man”.
We tend to think of listening as a by-product of hearing, using the senses of our ears, but true deep listening occupies all the senses. At the Design for Social Innovation (DSI) graduate program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, we are challenged to work on the wicked problems that affect communities around the world. Using the methods and skills of design, we are meant to tackle problems like climate change, systemic incarceration, poverty, or inequity to name a few of the things that are the focus of my cohort. The nature of our study and the work we hope to do in the world involves people at their most vulnerable, the situations when our best and worst instincts as humans come intractibly into conflict. When we think about the conversations that have to happen if we aim at solving poverty, or deep educational inequality, or the impacts of consumption on the environment, these are heavy exchanges bogged down with the weight of decades of feeling and ideology. You have to be able to listen, first.
Martin Luther King listening to President Lyndon Johnson during their historic meetings in the Oval office, this is at the height of the civil rights movement, January 1964.
Larry Nassar listening to more than 150 of his accusers during sentancing for his multiple and repeated sexual assaults of young female gymnasts in his care. Nassar complianed to the judge that hearing the women speak was too painful for him to endure.
Jeff Flake listens to the closing statements by his Senate colleague, Jeff Coons, requesting a one week pause to investigate the allegations regarding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavenaugh. Unknown at this moment, Senator Flake had just been interrupted by two women in the Senate elevator who told thier own stories of sexual assualt, beseaching him to reconsider his vote.
Critical to the teaching at the DSI is the understanding that in order to address the problems that society faces, the social part of innovation, we are designing with people. Designing with people to discover the potential solutions for problems that may have affected them for generations. The first part of that journey with any community is to understand that you are likely not the first person to make the attempt at change. Change is not always easy, and not every attempt is succesful. It is our duty to approach all potential projects with a level of respect for the people and events that precede us, to start with a sincere intent to listen.
West Point cadets listen to a speech by President Barack Obama about US engagement in Afghanistan, 2009.
Children at an outdoor puppet show in Paris, listening with rapt attention to “Saint George and the Dragon”, photographed by Alfred Eisenstadt for Time magazine in 1963.
Sailors in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii listen to radio and cheer as Tokyo radio reports Japan has accepted the Potsdam surrender terms on August 15, 1945.
President Bush listening to his chief of staff Andy Card, he is being told of the attacks on the World Trade Center on the morning of Septermber 11th, 2001.
Louis Malle’s 1981 film “My Dinner with Andre”, a film about a conversation. Wallace Shawn listens to Andre Gregory as they share a talk about life, love, dissapointment, and friendship over dinner at Cafe des Artistes in Manhattan. This movie sits in the canon of quintessntial New York-centric cinema.
A little girl listening to music in the private world of her headphones.
Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in Quinten Tarantino’s epic “Pulp Fiction” as she listens and toys with Vincent, played by John Travolta, 1994.
A police officer patiently listens to a little boy’s request to cross the street during a parade, Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by William Beall, 1958.
David Letterman and Jay Z listening to one another on Letterman’s Netflix interview show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” , 2018.
A candid image of two women by Henri Cartier-Bresson who catches both the moment and distinct gesture of their bodies as they listen to one another.
Photojournalism students listen to a lecture.
As these images illustrate, listening is more than hearing. It’s done with the eyes, with the body, with the face, and with the heart. This means allowing people the space to tell the story they need to tell, not the one we want to hear. That takes patience, openness, and lack of judgement or preconception. You have to be willing to wait for someone to really speak from the heart, in order to listen from a shared place.
A young girl cries while listening to a speech by US Democratic presidential candidate, Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
And so the process of hearing is not the act of listening. What we might want to be saying is not “I hear you”, but rather “I listen you”.
