http://mountainrunner.us/2009/02/guest_post_public_diplomacy_from_a_surprising_quarter.html
One man's 'well worn cliché' is another man's 'much ignored truism'. Clearly the invocation to "stop lecturing the world on what to do" is one sided and ideological (although what isn't?...) but it isn't far removed from the criticism of the blunt-edged 'marketing approach' of PD often made by large parts of the American PD community. The same community, incidentally, that mentions often the need to 'talk less and listen more' (or words to that effect). Well, what happens when you listen to something you don't like? One calls it tired and passé (a well worn cliché), of course, so as not to take it seriously.
That is the difference between 'listening' and 'hearing'. That is what the contemporary PD discourse is missing, from my point of view.
