Listening, Culture, and Structures of Consciousness: Ways of Studying Listening. more

Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness: Ways of Studying Listening Michael W. Purdy Governors State University Listening research has focused on methods borrowed from psychology and the study of communication. This article describes a broader approach to the study of listening that encompasses quantitative and qualitative methodology and goes further to explore the larger field of human experience. Structures of consciousness are described that present very expansive ways to understand listening in cultural context. Last year a listening colleague directed me to an article about listening among the Blackfeet Indians. The article was an apt example of different ways of studying listening. The abstract for the article states: Blackfeet ―listening‖ is thus a highly reflective and revelatory mode of communication that can open one to the mysteries of unity between the physical and spiritual, to the relationships between natural and human forms, and to the intimate links between places and persons, all the while providing protection, power, and enhanced knowledge of one’s small place in the world. This is an entrance into sympathetic listening, the sense that there is a vital listening or listening attunement between the Blackfeet and their world. This is only one example of ways of studying listening that may open new understanding for research. This paper will present a brief review of current models of research in listening, with the intent of opening an approach to research that can expand and enrich the field of listening. In the article I will sketch out four ways of listening and then detail the cultural structures of consciousness that each is derived from. Finally, I will discuss some implications for listening study. THE NATURE OF LISTENING RESEARCH Current Listening Theory Current listening theory is generally caught up in what Vernon Cronin (1998) calls the psychology project. This is the tendency of communication studies to follow the lead of cognitive psychology in viewing communication (and listening) as a product of a thinking individual. This cognitive direction is founded on what Cronin and others refer to as the ―received view‖ of Enlightenment thought (including the mind–body dualism of Descartes), and the methods of psychology–based social research. The primary problem with a cognitive approach for listening is that study is focused on the individual and leads to a psychological approach to the understanding of listening. I think most of the study of listening is still premised on the assumption that ―meaning is in people‖—the meaning of a message is assigned by the individual listener. The implication is that the listener alone determines (constructs1) the meaning of what is being said. This stresses the preeminent role of the listener but actually goes beyond any reasonable understanding of the experience of listening. There has been some study suggesting that listening is something more than the result 1 This is similar to the ILA definition in that it does not necessarily include creation of meaning by the individual alone, though that interpretation seems to be implied. (lis–ten–ing n (1996): "the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.‖ From ILA website, www.listen.org .) Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness of the assigned meanings of the listener (Purdy 1991), that listening is a community affair. In this perception listening is part of an inter–active (even multi–active) process, a field, involving other individuals, social and cultural forces, language (or more broadly human expression), and a physical environment, at least. And in this sense listening per se is not the best term, but listening probably describes human interaction better than the term we have been using— communication. It should be understood in this paper then, that when I refer to listening, I mean this multi–active (as opposed to inter–active) process of human relationship. The whole history of the study of listening has taken rational analysis as its metaphor. The tendency of most listening research is to follow the pattern of psychology and statistical study: break a phenomena into its relevant listening factors, find all of the parts or components of the phenomenon of listening, discover the successive stages in the processing of messages, and develop constructs that take in all of the relevant characteristics/attributes. We see factor analysis as well in our tests and formal measurement of the phenomena of listening. Every definition of listening and most attempts to explain and theorize about listening break listening into the relevant components or units, such as types of listening—appreciative, discriminatory, analytic, empathic— or they break out all of the stages in the listening process: attention, perception, interpretation, constructing meaning, and responding. These are various constructs for rationally understanding listening. Listening (and actually most of communication) theory works to develop constructs that lump the characteristics/attributes of listening together into categorizations that fit some preconceived or data directed conception that can be perceived and interpreted in different ways. Constructs, then, do not actually exist as observable phenomena, as opposed to characteristics/attributes that can be concretely observed. Some typical constructs include empathy, interpretation, effective listening, competent listening, active listening, decoding, and many others (See Witkin & Trochin 1997). Listening, and communication in general, do most of their theorizing at the conceptual (construct) level probably because this is the level of social construction and that is what human interaction is about. So for our field of study the careful choice of constructs (and more loosely metaphors), and their development is very important. The structures of consciousness I will develop in this paper, however, go beyond theory development (i.e., description and identification of attributes/characteristics, development of constructs, the forming of statements from the constructs—some set of causal, temporal, or associational relationships, and the testing of those statements through well–formulated hypotheses). They deal with a description and apprehension of the broad (intercultural) human field within which research and all ways of listening happen. Three Main Camps of Listening Research We can summarize current listening research into three main camps: the quantitative– statistical, the conceptual/metaphorical (which is in part descriptive and may include narrative theory), and the ―descriptive‖ (the field which I am explicating). The quantitative is represented in attempts to measure, manage controlled experiments and assess listening skills. The conceptual approach includes studies that are essentially qualitative/descriptive (including concepts/constructs and metaphors) but may include quantitative analysis and attempts to state rules/laws of behavior as the study gets refined— quantitative and qualitative are often complementary and