Yesterday, many members of this site had a fruitful conversation about the value of listening to one another. Naturally, we are a community of arguers and persuaders; many of us are lawyers, educators, writers or activists; lobbyists in our hearts, we live to defend our political faith. But when we slow down and pay attention, we realize that our failure to listen-- quietly and nonjudgmentally-- can cause the community to fly apart at the seams.
All this is just a preamble to explain the origin of a little daydream I had later.
It went something like this: if I were a public office-holder (not likely, but who knows what the future will bring?), I would be eager to know the concerns and opinions of my constituents. I would insightfully recognize that the concerns brought by certain constituents to my doorstep (industry lobbying, NGO agendas, emails produced by some of the most politically-involved citizens) did
not adequately represent the views of my entire constituency, nor in all likelihood did they even represent the most important concerns of those individuals. Instead they were, in most cases, opinions generated on topics pre-selected by politicans already in office (for instance, Social Security has not in the past been much on my mind, but now one is forced to write letters about it and so forth-- and it's
still not much on my mind).
Recognizing these limitations on the usual processes of political feedback, I would undertake what I believe to be an atypical project: I would, as randomly as possible, select a number of constituents with whom to request an unhurried, open-ended, one-on-one interview. This number would be as high as practically feasible, to ensure diversity, but low enough to allow for real listening and exchange, allotting perhaps an hour or an hour-and-a-half for each interview. During this time, the person would be encouraged to share his or her real concerns-- and ideas, and solutions-- whether or not the topics were overtly "political," and without my offering up glib policy solutions. Listening (and a reasonable degree of conversational responsiveness) only. I'd take notes. More importantly, if I listened carefully, I might remember that person a long time-- as I do certain students that I had conferences with years ago.
There are two important points here. The first is the randomness. We all know that polls in which respondents self-select are less valid; so, perhaps, is political feedback in general. Of course, politicians conduct randomized polls. But these typically allow for only a limited range of brief answers; responses are tabulated, not listened to.
The second is the caveat that these need not be "political" conversations. I believe, strongly, that the personal is political in all situations, not only in the matter of gender relations. Only if an office-holder has a sense of the varied reality of his or her constituents' lives can s/he have an intuitive understanding of how specific laws and policies might affect them. This is especially important where constituents may not themselves be aware of policy debates, and would be unlikely to offer feedback in the form of explicit political directives and requests.
Since, as I mentioned, I do not plan on running for office anytime soon, I'd like to offer this as a suggestion for, well, anyone who does, or who currently holds office. It sounds time-consuming, sure-- but is an hour a day, or an hour a week, too much time to spend learning about who you supposedly serve and/or represent? The proposal may not be modest... but you will be.
If this idea sounds radical, weird, flaky, and/or idealistic-- and, let's face it, it does-- I think we should ask ourselves why. Why on earth do we not already do this, or something like it, as a matter of course? What does our instinctive dismissal say about our system of representation?
And does anyone know anyone who already engages in such a practice?