Listen again

How can I discussion about women’s rights versus business survival get me incandescent with rage? When one of the speakers compares slavery to a good business model, that’s how.

So I decided to write about it. I decided to write to the speaker as well. I obtained her email address and set about constructing my argument. This is when I began to listen again.

I could not download the programme so I painstakingly listened to it all over again, transcribing it as I went. And this is the conclusion I have reached: I was wrong. I had a listening error.

You see, I have spent hours analysing and listening to this 9 minute 6 second segment and I now realise that my initial reaction was not based on facts. I responded to what I thought I heard, not what was actually said.

After transcribing the entire thing and going over it numerous times I now believe Dr Hobbs is saying that business growth, albeit valuable and important, cannot be achieved at any cost. Business has to contribute to a stronger society because there are psychological and moral costs of business growth as well. I’m glad I was wrong.

Her only error, I feel, was to attribute the blame of the August riots to unhappy families when she said “The cost of having unhappy families can also literally mean physical damage to business ... We all suffer the consequences of a society with broken families in it.”

Her last sentence, however, is still true.

I guess that sometimes it does pay to listen again.