By Karen Kovaka, Gavel Columnist -

“I see you.”

That’s my favorite line from Avatar. Sure, as I think about it now, a couple weeks after seeing the movie, it seems a little corny.

But more important than my retrospective analysis is my first reaction to “I see you” — the reaction I had while I was still immersed in the reality created by Avatar.

I, and millions of others, were struck by the beauty of a culture in which people greet each other by acknowledging that they truly see who the other is. Contained in this greeting is the realization of what so many of us yearn for — the experience of knowing another, and of being fully known in return. The idea of a whole culture in which the experience of citizens is true knowledge of one another is the opposite of the experience of anomie, fragmentation and loss of identity we tend to associate with postmodern society.

As much as I appreciated the temporary experience of an “I-see-you” world, I wonder what relevance this greeting has in a culture of plurality and democracy. The world is too big and too full of variety for us to actually see who everyone around us is. We don’t have the kinds of cultural ties and traditions required to unify us in this way. And yet, we still want to see to be seen.

In a democratic society, the way to seeing is hearing. As Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift, said in his Guestbook Project lecture to the BC community in February, the freedom of speech that is trumpeted in democratic societieshas a purpose: the freedom of listening.

Quoting the psychoanalyst W.D. Winnicott, Dr. Hyde said that a sign of a healthy mind is the ability to enter into the thoughts, fears and hopes of another person imaginatively and accurately (and vice versa). According to Dr. Hyde, the same is true of a democracy. Freedom of speech is an opportunity to cultivate a hospitable public consciousness, one that is willing to entertain strange ideas and to truly listen to them.

Pluralism can tend toward fragmentation and a sense of incoherence. If Winnicott and Hyde are right, this will always be the case unless a faith in the fundamental interestingness of things causes us to listen. Unless we are willing to cultivate a passion for the whole of reality, urging us to make use of the freedom of listening, we will never be able to see our fellow citizens.

Part of our trouble is is that we think we’ve already heard it all before. The good news is that there is an easy way to test this opinion — is there a political position you find particularly idiotic? Before allowing yourself to craft some tirade against it, try listening to someone who thinks the position is legitimate and explain their perspective back to them in your own words. If your listener thinks your explanation is fair, balanced, and accurate, you have listened closely enough, and you can reasonably disagree.

If we took our freedom of listening this seriously, then seeing the truth of other people and their opinions would be a precondition of political and cultural discourse. The political benefits of such a strategy should be obvious, but what of the more intangible effects? Does listening prevent fragmentation?

I think it does. Although listening can lead to bewilderment, confusion is only an intermediary stage. The listener who perseveres eventually comes to understand the internal logic of points of view that before seemed incomprehensible. This kind of understanding is the antithesis of fragmentation. If you have listened well enough to sense the internal logic of a position that was previously unintelligible, it means you have crossed a chasm that used to appear impassable. You have now ‘met’ another point of view, another mind. Not only have you met, but you have seen.