Listening

Utilitarian ideals argue that society exists to further the interests and goals of the individual.  Democracy in this context is not that great experiment hallowed by so many speakers, but rather an arrangement among the willing charged with maximizing individuals' personal liberty while providing for a contract of protection from harm or impingement of those freedoms.  This type of setup is predicated on the notion that an individual is etymologically just that, not divisible; unified; singular.  This modernist thinking places the concerns of the individual at the center of any discussion of freedom or governance.  Because of the stratospheric importance modernism ascribes to the one, it allows for the diminishment of the many and relegates it to a depedestalized place.

This gives rise to "entrepreneurial individualism" (72) and, for the author, celebrates a mis-embrace of Darwinian social codes.  "Those who appear not to make use of these conditions (supposedly open to all), or who appear to lack the potential to accrue privileges, are systematically devalued as less than full citizens" (72).  In other words, the contributions of people who do not strive for widely accepted and widely desired social capital are not recognized as legitimate.

This is ameliorated by listening, and is very much more in line with a definition of democracy that is not separate from those its governs, but rather arises from members' acknowledgement of each other's personhood.  Associated living, for Dewey.  And this listening has much more to do with actual listening and much less to do with speaking a common language, as illustrated on pages 76 and 77 when Shayne easily translates Isaac's sounds into words for the researcher (76-77).  The reason she is so adroit is because she has had experience listening to him.  Given the nature of last week's reading and its primacy of sound, I guess this is not surprising to me.  I can see examples of this in my life, as well.  The people and situations I am familiar with are the easiest for me to navigate by sound.  The author wants us to have this revelation, I believe, and to do so at the beneficent expense of highlighting the myopic inadequacies of utilitarian thought.

Not unlike culture at large, school culture arbitrarily privileges certain types of knowledge over others.  The author points out that Shayne teaches in a way that acknowledges this and tries to turn it on its ear by listening.  "She intuitively rejected the notion that nonconformity to the academic norm meant a student  inherently lacked intelligence or was intrinsically burdensome" (83).  Modernism and utilitarianism favor behavior patterns that lie closely with the ideals of ancient Sparta where all human activity was directed toward the goal of warrior-making, with any undesirables becoming uncharitable by-products of this aim.  The author illustrates the vestiges of this kind of thinking in contemporary society just before telling the story of John Mcgough, "According to Shayne, the notion of Down  syndrome often obscures our ability to recognize the child as a child. She or he becomes a walking pathological syndrome, a mobile defect on the loose" (86).  But Shayne and others think that, since the formal and informal tests that students are being endlessly subjected to are made and scored by people who think that children with Down syndrome are intrinsically burdensome, then it is the assessment and not the student that is flawed.    

To close this week on a personal note, this reading makes the most sense to me when I just focus on the author's early credence to the act of listening.  I think that most of my musical favorites are favorites because their music is born out of a great deal of listening.  To everything.  That which is within and without.  Making music with people who are listening is infinitely more enjoyable and productive than otherwise.  Listening is not passive, it's an activity that presupposes vulnerability on the listener's part and involves a bringing-in of the outside and reckoning it that which is within.  Miles Davis, for example, put together great bands because he knew how to listen.  And the tradition of large ensemble playing will reemerge and supplant the past 60+ years of solo player trends.  Until that happens, here is a band who exemplifies what it means to listen.

Also, view below a great poem by a consistently great poet that touches on an idea that has come up a couple of times in class.