Can philosophy do anything for better relationships between people?

[Angelo Cannata]

Sartre said that “Hell is other people”, but this doesn’t seem helpful to me: it just sounds like a pessimistic conclusion. On the other hand, Levinas was optimistic, but in a way that seems confused to me. You might answer that if we love each other, we’ll have better relationships. My objection is: if the solution is so simple and clear, why isn’t it adopted, why is it difficult to practice? Can we think about some kind of practice that, if practiced, would favour better relationships? If you think that we are all “homo homini lupus“ (Hobbes, but others as well), why is that and what can we do?

Besides, the “other” can even be myself and this would open a lot of other questions connected to my opening one.

You can give your answer depending on what you think about the single words in the question and the concepts involved in it. For example, you might ask if “better” exists and what it is; in that case you can try to give an answer to the opening question according to your ideas about that, rather than making the question dispersed in side topics.

[chewybrian]

Sartre said that “Hell is other people”, but this doesn’t seem helpful to me: it just sounds like a pessimistic conclusion.

I don't think you are giving enough credit to Sartre for the point he was trying to make. In "No Exit", the characters think they are in the waiting room for hell, only to discover that the room actually was hell. Hell was not flames and pitchforks, but the judgement of others. None of the three got the recognition they wanted from the others, and they judged each other solely on their actions they took when they were alive. Each wanted to carve out an exception for themselves that took into account the particulars of their lives, but they did not want to make the same exception for the others.

He's not trying to condemn people as hopelessly, intentionally evil. He's pointing out that danger that we are all apt to unwittingly view the rest of the world as objects, including other people. Without using due care, we are likely to categorize them based on the roles in which we encounter them, or to declare them to be a certain type of person based upon a particular act, without dissecting the reasons for their actions. We know ourselves as a subject, and we know that we had a reason for everything we did. Yet, others have their reasons, too. When we decide, "Nancy is a jerk", or "Bob is lazy", these ideas have a self-fulfilling aspect, as we will tend to look at future interactions with them through the lens of these assumptions. We will not allow them the room to grow and change, the same allowance we wish to carve out for ourselves. If we heed Sartre's warning, we can be better people and treat others better by approaching them as complex subjects, worthy of respect in most cases.

[Pattern-chaser]

Can we think about some kind of practice that, if practiced, would favour better relationships?

I can conceive of such a practice, but I'm not sure what it might be. I don't think it is philosophy, though. Philosophy is like a bigger and (much) more general thing than science, but it's still that kind of tool. It seeks knowledge, understanding, and stuff like that. Human relationships, however, are not governed by logic, they often do not have any discernible structure, and no obvious raison d'être. I believe human relationships can be understood, and I believe there are humans out there who have achieved some or all of this understanding, but I am not one of them.

Perhaps the practice you seek is the human version of sociology? Sociology seeks the knowledge that an alien might have, if they observed us carefully, and in depth, for many centuries. It is external knowledge, compiled, and even used, with no - zero! - understanding of what it is to be human. If we can imagine a human version of this outside-looking-in practice, perhaps it might meet the need you describe?

[AverageBozo]

There is a straightforward practice that can lead to better relationships, but it isn’t found in philosophy.

Practice by doing.

The secret to better relationships lies in relating to other humans.

It is practiced by many—some with greater diligence than others, some with greater results than others.

The more relationships are established, the better the relationships will be.

[mystery]

often we set priority on other goals and then complain about why our relationships fail.

for example, we set priority on status and wealth, usually achieving those means that we are directly or indirectly taking money or attention from another. at some level we trade relationships for status and or wealth. remember it is all zero sum.

we would need a culture that does not reward wealth and status, not sure how that would work as humans are hard-wired for some of those behaviors.

as it is and must be, most of our relationships will have an element of competition for wealth and status. as we take from another we pay in relationship points.

a true partner is the best relationship until competition and or greed causes us to lose our relationship points.

the answer is in how we validate, if we do not need or seek external validation then we do not spend relationship points with greed to get power.

[Nick_A]

Sartre said that “Hell is other people”, but this doesn’t seem helpful to me: it just sounds like a pessimistic conclusion. On the other hand, Levinas was optimistic, but in a way that seems confused to me. You might answer that if we love each other, we’ll have better relationships. My objection is: if the solution is so simple and clear, why isn’t it adopted, why is it difficult to practice? Can we think about some kind of practice that, if practiced, would favour better relationships? If you think that we are all “homo homini lupus“ (Hobbes, but others as well), why is that and what can we do?

Besides, the “other” can even be myself and this would open a lot of other questions connected to my opening one.

You can give your answer depending on what you think about the single words in the question and the concepts involved in it. For example, you might ask if “better” exists and what it is; in that case you can try to give an answer to the opening question according to your ideas about that, rather than making the question dispersed in side topics.

The sad truth is that we don't know how to listen. We know how to argue but who knows how to listen and what it means to listen? Maybe hell isn't the other person but it is you and I only because people as a whole don't know how to listen.

