Heh, the first thing I think of is people who think that if you don't laugh at their joke it's because you don't understand it, not because they can't tell it...
I would have assumed (though that Wikipedia entry doesn't mention this) that the idea of "active listening" originated in the idea that communication ought to be an active/active relation rather than an active/passive one. But it's also probably more often used as an excuse to reverse the active/passive relation rather than replace it with the active/active one....
Oh, and if "Active listening" is to work, it requires the talker to be an active listener, which again is also probably left out of the equation. Either way, it comes back to your point that "active listening", in practice, is just an excuse to dump the onus of effective communication on the party that (active listening aside) simply has less control over its effectiveness...
Speaking of which, I feel like I'm talking in (bad) alegbra at the moment - so much for active talking ;-)
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I would have assumed (though that Wikipedia entry doesn't mention this) that the idea of "active listening" originated in the idea that communication ought to be an active/active relation rather than an active/passive one. But it's also probably more often used as an excuse to reverse the active/passive relation rather than replace it with the active/active one....
Oh, and if "Active listening" is to work, it requires the talker to be an active listener, which again is also probably left out of the equation. Either way, it comes back to your point that "active listening", in practice, is just an excuse to dump the onus of effective communication on the party that (active listening aside) simply has less control over its effectiveness...
Speaking of which, I feel like I'm talking in (bad) alegbra at the moment - so much for active talking ;-)
andrew.
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