support each other in grounded research. This is a common approach in listening beginning with Nichols and Steil’s (Steil, Watson & Barker, 1983) early lists of characteristics of good and poor listeners. More recent studies such as the listening profile by Watson, Barker and Weaver (1995), listener preferences (Watson, Lazarus & Thomas, 1999), characteristics of good and poor listeners by Purdy and Newman (1999, 2000), Brandt (nd), and Imhof (June, 2000, correspondence about research in progress) have started in a similar fashion. These studies begin with a questionnaire or other instrument that collects perceptions about listening from subjects. The instrument is the 2 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness descriptive part where subjects are used by the researcher to help describe some aspect of listening behavior that has been previously conceptualized. These studies often use descriptive statistics to organize and present an interpretation of the results. These studies are also problematic or limited, however, in that they are asking others—subjects—to help the researcher describe the process of listening. What results is a social construct. The research is either tapping into a social perception of listening or may even be helping to create a perception of listening that didn’t wholly exist previously. For example, subjects may not have thought about a typology of the listener, a listener profile, but once suggested the concept gets integrated into common thinking and behavior. Some concepts like empathetic listening are now well engrained in social perceptions. This tapping into social perceptions was very obvious in Purdy’s research on listening and gender (2000). Subjects were clearly describing the cultural constructs/stereotypes about gender and listening (of course the study of these socially constructed and constantly changing perceptions is valuable in its own right). Women were associated with the characteristics of good listeners and men with the characteristics of poor listeners. However, women, although expected to carry the communication because of their superior skills still had less social power than men. Although the stereotypes are self–reinforcing, there is also a sense in which they are false. Each of us can easily think of a male who has many characteristics of a good listener. I have run into this limitation in my qualitative/descriptive research over the years. Naive subjects are not, in general, aware enough of their own processes to help describe the complexity of listening. For the most part they don’t know how to perceive beyond the constructed and stereotypical social world (although as individuals they may reveal interesting insights in interviews, for example, where the researcher can track what the subject says and can push them to new observations). So for all its advantages, among them the ability to complement the methods of quantitative research, qualitative research is still in the rational (cognitive) camp of trying to explain listening behavior. There is another way to perceive and study listening aside from the rational methods derived from psychology that the listening field has been using. The third camp, or way, is descriptive research (philosophical phenomenology) and takes as its task the description of human behavior using disciplined methods. Phenomenology expands the reach of qualitative research but it also undergirds the methodology of quantitative studies as well (Purdy 1986, 1988, 1989). So in a very real sense the descriptive method is not only a third way of perceiving listening, but also the fundamental way of all research—it constitutes the field within which research works. In fact, the integral consciousness structure now emerging opened the way for integral tools of research, such as the descriptive/phenomenological method. Pure descriptive/phenomenological research (referred to as ―descriptive‖ hereafter) works to describe rather than explain what presents itself as communicative in human experience. Descriptive research is akin to what I am going to relate as ways of listening, but the modes of listening I will present are much broader and references to these ways of listening are seldom found in the rational research literature (or even most qualitative research), although they can be found in descriptive and narrative studies, such as the study of the Blackfeet. GEBSER’S STRUCTURES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND WAYS OF LISTENING The Five Structures of Consciousness This paper’s descriptive approach to the phenomenon of listening is based on the five structures of consciousness of Jean Gebser (1985). Gebser’s work on consciousness is a phenomenology of culture, a description of the ways of being in the world or of constructing a world. The study of consciousness is the study of the way we conceive of reality, but more it provides an understanding of the way we structure all of our experience whether conceived to be 3 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness real or otherwise. Here, and in previous papers (Purdy 1982, 1991) and presentations (Purdy 1995), I extend Gebser’s structures to elaborate how listening is an embedded process within each way of being in the world. Jean Gebser has described five structures of consciousness: archaic, magic, mythic, mental, and the currently emerging integral (see figure 1). Each of these structures correlates with "historical" and current ways2 or modes of communication/listening operating in human communication experience—all are present as part of everyday experience for all contemporary peoples. Let me describe each briefly and then develop the last four in more detail. Figure 1: Consciousness Struct ure rty Essence/Prope Structures and Attributions Emphasis Objective (aspect of world)/Subjective (energy or initiator) Unconscious spirit/None Nature/Emotion Soul (Psyche)/Imagination Space– World/Abstraction (Conscious Spirit)/Concretion Organ Emphasis Relationships (Social) ic Archa Magic Mythi Identity (Integrality) Unity (Oneness/fusion) Circular and polar complementarity Duality (Opposition) Transparency (Rendering whole) ––– Viscera– –– Tribal world (clan, kith, kin)/natural Parental world (ancestor worship) predominantly matriarchal (matrilineal?) Individuality/predomin antly patriarchal Mankind/humankind (brotherhood and sisterhood?) Ear cal Menta l al Integr Heart– Mouth Brain– Eye on Integrati (Adapted and condensed from Gebser 1985, appendix) Archaic Listening? The archaic mode of listening is really meaningless for all intents and purposes. In the archaic structure everything is fused in a seamless identity and listening doesn’t make sense because every person is totally connected with every other person. This may be the experience of mystical states where there is a total merging of the individual soul with the ocean of consciousness, as in Hinduism. The other four modes of consciousness and hence listening are readily useful, though not necessarily easily accessed. Let me briefly describe these four modes of listening as sympathetic, empathetic, rational, and conscious listening, and follow up with a