Jacob Needleman in this video describes an experiment in listening he did with college kids. He put them in a position where they had to listen. At the conclusion they learned they may disagree but do not hate. Is there a future in learning how to listen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSOs4ti0sm0

[mystery]

Sartre said that “Hell is other people”, but this doesn’t seem helpful to me: it just sounds like a pessimistic conclusion. On the other hand, Levinas was optimistic, but in a way that seems confused to me. You might answer that if we love each other, we’ll have better relationships. My objection is: if the solution is so simple and clear, why isn’t it adopted, why is it difficult to practice? Can we think about some kind of practice that, if practiced, would favour better relationships? If you think that we are all “homo homini lupus“ (Hobbes, but others as well), why is that and what can we do?

Besides, the “other” can even be myself and this would open a lot of other questions connected to my opening one.

You can give your answer depending on what you think about the single words in the question and the concepts involved in it. For example, you might ask if “better” exists and what it is; in that case you can try to give an answer to the opening question according to your ideas about that, rather than making the question dispersed in side topics.

The sad truth is that we don't know how to listen. We know how to argue but who knows how to listen and what it means to listen? Maybe hell isn't the other person but it is you and I only because people as a whole don't know how to listen.

Jacob Needleman in this video describes an experiment in listening he did with college kids. He put them in a position where they had to listen. At the conclusion they learned they may disagree but do not hate. Is there a future in learning how to listen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSOs4ti0sm0

true.... but why do we not listen by default?

[Angelo Cannata]

I disagree with Needleman’s thesis. He solves the problem of lack of listening by finding somebody to blame. This is the mechanism he calls “morality”: “aren’t you listening? Then you are immoral, you are selfish”. This is a terrible way of solving problems, because it relies essentially in finding a victim to punish, which is the guilty one. Once you think you found the guilty, so that you found somebody to punish, you think you don’t need anymore to do further critical and self-critical research. Paradoxically, Neddleman’s method of understanding the phenomenon on lack-of-listening lacks listening itself, because, instead of trying to understand the mechanisms that prevented listening, it just listens to its own prejudiced answer, which is, lack of listening happens because of lack of morality. This is devastating.

The problem of lack of agreement can be analyzed much better by trying to understand the mechanisms that cause lack of listening.

As a first idea we can realize that we, as humans with lots of limits, cannot listen to everybody and everything, because our time is short, our life is short, our resources are limited. A consequence of our brain consists in building an environment of connections, so that what we listen to is filtered, interpreted, in order to catch some meaning from it and so be able to elaborate some reaction.
That’s the core of the problem of listening: listening implies interpreting. Listening does not exist without intepretation.
As a consequence, the way to improve our listening skill consists in improving, continuously, our the interpretation instruments that our mind makes use of.

There is nobody to blame, no morality to state, no guilty people, no selfishness to use as a weapon to blame people. There is only a lot of immense work to study, criticise, improve, evolve, our interpreting, our ability to interpret.

[Nick_A]

I disagree with Needleman’s thesis. He solves the problem of lack of listening by finding somebody to blame. This is the mechanism he calls “morality”: “aren’t you listening? Then you are immoral, you are selfish”. This is a terrible way of solving problems, because it relies essentially in finding a victim to punish, which is the guilty one. Once you think you found the guilty, so that you found somebody to punish, you think you don’t need anymore to do further critical and self-critical research. Paradoxically, Neddleman’s method of understanding the phenomenon on lack-of-listening lacks listening itself, because, instead of trying to understand the mechanisms that prevented listening, it just listens to its own prejudiced answer, which is, lack of listening happens because of lack of morality. This is devastating.

The problem of lack of agreement can be analyzed much better by trying to understand the mechanisms that cause lack of listening.

As a first idea we can realize that we, as humans with lots of limits, cannot listen to everybody and everything, because our time is short, our life is short, our resources are limited. A consequence of our brain consists in building an environment of connections, so that what we listen to is filtered, interpreted, in order to catch some meaning from it and so be able to elaborate some reaction.
That’s the core of the problem of listening: listening implies interpreting. Listening does not exist without intepretation.
As a consequence, the way to improve our listening skill consists in improving, continuously, our the interpretation instruments that our mind makes use of.

There is nobody to blame, no morality to state, no guilty people, no selfishness to use as a weapon to blame people. There is only a lot of immense work to study, criticise, improve, evolve, our interpreting, our ability to interpret.

I really do not think you've understood what Prof Needleman meant by listening. This experiment in listening demonstrates how difficult it is to listen and how easily a person falls into interpretations and judgement.

He invites two kids to discuss a hot topic like abortion by requiring that they explain their opponents position to their satisfaction. There is no good kid/bad kid here but just two opinions. Can either kid describe their opponents position and retorts to their satisfaction?

