Exerpt: "Many of us have an overwhelming need to rubberneck, to slow down when we pass a crash on the highway. This is odd, as most people don’t go out of their way to visit the morgue, just for kicks. And yet… I hope we’d agree that if people started staging car crashes on the side of the road to get attention, we’d be outraged."
I worked for fourteen hours at the polls on November 3rd. It was an unforgettable experience.
Editor’s note: Brooks is a favorite of mine, conservative but open and reasonable. His books and articles have been featured here before. I’m currently reading “Second Mountain” and will let you know if that’s as good as I expect it to be. In this article, Brooks seems to be telling me one-on-one about my listening flaws. I hope you enjoy it.
Favorite excerpt: Don’t fear the pause. Most of us stop listening to a comment about halfway through so we can be ready with a response. In Japan, Murphy writes, businesspeople are more likely to hear the whole comment and then pause, sometimes eight seconds, before responding, which is twice as long a silence as American businesspeople conventionally tolerate.
By David Brooks
Opinion Columnist
