Tone Deaf or Just Not Listening? A Soft Skill for the Wider "We"
- Laura A. Weber
- 28 minutes ago
- 7 min read
"Blind as a bat?" Bats aren't blind, of course. They're just exceptional "listeners," able to detect frequencies between 9,000 and 200,000 Hz. Humans can pick up between 20 to 20,000 Hz by contrast. The idiom "blind as a bat" arose in the 16th c., likely an attempt to characterize the nocturnal mammal's erratic flight pattern as an indication of visual impairment. Bats, as we've come to learn, can see quite well in low light, and are exceptionally adept at echolocation, meaning they emit high-pitched sound waves and listen for their resounding echoes to locate themselves amidst their surroundings. They can navigate in complete darkness with this super-acoustic-ability, hunt miniscule insects, even detect the wingbeats of mosquitos while avoiding obstacles in flight. Astounding.
It's like our second-grade teacher, who could hear bubblegum wrappers crinkling underneath the desk before they hit the floor. Bat-like. I suspect she was "right-eared," the right ear having generally better capacity than the left. My Mom was definitely bat-like in her auditory capacity.
Many women who raise children to adulthood are bat-like, by virtue of their constant connection and auditory vigilance. They can even hear a subtle tremor in the emotional complexities of the human voice, and are significantly more accurate in decoding voices that express fear, happiness and sadness than their male counterparts. My Mom could tell I was ailing over a long-distance phone call after just two words: "Hi, Mom." Her response: "What's wrong? You sound pale."
Humans, sadly, are losing our aural capacity among the wider "We." Communication is often cited as the #1 soft skill desired by employers, and also the primary cause of relationship woes. We are sorely deficient because we are losing our capacity for active listening.
While women have superior hearing acuity compared with men, hearing problems are on the rise across the globe. Research indicates that a significant influence is the environment, which not only adversely affects our response to volume, but also the frequency range of the sounds we hear. Those who live in forest areas exhibit the highest hearing sensitivity. Proximity to Nature-rich soundscape attunes listeners to the whole ecosystem and is essential for survival. Where we live matters. Whatever noise pollution toxifies human habitat and the habitat of our creature-kin impacts our collective hearing. We must strain to hear our kin over the din of our own toxic noise. How well we listen to the whole chorus of life is key to the survival of us all.
What if we were all exceptional listeners? I mean, besides the Bat-women in our lives. Gentlemen, this may be hard to hear:
"The superior hearing in women extends beyond simple sensitivity. The study notes that women typically perform better in a range of auditory tests, including speech perception, suggesting that the advantage isn’t limited to the ear itself but may involve superior neural processing of auditory information in the brain. This comprehensive advantage raises interesting evolutionary questions about why women might have developed more sensitive hearing across human populations worldwide." (source)
Yes, women are better at hearing than men. It's something women have long suspected, but now there's biological confirmation. Of course, this isn't just about auditory capacity. And it even goes beyond active listening to our fellow human beings. How are we as a species at ethical listening to the global We?
Ethical listening is all about active listening among the wider "We" of humanity and beyond the human realm. In a posthuman context, much of our listening is "visual," and it's quite limited, focusing only on what's in our direct purview. It's also myopic, and lacks active engagement in what the other is communicating, by listening primarily for what serves our self-interests. It often involves a reaction to control the narrative, produce a counter-point, dominate the conversation, or effectively end it - if it doesn't hold our interest or we feel we cannot "win" the perceived contest. Posthuman listening often values expediency above all. Our attention span is seriously compromised and shrinking. We're expected to process information quickly and move on, mimicking the micro-processors on which we depend. As disengaged listeners, we look away, appear irritated or distracted, rush over another's sentences, or simply ignore what's being communicated, focusing instead on what we wanted to say.
By contrast, ethical listening is broad in scope and thoroughly engaging. If you've ever been truly listened to, you know that the listener was fully present. You've been received in your entirety, not just tolerated momentarily. The response is careful, reverent, and loops back to what you've shared. It's a conversation, a dialogue, a reciprocal meaning and energy exchange, and it focuses on listening to understand better - for the good of the whole. It takes time. It's a process. It requires that we patiently listen to the whole Story, even when the "point" isn't immediately evident to us. It relishes Story as a genre for fuller revelation. It requires imagination, creativity, and learning. In the process of active listening, we invest in the health and welfare of our dialogue partner and of the whole community of which we are part. Healthy communication can be celebrated and cultivated when we hone our listening skills. It's perceiving with a wide angle lens, engaging our periphery and depth perception. Ethical listening detects echoes far beyond the self. It's bat-like.
Now, scale it wider. When creation-beyond-humanity speaks, what do we hear? Do we listen intensely, with bat-like acuity, to other-than-human languages? Do we practice daily immersion in natural soundscapes to become adept at listening? Do we "tune out" everything that doesn't seem to apply to our immediate interests or needs? Are we tone-deaf to Earth's suffering? Do we listen to the natural soundscape, to Earth's stories, devastations, birthing, and dying?