Some say because we live by interpretation and judgement, it is impossible to listen. Prof Needleman describes how learning to consciously listen without interpretations and judging is possible. The kids did it. Is it possible for others like you and me? That is the question.

[Angelo Cannata]

There is no good kid/bad kid

Needleman says explicitly that he sets his experiment in the context of morality and ethics. Morality and ethics are precisely about conscious responsibility in what is good and what is bad. Morality means that, if I do something bad, I’m consciously responsible of what I have done, so, at least to some extent, good/bad becomes extended to the person, not only to the action or the fact. We don’t talk about morality when we refer to animals, because we think they are not consciously responsible of the good/bad quality of their actions. We think that humans are, so, yes, as a consequence, there is good kid/bad kid.

Prof Needleman describes how learning to consciously listen without interpretations and judging is possible.

Learning without interpretation is impossible, because our brain is not an empty box; any information coming to our brain is inevitably modelled, shaped, filtered, we can even say distorted, by our brain.

[Nick_A]

There is no good kid/bad kid

Needleman says explicitly that he sets his experiment in the context of morality and ethics. Morality and ethics are precisely about conscious responsibility in what is good and what is bad. Morality means that, if I do something bad, I’m consciously responsible of what I have done, so, at least to some extent, good/bad becomes extended to the person, not only to the action or the fact. We don’t talk about morality when we refer to animals, because we think they are not consciously responsible of the good/bad quality of their actions. We think that humans are, so, yes, as a consequence, there is good kid/bad kid.

Prof Needleman describes how learning to consciously listen without interpretations and judging is possible.

Learning without interpretation is impossible, because our brain is not an empty box; any information coming to our brain is inevitably modelled, shaped, filtered, we can even say distorted, by our brain.

I think you are confusing personal morality with collective morality or indoctrination. We are both oppesed to collective or societal indoctrination which society calls morality. People cn fly planes into building or chanting things like BLM as they break things and call it moral

Prof Needleman is referring to personal morality or what we discover and feel as the right thing to do. The experience of conscience is related to conscious listening or listening without judging. We can learn to listen, or to see without judging. Simone Weil describes her experience.

There Comes

If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,

there comes
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;

if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.

A person can get out of their own way long enough to become impartial. Then as Prof. Needleman describes, you can let the other in to your space. It enables a person to feel "conscience", rather than reacting to our conditioning. The experience of personal morality or conscience leads to freedom while indoctrination into societal collective morality leads to slavery

[Angelo Cannata]

Recommending not to judge is itself a judgement.
Morality and causality are reciprocally excluding: to the extent you are determined by something, you are not responsible. This means that morality takes people off from further looking for causes and finding better solutions.
Choosing to enter into the cage of morality can be perceived as freedom, but actually nobody is free: we can just choose the cage that we think is better, or less bad.

[Pattern-chaser]

Prof Needleman describes how learning to consciously listen without interpretations and judging is possible.

Learning without interpretation is impossible, because our brain is not an empty box; any information coming to our brain is inevitably modelled, shaped, filtered, we can even say distorted, by our brain.

I think you are confusing personal morality with collective morality or indoctrination.

I think you are talking about different things. Angelo refers to our pre-conscious process of perception, whereby raw sense data are analysed, interpreted and fitted to our internal world models before the results are passed to our conscious mind. This processing is part of what we do, just as breathing and digestion are, and we are unable to do otherwise.

But the idea of careful listening, although it sounds like it might be the same thing, is something different. It refers to us withholding judgement, consciously and deliberately, and just considering the facts. Nothing else, at first, but only consider the facts. Later we might judge, but initially the Professor recommends just listening.

Two quite different things.

[Nick_A]

There is no good kid/bad kid

Needleman says explicitly that he sets his experiment in the context of morality and ethics. Morality and ethics are precisely about conscious responsibility in what is good and what is bad. Morality means that, if I do something bad, I’m consciously responsible of what I have done, so, at least to some extent, good/bad becomes extended to the person, not only to the action or the fact. We don’t talk about morality when we refer to animals, because we think they are not consciously responsible of the good/bad quality of their actions. We think that humans are, so, yes, as a consequence, there is good kid/bad kid.

Prof Needleman describes how learning to consciously listen without interpretations and judging is possible.

Learning without interpretation is impossible, because our brain is not an empty box; any information coming to our brain is inevitably modelled, shaped, filtered, we can even say distorted, by our brain.

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self."
- Albert Einstein

Angelo asserts that we are ourselves and limited to interpretations.

Einstein suggests that the true value of a human being is freedom from the self and its interpretations

Can we conclude that as we are, prisoners in Plato's cave, attached to the shadows on the wall, by definition we lack value?

[Pattern-chaser]

Angelo asserts that we are ourselves and limited to interpretations.

Einstein suggests that the true value of a human being is freedom from the self and its interpretations

Can we conclude that as we are, prisoners in Plato's cave, attached to the shadows on the wall, by definition we lack value?

Angelo and Einstein are talking about quite different things, no?