New Year's Musings • January 2024

The Listening Arts e-newsletter

Happy New Year! Wishing a safe and meaningful year, for you and your family... It’s been six months since my last newsletter... how time flies! I'll start with a bit of an update, followed by some thoughts about how we might support one another in responding to the challenging times we are in.

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While people tend to knock “preaching to the choir” (and I'm not really into preaching to anyone!) I’ve gotten quite curious about how generally like-minded people – those of us who identify as “progressives” of some sort or other – might offer one another the kind of supportive, attentive listening that helps generate creative action. More on that below, but first, the update!

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What I didn’t mention in my summer newsletter, was that I was about to start a year-long post-graduate fellowship at the Ash Center of the Harvard Kennedy School. I’m now about half-way through that year, where I've been building on my doctoral research on the key role that facilitators play in mini-publics. It’s been very meaningful to be in Cambridge for the last several months, though I am quite saddened by the recent turn of events. For now, that’s all I will say in that regard....

However, if you’re curious about what “mini-publics” are, here’s a short Linked-in article I wrote back in 2016, “Empathy, Collaborative Meaning-Making, and Co-Creating our Future" on what inspired me to go back to school. And here’s a great quote from an article by Dawn Nakawaga and Marjan Ehsassi, on the significance of what happens within facilitated mini-publics, and why these democratic innovations matter:

Mini-publics can be a great opportunity to experience the power of communication across significant differences, and for that reason (among others) they could play a significant role in the evolution of governance systems around the world.

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Still, this year we will be facing some crucial elections here in the United States, as well as in other countries throughout the world. There are serious concerns about the survival of our very imperfect democracy, and this is not something we can afford to take for granted. As activist and filmmaker Astra Taylor writes, “Democracy may not exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone…”

And so the question I've been pondering is, how might deep listening help create positive outcomes, in this present moment?

Just to be clear, I am not referring right now to the valuable “bridging work” involved in listening to the “other side”. I appreciate that work, and have written about it before; “Connecting Across Divides, Opening Minds and Hearts” is a short overview of some great initiatives in this arena.

However, right now, I feel called to a different kind of “bridging” work: bridging WITHIN divides, rather than ACROSS divides...

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“HUH??” you may well wonder… why would we need THAT?? Why might we need to create more understanding with people with whom we already “basically agree”??

Well, a moment’s reflection on the in-fighting that often occurs in groups of like-minded people, could lead us to paraphrase Pogo’s realization: “we have met the enemy, and they is us”.

I want to be clear that I don't want to minimize the external threats we are facing, nor to place undue responsibility on those on the receiving end of larger systems of domination. Yet the fact that we ourselves are part of the system, and that our silent consent too often contributes to the problems we face, means that we ourselves are potentially part of the solution, as well.

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And so I’m curious about how might we practice listening to one another, in a way that helps to support each of us, in our own creativity and sense of agency -- how might we support one another, in breaking out of our isolation, and out of the cultural trance of seeing a “train wreck coming” yet feeling too helpless and paralyzed to do much about it? (Or, alternatively, we might feel that whatever we do, is "not enough"...)

If you are curious about what I’ve written so far in this regard, you can keep reading here about some of my initial explorations. I would love to hear your thoughts in response...

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I’ll close for now, with a set of New Year’s wishes; may 2024 be a year where we as humans make significant advances in learning how to be co-intelligent together.

May all those who have been experimenting with various kinds of groups as “the art forms of the future”, continue to learn from one another and to deepen our solidarity.

And may the various small groups we convene, function as “small islands of coherence” that help us to navigate times of chaos, while also being of benefit to the larger whole.

with much appreciation,

Rosa

​www.diapraxis.net​
​www.thelisteningarts.org​

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(please note, the snail mail address below is that of my email newsletter service, it is not my personal address.)

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