Description: Eric Margolis and the new cold war.
how corruption and ignorance destroys democracy. (2)
The Greatest Gift you can give to anybody is to demonstrate the willingness to listen with a minimum of defensiveness, criticism or impatience. It is ultimately the gift of understanding and hardly anybody is paying enough attention, to be able to provide it.
Listening is an art that requires openness to each other's uniqueness and tolerance of difference. Rigid roles, fixed expectations and the pressure to conform make genuine listening a rarity because we spend more time being judgmental and far less being empathetic enough to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of the person we are talking to.
The difference between listening well and not is the difference between being receptive and responsive and being reactive and dismissive.