more elaborated development of each mode describing its historical connection and how it is recognized and used in everyday experience. Sympathetic Listening Sympathetic listening is allied with what is called magical consciousness. Practically, this is alien from the perspective of modern communication scholars who think of communication as bridging a gap between people. In magic consciousness there is no gap. What is called sympathy 22 In my earliest work with Gebser’s structures of consciousness and listening I have used the word ―style‖ to describe these ways of listening. I now think style is less useful than ―mode,‖ which implies the way something is done. In this paper I will interchangeably use mode or way. 4 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness is often confused with empathy3; they are quite different, as I will make clear, though they must in many ways support each other. Sympathy is feeling with the ―other‖ in listening. It is an attunement to the life force of the other (and ―self,‖ see 1978 Gendlin reference to focusing); it is being in harmony with the being of another person at a gut/vital ―level.‖ We are always listening to the other (and the world in general) in this primal way, even if we are not consciously aware of it. Some would call this the unconscious realm; I would prefer to think of it as less conscious, because we can access it if we train ourselves to do so. Empathetic Listening Empathetic listening is the mythic structure of consciousness in Gebser’s description. Whereas sympathy is bodily attunement, empathy is a function of imagination, being able to imagine what it is like to be in the other’s shoes, not as a thinking process, but as a felt connection, a heart thing. In English dictionaries, such as the etymologically authoritative Webster’s New International, 2nd ed., (1951), empathy is defined as ―Imaginative projection of one’s own consciousness into another being.‖ This is the exact sense of what I call empathetic listening. I believe the connection/tension of empathy (along with sympathy) underlies all communication/listening, and is in fact the template for relational communication. Rational Listening Rational listening is the way of listening as thinking. Rational listening is related to the mental structure of consciousness and is the predominate mode of listening in most of the contemporary western world. It is listening as an attempt to figure out what the other is saying. We read the nonverbal of the other, we try to fill in between the lines, listen to what is not said, and we analyze and categorize the other (for example typing as in the use of the Myers–Briggs instrument) to understand what they are saying. For example in the 1996 Seventh Annual International Conference on Work Teams we find statements such as: Nonverbal listening—work team members can use non–verbal clues to help with the recruiting, meeting and helping to socialize new team members. Being able to decipher the true meaning of the message through analyzing the team members nonverbal communication is vital (in Bommelje, 2000). This statement is typical of the figuring out, or deciphering as a way of listening. Rational consciousness is the mode of our research in listening, and also the way we think about the process of listening as I have described in detail above. Conscious Listening Conscious listening is the label I give to what Gebser calls the integral structure of consciousness. The integral structure is still not fully articulated, it began emerging in the 19th century and is still developing. As a first move, the integral allows us to access all of the other modes of listening, both individually and together. In conscious listening the person is aware of all of the ways of listening simultaneously and transparently and integrates them into a whole understanding. But unlike the rational this process is not about psychology, an individual’s meaning. Conscious listening is listening as part of a cultural field. In the postmodern world the bar has been raised and we are expected to be conscious listeners in every area of our lives, listening not just for ourselves but also for our family, organization and community. 3 In fact, Gebser uses the word empathy to refer to this structure of consciousness, but in German empathy has more a sense of ―filling in for‖ (em–füllen), in the sense that a mother would reach out to literally or fill in to help a child accomplish a task. 5 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness MAGIC CONSCIOUSNESS: SYMPATHETIC LISTENING Jean Gebser's depiction of modes of consciousness derives from a strict phenomenological description of historical cultures and civilizations. The magical structure of consciousness is obviously depicted phenomenologically in statues with no mouth. No mouth, no speaking (no orality), no myth. The lack of a mouth on figurines in the historical era of magic consciousness "indicates to what extent magic man4 placed significance on what he heard, that is, on the sounds of nature [my emphasis], and not on what was spoken" (Gebser, 1985, p. 57). This doesn’t mean magic peoples did not speak, but rather that speaking was not highlighted as important. This can "be experienced today, as will be evident to anyone who has ever felt utterly spellbound by music, especially in a large audience whose members have become one with the music, with the performer, with one another" (Behnke, 1987, p. 7). A correlate of the spell of music is the over–powering role of emotion activated by hearing. 4 ―Man‖ is a generic term for what we might today call ―people‖. I will use Gebser’s term when discussing early structures of consciousness to maintain some continuity. Man is also an appropriate term for the mental consciousness, which is predominately patriarchical. For the integral I have self– consciously adopted the transparent gender–neutral language that is appropriate. 6 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness The magic structure is an auditory consciousness, directed by the ear, see Fig. 1 (still present today in the use of the command ―listen‖ to mean ―obey‖). Although, historically, magic consciousness was auditory and placed emphasis on what was heard, that hearing was not "oral" and was not listening by most current definitions of listening, but rather, hearing. As de Kerckhove writes "Listening is a product of selective attention, as opposed to hearing, which is not inner but outer–controlled" (6). There is no individual selective attention, or interpretation in the auditory experience of magic consciousness; the process of magic communication is not a process, but an identification—Gebser says it is telepathic in that speaking did not connect people, people were connected by a vital attunement, a visceral connection that we might call psychic today (for example when a dear one is in trouble and a relative or friend senses their anguish in a paranormal way). That is, the vital attunement was correlated with the unitary world of the clan ego where the individual didn’t exist. Communication between members of the group–ego, the 'We,' does not as yet require language. . . . The egolessness of the individual . . . demands participation and communication on the basis of the collective and vital intentions; the inseparable bonds of the clan are the dominant principle" (Gebser, 1985, p. 58). The group "communicates" in a "celebration" of its unitary action and is vitally intermeshed and in harmony with nature. But since there is no individuated ego the relationship of members of the group ego is one which would not even single out a phenomena called communication (as we define the term today). Indeed, there are a number of cultures yet today which have no word for communication, i.e., there is no need to differentiate or label a process that joins separate individuals. If individuals experience no separateness—no differentiation from others, as is typical of magic consciousness (just the opposite is experienced in the rational consciousness—see below)—there is no need to communicate to reduce the distance or uncertainty. A para–magical communication experience is described today in the area of nonverbal communication, as for example, in John Steven's term "confluence." "Confluence means 'flowing together,' as two streams joining together into a single stream" (pp. 121–22). Magic man possesses a vital potency by which "the entire body . . . forms a seamless transition to the flux of things and nature with which he is merged" (Gebser, 1985, p. 64). This mergence with nature is also an auditory awareness and attunement with the world as mentioned above as typical of the Blackfeet and other Native American tribes. Listening to the natural world (including other humans) was a normal way of being. Tribal peoples are audially attuned with their world, they are in harmony—they ―walk in beauty‖, as the Navajo would say. Hearing for the magic consciousness is the hearing of a people without ego or responsibility (Gebser, 1985, p. 60). "The vital," the operative principle of the magic structure of consciousness, "though lucidly receptive, is blind, and due to its blindness is destructive" (Gebser, 1985, p. 60). Today, when magic operates in this way it is destructively deficient, as when crowds are emotionally swept up in the rhetoric of a Hitler, a Mussolini or other demagogue. With the mythic structure of consciousness man becomes "sighted" or awake, and emerges from this dormant magic consciousness to an articulate myth–producing, verbal (truly oral) era. The Greek word mythos originally meant to speak or discourse, and the telling of myths is the epitome of oral culture—that is, myth/speaking (and implied, hearing) articulates the world. There is still today a magical force operating in the phenomenon of story telling. That is, although story telling is mythic, it depends on the less than conscious attunement of speaker/audience. The trance–like state of the listener involved in mythic story telling is probably not as all–encompassing and impermeable as that of magic man. The original Latin meaning for the word ―trance‖ means to die, or literally "to go across." Audiences today operating from an integral consciousness allow themselves to enter a trance in complicity with 7 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness the speaker. (A "rational" audience would typically not want to be submerged "unwillingly" in a magical, less–conscious state.) Generally, we are not very aware of the magical consciousness at work today. It functions at less consciousness levels, as when a group (such as a sport, or debate team) communicates in such synchrony that they don't stop to think about the correlation of their communication/listening with others, it just happens. Magical consciousness is identification with nature, and the mutation to mythic consciousness is a transition from "the rhythm of nature with its conspicuous auditory emphasis [which] becomes, in a purely natural way, temporal" (Gebser, 1985, p. 61). The mutational shift from one consciousness structure to another should not be understood as a biological mutation which leads to a specialization of function, but as a qualitative shift which leads toward "structural enrichment and dimensional increment" (Gebser, 1985, p. 38). The magic and the mythic overlap, historically, around the third millennium B.C. according to Gebser (1985, p. 57), bringing about new aspects of human consciousness. MYTHIC CONSCIOUSNESS: EMPATHETIC LISTENING Mythic consciousness is identified by a circular time sense following the rhythms of nature. The predominant relationship of the mythic is ancestral, and matriarchy is common. The heart is the organ that predominates and mythic cultures are easily identified by the references to the heart, as in the heart sutras of Buddhism, the wisdom literature of the Hebrews, and the sense that the heart listens in ancient Egyptian ―thought‖ (Purdy, 1998). Whereas the magic structure of consciousness is "an expression of one–dimensional unity and man's merging with nature," (Gebser, 1985, p. 66) the expression of the mythic consciousness is a two–dimensional, polar relationship, between sound and silence, speaking and muteness. Because of the polar tension in the mythic consciousness there cannot be speaking without silence or listening. This is the polarity of the yin and the yang, "where each gives way to the other, yet each already calls forth the other as its complement—like night and day, female and male, listener and speaker" (Purdy, 1982, p. 51). At the same time each pole can become its complement, meaning listener and speaker are interchangeable ―roles.‖ In mythic India when a student (or disciple) comes to a teacher (or guru) to learn, a long period of time elapses (perhaps many years) where the student listens to the teacher without speaking. This first stage of the learning relationship is that of the "muni," one who is silent and listens. (Indian, or other Asian students who respectfully listen in class enthrall all of us in the teaching profession.) Myth is the closing of mouth and eyes; since it is a silent, inward–directed contemplation, it renders the soul visible so that it may be visualized, represented, heard, and made audible. Myth is this representing and making audible: the articulation, the announcement, the report . . . of what has been seen and heard (Gebser, 1985, p. 67). By soul, Jean Gebser means the psyche or self–consciousness, the coming into awareness of the individual. Myth—orality—is the expression of the individual's thoughts so they may be heard5. What any individual (not yet an individuated per–sona or ego) has made a part of his or her experience can be reported for others to share. The sharing is consummated through empathic listening, as opposed to the sympathy or bodily attunement of the magic consciousness. The sense of empathy is also highlighted by the emphasis on the heart. Myths are spoken by the mouth but received by the heart. In this sense empathic listening gives definition to and affirms the psyche of others. Human imagination developed with the emergence of the mythic consciousness, and empathy is the imaginative attunement of our own world to the world of another. Through 5 Jean Gebser is definitely talking about "silence" in the sense that each of us may withdraw into contemplation; there is also the polar concept of silence that allows openness for listening. 8 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness empathic listening we can understand the soul of another speaking human being. In our present–day rationally dominated worldview, however, we need to allow ourselves release from the predominant grip of the rational/cognitive mode of perceiving so we can enter into empathic attunement with the other. In light of the above we can understand why discussions of empathy have become problematic in current communication literature. Rational theorists (Greek, theoria, from Thea, goddess of spectacle; a view or perspective) say we aren't sure empathy exists, since we can't measure it. When rational thinkers describe empathy it is more in terms of a "figuring out" what is on the mind of the other, rather than a mythic allowing oneself to imaginatively come into harmony with the other. The primary problem is that we have several notions of what empathy is; and it is difficult to know what empathy is unless we allow for research that considers the psychic polarity inherent in the mythic. For the most part Jean Gebser refers to speaking when he discusses mythic (oral) culture. The articulation of mouth/speaking is the articulation of myth. Gebser is still, in some ways, a product of his times (1905–1973) reflected in his emphasis on the speaker as the focus of power in relationships (as well as in public communication). Gebser recognizes the importance of the listener in the following passage: [Words] become decisive . . . only when understood in conjunction with what was left unsaid. Only when the unspoken communicates its silent message does the spoken word convey the depth and polarity that constitute the tension of real life. Silence by itself is magical spell, and speech by itself mere rational babble. The word has value, apart from (magical) power or (rational) formula only where the speaker takes this interdependence into account. The attentive listener, moreover, will discern the affinity—perhaps not demonstrable—between "word" (Wort) and "value" (Wert) (1985, p. 68). Since the mythic consciousness is by its very nature polar the speaker of myth is balanced or complemented by the one who listens to myth—one cannot be considered without the other. In the same polar sense the attentive listener will be discerning of both the said and the unsaid, the verbal and the nonverbal, the word and the value (in both the sense of "worth" and "principles"). As Mickunas writes, "The polar rhythm is also manifest in that the hearer not only listens to the word but above all to that which remains silent—unspoken and merely hinted at. The word is thus a mirror of the inner mystery" (p. 181). The articulation of mystery, the art of storytelling, is another way to affiliate our modern selves with the mythic world present in our everyday actions. Myths of journey, of great discoveries and adventures (from Ulysses to Star Wars) are as Gebser says "the collective dreams of the nations formed into words" (1985, p. 68). We are rediscovering the telling of, and listening to, myth and the symbolic value of storytelling and narrative in communication as well as many other fields of study6. Mythic story telling is also indicated by images–visual communication that depicts the stories—as is obvious in Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Hinduism. These cultures have strong mythic elements—icons and images abound. Generally today, we find symbolic projections of the mythic psyche arising everywhere. We are studying (and listening to) not only our own personal narratives, but also the stories of every segment of society and culture. African–Americans, for example, have been listening to their mythic heritage with stories of African culture, music, and traditions. For African–Americans and other cultures there has been an integration of the mythic into their modern world through listening. There has also been research into communication that takes the polar relationship of the listener/speaker into account. Consider the extensive study of turn taking, the tendency for speakers and listeners to alternate roles. Many of the clues as to how this process happens occur 6 In fact, today narrative theory is one of the more salient communication theories. 9 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness at the "level" of empathy and magical sympathy, which merges listeners and speakers into a tightly woven relationship. There is an inherent reciprocity at work in all communication, usually lurking in the unsaid, just ―below‖ the surface of the rational exchange of information. MENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS: RATIONAL LISTENING Historically, mythic consciousness mutated into the mental structure of consciousness: "the transition to the mental structure suggests a fall from time into space," (Gebser, 1985, p. 77) a move from the temporal action of oral communication to the visual space of literate communication. In the mental structure the eye and brain are predominate, and there is a strong reliance on what can been seen and thought. The mental structure first began to emerge with the rise of cities (Feuerstein, p. 92). Mental consciousness is also identified by the incipient development of individuality that came into full flower during two periods in Western culture, 500 B. C. and 1500 A.D. The mental, in its deficient form, the rational, still predominates in contemporary times. Rational, also called mental–rational, consciousness refers to the one– sided development and distancing of man from his world through materialism and deficient scientism, brought on by the loss of creative thinking. Gebser suggests in The Invisible Origin (2000) that there was a separation of intellect (the grasping rational) and reason (the receptive mental) sometime around the Enlightenment (the beginning of the modern period), leaving reason to rule with the loss of creative thinking (2000, p. 3). He ―defines‖ the intellect as understanding, ―it is of male gender and its understanding is not a listening but an active grasping and gripping . . ." (p. 3). Gebser criticized the rational development of the mental consciousness (Verstand). As Feuerstein stressed: "Verstand . . . denotes abstract analytical thinking as typically exercised in logic and mathematics;" Verstand is often today rendered as "understanding" which doesn't "quite capture the original meaning" (p. 119). Reason, "Vernunft, derived from the verb vernehmen ('to take in'), signifies a mode of thinking in which there is a marked degree of receptivity [my emphasis] to the 'gut' level of our being. It keeps in purview feelings, values, meanings, contexts, and so on" (Feuerstein, p. 119). Gebser focused more directly on the receptive dimensions: Reason listens (Vernunft—reason—is derived from Vernehmen—listening); it is of female gender. . . . Her listening is a receiving, so–to–speak, and enduring hearing which reflects on the messages listened to; so as the ear is not an acting organ, but a receiving and quite female organ (2000, p. 3). I will use "rational" to refer to the latest and deficient transformation of the mental structure of consciousness, at its zenith by the seventeen hundreds (Gebser, 1985, p. 84). I will use "mental" to refer to the whole mental structure of consciousness, which includes both intellect and reason. This original, fully creative sense of the mental structure of consciousness is typically lost in the currently dominant rational consciousness; modern communication theory (and Western consciousness, in general) sorely needs the receptivity of the mental consciousness as a prelude and transition to the emergent integral structure of consciousness. I think there is a strong movement among listening researchers to recover the receptive dimension of the mental consciousness. This complete sense of listening is still available and its integration into our experience can only be a creative movement. Modern, rational consciousness is three–dimensional, and with it arises perspectivity, the domination of visual perception, literacy, and "directed or discursive thought" (Gebser, 1985, p. 75) as well as, measurement, abstraction, anthropocentrism, and temporality. Literacy, as sequential development of thought would not be thinkable without the visual, directed, goal– oriented nature of rational consciousness. Whereas magical consciousness is unitary, and mythic is a polar tension of complements which call each other (listener/speaker), mental consciousness is dualistic, i.e., constructed in 10 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness opposites: up–down, right–wrong, mind–body, rational–emotional, self–other, speaker– listener, etc. The duality of the mental is such that one side automatically excludes and is opposite to its paired term. Speaker and listener are separate and exclusive components of communication; there is an abyss, or gap, a distance between listener and speaker, which could be considered part of the modern humanistic crisis (exemplified in existentialism). This gap is particularly indicative of the modern, rational consciousness which experiences communication as problematic. (There is, however, no problem of communication with the magic or mythic consciousness, the thought of separateness never arises because listeners and speakers are tightly bound to each other and to the community through role and experience.) Today communication is defined as interaction (to act between), or transaction (to act across) and hence is problematic in that one must "figure out" how to bridge the gap and identify with the other. Identification, or relationship, with others came naturally for magical peoples and was assumed for mythic communication (the root mu has the mythic polarity of speaking and silence). Rational speakers confront an audience (listeners) and must analyze how to bridge the gap between them (audience analysis), unlike mythic story telling where the audience is often expected to participate. With rational consciousness listening can be thought of as a sequential, literate process like reading (Rubin, 1989), silent and non-directive. Listening is often perceived as a "passive activity" (strange contradiction) and speaking as active. Rational consciousness is indeed a speaker–dominated world. It is the speaker who has power, who can direct and control a situation. The polar/reciprocal relationship of the mythic is not seen as an important element of communication. The rhetor is the one who speaks, who controls and gives meaning to the world. I have coined the phrase "missionary zeal" to represent the action of many individual communicators I see in daily life and especially in listening and interpersonal communication classes. In class exercises where students are asked to simply listen and understand the speaker, they have difficulty staying quiet. They cannot listen without expressing an opinion. Like a misdirected missionary they must speak and broadcast their view of the world to all. In this action everyone they speak to seems to need converting; no one escapes being told how the world appears to them. This is clearly a world out of balance. We can only heal this rift between speakers and listeners and provide balance to the communication act by giving responsibility back to the listener. One other aspect of the rational consciousness arises out of the modern drive for clarity of intellect. With the rational the world must be clearly defined with no rough edges. We find the same is true of rational, speaker–directed communication. In business communication, for instance, clarity and accuracy are thought to be most critical. Clarity and accuracy are, of course, considered functions of speakers. The objective of an effective speaker is to leave the audience (listener) with a message identical (or at least similar) to that which the speaker has in mind. Although this is how we think about listening and communication from a rational perspective, it is not how listening, in particular, works. The integral structure makes listening open and transparent. With the emerging integral, we resurrect reason, the receptive aspect of the mental consciousness, and reconnect it to intellect for a complete sense of communication. In our emerging understanding of communication we realize that speaking shares experience, but listening equally creates meaning. Listening is a creative act, and far from the speaker alone defining messages clearly and accurately, this is one of the primary roles of the listener. The current predominance of the rational makes the emergence of the integral consciousness a godsend with the portent of a more complete world. INTEGRAL CONSCIOUSNESS: CONSCIOUS LISTENING As Gebser says, none of these antecedent structures of consciousness ever reaches an end (Gebser, 1985, p. 96). Previous modes of consciousness are not historical relics; rather, each is still operative now (Feuerstein, p. 9). Each of us still moves and expresses ourselves in magical 11 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness and mythical ways, as I have shown in examples above. (An interesting study by Kevin Williams, ―Advertising and the Philosophy of Jean Gebser,‖ (1997) shows how the different structures of consciousness are operative in a commercial ad.) Furthermore, as Feuerstein explains: "just as the unborn in utero recapitulates the phylogenesis, at least in principle, so the growing individual traverses the ancestral structures of consciousness, gradually adding them to his or her repertoire of responsiveness to self and world" (54). Or as Walter Ong explains, [The child of today probably] passes through a stage something like that of the old oral culture. . .. But the stage is only something like the old, for it remains a child's stage and cannot be protracted into adulthood. The old oral world was not a world of children but of adults, who had children of their own (Ong, 1977, p. 299). The integral consciousness is not, then, a transcending of the previous structures, but rather an integration of the possibilities of the previous structures and "a liberation from the exclusive validity of any previous form" (Behnke, p. 6). "[A] truly integral perception cannot dispense with the foundation of the mental structure any more than the mental structure can dispense with the mythical, and the mythical with the magic; that is, if we are to be 'whole' or integral human beings" (Gebser, 1985, p. 299). "By integration we mean a fully completed and realized wholeness . . ." (Gebser, 1985, p. 99). Other essential attributes of the integral include attention to all of humanity, a transparent openness to all human processes (especially listening), and a sense of awareness, which Gebser calls ―conscious spirit.