Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
How to talk and listen towards a free and virtuous society
How to talk and listen towards a free and virtuous society
Mar 16, 2025 10:34 AM

Reading Dylan Pahman’s recent piece, Don’t write off young ‘socialists’, got me thinking about talking and listening. We all talk and listen, with varying degrees of success, every day. Most of the time I do each well enough to muddle through learning something from others while imparting some sliver of wisdom in between boisterous declarations of my opinions and preferences. It’s a work in progress but a vitally important one in that, “A wise man will hear, and will increase in learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels,” (Proverbs 1:5) and, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” (Proverbs 18:21).

Dylan’s piece challenges us to more carefully listen to others, responding not merely to their words but taking the time to measure their intentions and meaning. Even in disagreement we should strive to see what in the speech of our neighbors is oriented towards the true and the good. It is only through building on mon good that our words, even if spoken in disagreement, can bring life and bear fruit in increased understanding. It is, like anything worthwhile, easier said than done.

In thinking through these challenges I recalled a biographical essay by Frank Chodorov on Jay Albert Nock,

He pletely out of step with the times. But he was not crotchety nor quarrelsome with things as they were; he rather accepted them as inevitable. While keeping as far as possible from the parade, he went his own way through life. In a crowd, if he happened to be in one, he was distinguishable only by his infinite capacity for listening. He was too considerate to refute any statement, even a palpably false one, and too self-respecting to get into controversy. plain, never explain, never argue,” he often said, “and you will get more fun out of life.”

Nock’s admonition to plain, never explain, and never argue puts both others and the truth at the center of our conversation. plaints are often self-centered and directed at others. This leads us to an over-developed sense of our own self-importance while simultaneously devaluing and dismissing others. Our explanations of our behavior and ideas often act as excuses for our failings and lack of rigor and clarity. It is for this reason the Duke de Broglie famously warned, “Beware of too much explaining, lest we end by too much excusing.” Our arguments are often arguments in the worst sense, as in a dispute or a quarrel, and not in the sense of statements of fact or reason. We e driven to win or to dominate our interlocutor rather than seeking truth together in the manner of friends.

This advice, in a general way, enables us to orient our conversation toward a greater knowledge of our neighbor and the truth. It transforms even our talking and listening into teaching and learning. This talking, listen, teaching, and learning is how we bring ourselves every day, in a small way, towards a free and virtuous society.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Marketing is the New Finance
No doubt feeding the fears of those who believe that global corporations pose the greatest threat to the future flourishing of humanity, such multi-nationals are beginning to hire their own economists, much like governments have their own financial and economic experts. See, for instance, this interview on the WSJ Economics Blog with UC-Berkeley economist Hal Varian, who has taken a position as chief economist with Google, Inc. Where will Varian be focusing his attention? In his words, “I think marketing...
Sicko and the Sick Man of the Great White North
Time sure does fly. It’s been almost two years since I called Canada’s government-run health care system “The Sick Man of the Great White North” and wrote: Canada’s system may be the gold standard for government-run health care, but only if you’re looking for a system that can’t provide essential medical services in a timely manner. Sadly, nothing much has changed in the interceding time between that post and now. In fact, things are very much the same: Canadians still...
Evangelizing the Powers
As one might infer from Lord Acton’s maxim, the question has been raised: Did proximity to political power corrupt Billy Graham’s chaplaincy to the presidency? GetReligion’s Douglas LeBlanc surveys the recent attention paid by the mainstream media to this part of Graham’s pastoral mission, and concludes in concord with Randall Balmer, “The gospel is better served when religious leaders keep a healthy distance from political power. The challenge for future presidents will be to find spiritual guidance and solace from...
The New Martyrs
People light candles below a wooden cross at a site south of Moscow where at the height of Josef Stalin’s political purges 70 years ago firing squads executed thousands of people perceived as enemies munism. (AP) “Martyrdom means a great deal to Orthodox people,” writes historian James Billington in “The Orthodox Frontier of Faith,” an essay collected in “Orthodoxy and Western Culture,” a volume of essays published in honor of Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005). The 20th Century’s...
T.S. Eliot & Ritualistic Nihilism
Lately, I’ve heard one too many emo kids misread T.S. Eliot as being one of their own. In Russell Kirk’s words, it is easy for the “rootless and aimless” of the new generation to over-identify with Eliot, seeing him as a spokesman “for the futility and fatuity of the modern era, all whimper and no bang — a kind of Anglo-American ritualistic nihilism.” And whining, pining, Anglo-American ritualistic nihilism is the cultural trend of the day, whether you look at...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: The Science is Settled!
Remember – there’s really no dispute over the evidence that catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is underway. All the models predict it; the science is solid; the consensus is broad and unshakable. Oh, and pay no attention that significant downward revisions have had to be made in recent US temperature data: Climate scientist Michael Mann (famous for the hockey stick chart) once made the statement that the 1990’s were the warmest decade in a millennia and that “there is a 95...
Baxter, How to Do Good to Many, Part 3
Readings in Social Ethics: Richard Baxter, How to Do Good to Many (London, 1682; repr. 1830), part 3 of 3. References below are to page numbers. Concluding Consectaries: These consectaries are aimed at Baxter’s audience, wealthy Christian merchants. Baxter examines in some particular detail suggestions for the right use of their charitable funds and efforts: “Might not somewhat more be done than yet is, to further the gospel in your factories, and in our plantations?” (329)Concerning Christians abroad who are...
In Service with and for Others
While I was in seminary in Kentucky, students were required plete a relatively extensive service project that assisted and helped the poor and marginalized in munity. My group volunteered at a teen pregnancy center, others at nursing homes, or with organizations like Habitat for Humanity. At the pregnancy center we led job training, financial classes, and other practical skills for work and the home. A different group went another direction, they passed out petitions that called upon the federal government...
Book Review Roundup
Here are some book reviews of note from recent weeks that you may find to be of interest: Charles H. Parker. The Reformation of Community: Social Welfare and Calvinist Charity in Holland, 1572-1620. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xv + 221 pp. Illustrations, map, tables, notes, sources cited, index. $37.99 (paper), ISBN 0-521-02540-0. Reviewed by Victoria Christman, Department of History, Luther College.Gertrude Himmelfarb. The Moral Imagination: From Edmund Burke to Lionel Trilling. Chicago: Ivan...
Baxter, How to Do Good to Many, Part 2
Readings in Social Ethics: Richard Baxter, How to Do Good to Many (London, 1682; repr. 1830), part 2 of 3. References below are to page numbers. On Motives: Human works are God’s appointed means of grace: “It is God’s great mercy to mankind, that he will use us all in doing good to one another; and it is a great part of his wise government of the world, that in societies men should be tied to it by the sense...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved