Listening plays the biggest part in Wiesel’s worldview. One of the things he teaches his students, he says, is communication. Wiesel’s opinion is that Cain killed Abel on lack of communication. The definition of communication is to effectively talk and listen. Part of a question asked by Heffner was “Does it seem to you that we’re not listening to the world around us…” Wiesel answered “absolutely.” He uses the example of teenagers and how we’ve always got music playing in our ears. He views that as a symbol of not wanting to listen to the rest of the world and only caring about personal interests. I agree, in a way. Often times I block out the needs of others around me because I’m having a bad day or something else is more important to me. If we were to take time to focus on our “brothers”, or the world around us, we would be able to listen more in depth about other issues going on and not just our own.
Nikki, I agree with your statement about blocking others out with music; I do the same exact thing. It's not that I care about the people or issues around me, but sometimes I just need time to reflect and be in my "own world" so to speak. As long as we don't leave the headphones in for too long, I think we'll get a healthy dose of "listening" to ourselves and other people.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people block out what's going on around them, but I don't believe we don't want to listen. I think that people have come to fear what's going on in the world so we unintentionally ignore what's going on. Once people realize that they can help and make a difference, they will be more likely to listen and actually change what's going on around the world.
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