‖ Integral consciousness is encompassing of the other structures of consciousness and at the same time more than their sum. The foundations of its inception, as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, have been generally outlined but integral consciousness is still emerging and yet to be completely defined. From the outlines of the integral structure we have been able to describe, we know that the integral is four–dimensional and aperspectival (free from perspective—a rational, segmented way of perceiving), with time as "intensity" or "quality," and hence, very different from the time experience of previous consciousness structures. In becoming conscious of intensified time we also come into the possibility of perceiving transparently the working of each of the previous modes of consciousness in the present. Only with this awareness of sympathetic, empathic, rational and especially consciousness (creative) listening can we integrate our world and ourselves. This new integral time form is not a freedom from previous time forms, since previous time forms are co–constituents of our current ways of living [such as listening]; it is rather a freedom for all time forms (Gebser, 1985, p. 289) and ways of listening/communicating. As we emerge into the integral world we simultaneously come into awareness of time as an integrating experience. Integral time awareness includes the possibility of time–freedom that in turn is the precondition for the realization of the integral and enables us to perceive the aperspectival world. Moreover, the integral whole can only be perceived aperspectivally; when we view things in a perspectival way we see only individual segments (Gebser, 1985, p. 289). The aperspectival perception of the integral consciousness surpasses the two–valued perspective of the rational consciousness, and is more than their sum, or a joining of the two extremes. From a rational communication perspective we have the subject–object, speaker– listener dichotomies, and attempts to bridge the chasm between the opposites of the dichotomies such as the constructivist perspective–taking theory. Constructivism emphasizes the importance of seeing each of the segmented perspectives in order to construct the communication interaction, but misses the fact that they are already starting with a problem– the rationally perceived gap between humans. It reminds me of the student I met in Delhi, India. Indians are generally a mythic–oral culture, but he had been reading the Western existentialist writers and was "seeing" the chasm that separated people. He said he was beginning to think that communication between people was not really possible. My post–graduate communication professor expressed a similar rational 12 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness perspective. He said the more he studied communication theory, the more he realized that people couldn’t communicate—a rational perspective. For the Indian student there was a shift from mythic/oral to rational culture, the result was a rational perspective that created an unbridgeable duality. These are examples that teach us to avoid the pitfalls of extreme rationalism that can create a literal abyss between people. Rather, it is important to adopt a co–created experience of listener and speaker that is free from the duality of the rational if we are to become aware of an integral approach to communication. (Zen Buddhism is very conscious to deconstruct such dualities.) Even better, we need to adopt multi–created or poly–centric models for listening/communication as expressed in theories of dialogue (see Mickunas, 1982). Communication is the action of ―forces‖ emanating from many roles and multiple centers, all of which are integrated through conscious listening—conscious listening integrates the multiple meaning streams of any situation. Our cultural history, our family backgrounds, our personalities, the environment in which we communicate, and many other diverse factors all contribute to the situation. Any metaphor, story or conception of listening/communication that does not include the diversity of a whole situation is inadequate. As Feuerstein notes in the concluding chapter of his book, The emergent consciousness: "It should have become evident by now that contemporary culture is not so much an inchoate mass of contradictory elements as a pluralistic field that is highly tensed under the impact of the emergent mode of consciousness" (150). Our times are indeed "highly–tensed," a characteristic of the chaotic period which Gebser identifies as occurring during mutational shifts from one structure of consciousness to another. We are obviously not home free and fully ensconced in the integral consciousness. Gebser makes it clear that the integral consciousness, if it is to be concretized within us (and no element of experience—such as rational abstractions—can be integrated if it is not concrete), must be accomplished by working upon ourselves, by becoming an integration of the magical, mythic, and rational, by becoming consciousness listeners. This integration assumes that we can "transcend" the deficient elements of our communication environment and ourselves to become fully actualized listeners. IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH The study of ways of experiencing and studying listening has indicated that there is a third method of studying listening. The descriptive/phenomenological approach casts a much broader and more experiential net for capturing the phenomena of listening than either quantitative or qualitative studies. In the future, research into different experiences of listening will come from the results of a reanalysis of qualitative studies from listening/communication as well as other fields of research. There is also a rich harvest to be had from original qualitative and descriptive studies of the experience of listening. For example, Dick Halley collected stories about the transformative power of listening, for presentation at the 2001 annual meeting of the International Listening Association. These stories are ―data‖ for a descriptive study of how people change through listening. A further avenue for research is to mine the qualitative and quantitative work already done in the field of listening. In the article, Listening styles and empathy, Weaver and Kirtley (1984) describe three constructs of empathy: empathic responsiveness, perspective taking, and sympathetic responsiveness. There is a direct correlation between these three constructs of empathic listening and the three primary structure of listening I have described. Sympathetic listening = sympathetic responsiveness, empathic listening = empathic responsiveness, and rational listening = perspective taking. There is no construct for conscious (integral) listening, but in part conscious listening is an integration of the other three. What is interesting is that what has been thought to be a simple construct, empathy, turns out to be more complicated and in fact agrees with basic descriptions of the experience of listening correlated with different 13 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness structures of consciousness. Perhaps future research will seek a conscious listening construct based on Gebser’s broad structures of consciousness. Of course the most obvious and maybe by far the most fruitful use of the consciousness ―model‖ is in the area of the cultural study of listening. Gebser’s four structures of consciousness detailed here help understand the listening ways of cultures as diverse as the American Indian, the African, and the Asian Indian. Different cultures express their listening differently and the structures of consciousness provide a framework for understanding the cultural ground of those differences. Gebser’s study of structures of consciousness is one description of human beings listening in the world that illuminates broad and significant ways of framing the study of listening. There are certainly many other insights to be drawn from Gebser’s description of consciousness, and, no doubt, the possibility of a variety of works that could open new ways of studying listening. REFERENCES Behnke, E. A., ed. (1987). Toward Integral Consciousness For An Integral World. Gebser Studies, Vol. 1. Felton, CA: California Center for Jean Gebser Studies. Bommelje, R. (07/24/00). Three ways to listen to work team talk, The Listening Leader, ListeningLeader@lists.webvalence.com on behalf of; Rick@listencoach.com. Brandt, J. Unpublished study on characteristics of good and poor listeners in a business environment, shared by the author, Janice Brandt of Brandt Management, Richmond, VA. Carbaugh, D. (Summer 1999), ―Just Listen‖: ―Listening‖ and Landscape Among the Blackfeet. Western Journal of Communication, 63(3), 250—270. Cronen, V. (1998). Communication theory for the 21st century: Cleaning up the wreckage of the Psychology project. In Judith S. Trent (Ed.), Communication: Views from the helm for the 21st century (pp. 177–183). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. de Kerckhove, D. (July, 1987). Oral versus literate listening. Paper presented at the International Listening Association Summer conference, Toronto. Feuerstein, G. (1987). Structures of Consciousness. Lower lake, CA: Integral Publishing. Gebser, J. (2000). The invisible origin: Evolution as a supplementary execution. Translated by Theo Röttger, http://www.integralage.org/. The original was probably written circa 1970-72. Gebser, J. (1985). The Ever–Present Origin. Authorized translation by Noel Barstad with Algis Mickunas. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University. Ursprung und Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags–Anstalt GmbH, 1949 and 1953. Gendlin, E. (1978). Focusing. Everest House, New York. Mickunas, A. (1973). Civilizations as structures of consciousness. Main Currents, 29(5), 179–85. Mickunas, A. (1982). The dialogical region. In Joseph Pilotta, (Ed.), Interpersonal communication: Essays in phenomenology and hermeneutics (pp. 55-68). The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology. Mindell, A. (1993). The shaman’s body. Harper: San Francisco. Mindell, A. (2000). Quantum mind: The edge between physics and psychology. Lao Tse Press: Portland, Oregon. Ong, W. J. (1977). Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture. Ithaca, New York: Cornell. Purdy, M. (1982). Styles of listening and structures of consciousness. Journal of Communication Therapy, 1(1), 47–58. 14 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness Purdy, M. (March 1986). Qualitative Research Methodology. A paper presented at the International Listening Association, San Diego, CA. Purdy, M. (March 1988). Qualitative Research and Listening, paper presented at the International Listening Association, Scottsdale, AZ. Purdy, M. (February 1989). . Issues in Qualitative Research, paper presented at ILA pre– conference on Research, Atlanta, (published in Perspectives on Listening Research: Planning for the Next Generation, International Listening Association, 1991). Purdy, M. (1991). Listening and community: The role of listening in community formation. Journal of the International Listening Association, 5, 51–67. Purdy, M. (1991). Consciousness Structures and the New Communication, paper presented at the New York Speech Communication Association, Ellenville, NY, October 1990, and published in the juried New Dimensions in Communication: Proceedings of the 48th NY State Speech Communication Assoc.). Purdy, M. (1995). Listening and Consciousness: The Contributions of Jean Gebser. Presentation at International Listening Association, Little Rock, AK, March. Purdy, M. (March 1998). Listening and Consciousness: Historical Roots. Paper presented at the International Listening Association, Kansas City. Purdy, M. (with N. Newman). (March 2000). Listening and Gender: Stereotypes and Explanations. Paper presented to the International Listening Association, Virginia Beach, VA. Purdy, M. (with N. Newman). (March 1999). Listening and Gender: characteristics of Good and Poor Listeners,‖ Paper presented to the International Listening Association, Albuquerque, NM. Rubin, D. (February, 1989). Orality, considerate text, and the social construction of listening. Paper presented to the preconference on research of the International Listening Association, Atlanta, GA. Steil, L., Barker, L., and Watson, K. (1983). Effective Listening: Key to Your Success. Reading, MA. Stallings, F. (Spring/Summer 1988). The Web of Silence: Storytelling's Power to Hypnotize. The National Storytelling Journal. 6–19. Stevens, J. (1971). Awareness. Lafayette, CA: Real People. Weaver, J.B., III & Kirtley, M. D. (1995). Listening styles and empathy. The Southern Communication Journal, 60, 131-140. Williams, K. (October, 1995). Magic and deep sea diving. A paper presented at the Jean Gebser Conference on The magic Structure of Consciousness, Governors State University, University Park, IL. Williams, K. (January, 1997). Advertising and the philosophy of Jean Gebser. Integrative Explorations: Journal of Culture and Consciousness, 4 (1), 60-76. Watson, K., Barker, L., & Weaver, J. B. (1995). The listening styles profile (LSP–16): Development and validation of an instrument to assess four listening styles. International Journal of Listening, 9, 1–13. Watson, K., Lazarus, C.J., & Thomas, T. (1999). First-year medical students’ listener preferences: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Listening, 13, 1-11. Witkin, B. R. & Trochin, W. W. K., (1997). Toward a synthesis of listening constructs: A concept map analysis. International Journal of Listening, 11, 69– 15 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness 87. 16 Listening, Culture and Structures of Consciousness 17