Acoustic ecology studies the sound-mediated relationship of human beings and their environment. Some lament that acoustic ecology is focused primarily on noise pollution and the deleterious effects on human auditory acuity, rather than improving the quality of the broader soundscape, of listening to Nature as a whole. If humans are to hear geophony, sounds made by non-biological Nature such as wind, rain, sand-shifting, or rushing rivers, and biophony, or sound generated by the rest of the biological world like birdsong and bee buzz, wolf howl and squirrel chitter, we must be quiet and listen. Filtering anthropophony, or human-generated sound, is prerequisite to ethical listening in the context of the world-at-large, this big blue marble we call "Home."
What characterizes ethical listening in our current geopolitical unraveling, when power-brokers invested in commoditizing Earth's "natural resources" are at best antipathetic towards environmental integrity, and at worst, openly hostile?
Our posthuman awareness finds humanity thoroughly enmeshed with technology, cybernetic organisms (Cyborgs) who are no longer human without tech integration. We engage the Natural World primarily with smart phones rather than our full embodied sensorium. Simultaneously, we are entertaining the concept that humanity is embedded in creation, not central nor an apex. This watershed realization is the turn from the anthropocentric to the eco-centric, as humanity yields its self-absorption to the biosphere - our common home - as central (>Gk oikos/eco=home).
What qualities are necessary for ethical listening in this posthuman context?
Acoustic ecologist Eric Leonardson notes qualities for a "listening ethic" such as openness, attentiveness, balance, and focus, among others. I consider these qualities to be essential:
Qualities for intra-human ethical listening:
Active & Compassionate Listening - listening with fully embodied attention; thinking and "feeling with" (>L. com-pati = suffering with) the other, not to form a rash response/rebuttal; listening to hear subtle nuances, and what's not being said
Pausing for reflection and consideration prior to responding; forming a cogent response that reflects and integrates what has been shared
Willingness to learn other languages and place ourselves in a position of learner; taking time to learn idiom and nuance in tone and inflection
Understanding and adapting to a variety of communication genres, and embracing Story as a necessary genre for survival and thriving
Digital, linear, and literal thinking have their place in a posthuman context, but binary thinking and responding - "off" or "on," "zero" or "one," "yes" or "no," "up" or "down," etc. should not define healthy human communication.
Posing a "Quick Question" needs to die. Expediency should not be the highest value in communication. Communication is multi-dimensional, not primarily transactional. It is evocative, an invitation to explore depth and nuance. Questions require consideration and reflection. Ask a thoughtful question, allowing for a response that may not value expediency above all.
Practicing humility; admitting we don't know another's perspective fully
Paying attention to the arc of a Story; allowing the storyteller the gift of letting the narrative unfold at their pace, with moments of insight and emphasis, not rushing them to "get to the point," or interpreting the meaning of the Story without checking back for confirmation or amendment
For ethical listening among more-than-human life:
Acknowledging and reflecting humanity's embeddedness in Nature - not standing outside or above Nature as though we dominate or "own" creation as a commodity for sale, abuse, disposal, and general disregard or ill-treatment
Willingness to embrace and learn the primordial languages of Nature
Daily immersive Nature experiences that feature listening as a primary posture, and gentle, reverent interaction as a rule
Responding to Nature's stories, cries and needs with appropriate attention and care for the Whole
Listening as Reciprocity - understanding energy exchange, life cycles, and symbiotic relationship as central to communication
EnJOYing the Natural World - receiving and bestowing joyful energy; giving the gift of our fully embodied presence and joyful energy to creation, free from angry tirades, obscenity, and destructive habits injurious to life and habitat
Imitating Nature's processes, communication models, energy conservation, waste management, and endlessly creative adaptive capacities
Teaching human children to cherish the Natural World and to care for the biosphere, or at least not toxifying or committing atrocities by ignoring Nature's inherent rights, beauty, and intrinsic value
Why do we need ethical listening skills today? Soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause puts it this way, with a haunting invocation of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring:
"A few remaining societies in our vast world know how to listen. It is an inherent part of their existence. One in which the received soundscapes of the forests, high plains, deserts, mountains, and coastal regions combine seamlessly with the visual, olfactory, and tactile senses. In some tropical regions dependence on acoustic perception supersedes that of all the others. Natural soundscapes serve as inspiration for their song and dance. It heals them physically and spiritually. Western society bases most of what it hears, or what it knows on the visual. We actually hear what we see. The World Listening Project aims to transform that perception in our otherwise urban-centric and abstracted lives. At a time when we are facing not only a silent spring, but a silent summer, fall, and winter as well, it is clear that where a picture is worth a thousand words, a soundscape may soon be worth a thousand pictures." (source)
To the Bat-Cave! Let's listen for the reverberation of the energy we put out in the world as it moves carefully, intersects, and bounces off every living being around us and comes back to us as a reflection of our communal goodness. Let's listen well. And let's respond accordingly. Let's be positively Bat-like.