Listening skills

A good listener is alert,
searching for those chance flashes of the world,
moving mountains in their mind.
If you blink, you'll miss it.

Broadly speaking, listening styles exhibit two extremes:
A) Find the truth in what is being said
B) Find the falsehood in what is being said

In A), one works with the conversation partner, saying "yes and", refining the shared viewpoint with active listening approaches.  It recognizes the short comings of language do not imply shortcomings of organization of thoughts, and poorly formulated positions. In general, language is a severe straight-jacket for developed thought frameworks.  It recognizes semantics are defined by connections to other thoughts and terms.

In B), one confronts the conversation partner with holes and flaws in the language, sometimes finding flaws in the argument.  Often debate becomes  semantic in nature, as short comings of language are inherent in its serial, unmathematical and improvised nature.  Often this distracts from convergence to jointly formulated positions, and conceptual and thought frameworks.

Other extremes likely exist.

For example, a third extreme, C), is team free association. Governed less by logic, and more by first impressions, conversations evolve rapidly and richly.

-- (c) 2015 DBW, all rights reserved.

When we all win

To win a debate, one has to desire to be right.
One has to keep fighting until decisive victory,
or time runs out, and the meeting is adjourned.

However, the desire to be right does not make one right.
One fights to learn to be the winner, or loser.
We are all winners when we know and do as is right.
Alas, we are all losers when following a false Prophet.

The truth is not decided by debate.
The truth is in the pudding.
May the truth be told.

"Know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31)
May the truth protect you from what you want.

-- (c) 2010 DBW, all rights reserved.