I have blogged before about technology (I do see the irony) and what it is doing to us as a people, and I don’t see it getting any better. I really believe that we are at the point where we not only don’t listen to one another, but we don’t even see each other anymore. We have rendered other people to cardboard cutouts and political opinions that either line up with our own or don’t. If those views don’t line up with ours, we don’t see those people at all.
I am currently reading the book Them: Why We Hate Each Other--and How to Heal, by Ben Sasse. I have just started into the book, but I daresay that he would agree with this idea that we don’t see each other anymore.
It is far easier to ignore, or vilify, another person when we don’t listen to them, hear them, or see them. I don’t mean being blind and deaf. I can say from firsthand experience at my part time job that many people don’t listen. They hear me speaking, but then they respond with a completely inappropriate comment that shows me they are not listening. It is not a great leap to go from that to not seeing a person. Just think about the last time that you passed a cleaning person, or a janitor, or a clerk somewhere. Did you even register them as more than part of the background? Did you register that it was an actual living, breathing human being? I have been guilty of that myself at times.
We can hear a person speaking, but if we don’t listen, and I mean truly listen, then we cannot really hear them. Truly listening doesn’t mean anticipating what the other person is going to say, or thinking about your next comment. It means really hearing what the other person is saying to you. That is the only way that we can respond in an authentic manner. The same holds for seeing someone. We have to look at others as more than just a job title, or a political ideology, or a means to an end for our own purposes. We have to understand and see people for who and what they are: whole people who matter just the same as we do.
I am going to make a concerted effort to see others, really see others, for who and what they are. That doesn’t mean that I have to like everyone, or get along with everyone, but I do have to see them as more than a label that makes them less than human. That’s not fair to them, or to me. So how about it? Can you make a commitment with me to see others?