Articles On Dialogue
ArticlesOnDialogue DoingStuff.DonaldNoyes.20140816
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In a recent response to a page on this wiki a respondant said "For example (we do need examples here)". and in another place one said - "I can't understand an iota".
- To correct these shortcomings, here is a posting of articles illustrating dialogue used in differing contexts, but exhibiting common characteristics, which illustrate and support the use of such "value" words as "Positive" and "Successful"...
- The examples given below will help clarify terms and usages which will assist one in understanding what is meant by "flow of meaning"
--- Related to Dialogue
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Dialogue - A Proposal - David Bohm
- Dialogue, as we are choosing to use the word, is a way of exploring the roots of the many crises that face humanity today. It enables inquiry into, and understanding of, the sorts of processes that fragment and interfere with real communication between individuals, nations and even different parts of the same organization. In our modern culture men and women are able to interact with one another in many ways: they can sing dance or play together with little difficulty but their ability to talk together about subjects that matter deeply to them seems invariable to lead to dispute, division and often to violence. In our view this condition points to a deep and pervasive defect in the process of human thought.
- In Dialogue, a group of people can explore the individual and collective presuppositions, ideas, beliefs, and feelings that subtly control their interactions. It provides an opportunity to participate in a process that displays communication successes and failures. It can reveal the often puzzling patterns of incoherence that lead the group to avoid certain issues or, on the other hand, to insist, against all reason, on standing and defending opinions about particular issues.
- Dialogue is a way of observing, collectively, how hidden values and intentions can control our behavior, and how unnoticed cultural differences can clash without our realizing what is occurring. It can therefore be seen as an arena in which collective learning takes place and out of which a sense of increased harmony, fellowship and creativity can arise.
- Because the nature of Dialogue is exploratory, its meaning and its methods continue to unfold. No firm rules can be laid down for conducting a Dialogue because its essence is learning - not as the result of consuming a body of information or doctrine imparted by an authority, nor as a means of examining or criticizing a particular theory or programme, but rather as part of an unfolding process of creative participation between peers.
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On Facilitation & Purpose - by Donald Factor
- I want to mention that what I am suggesting, here, is an approach that treats the common occurrence of frustration in dialogue as an unavoidable and necessary product of the process itself. In my experience frustration is the one thing that is universal in a group's experience and this appears to also be the case in our entire culture. Generally, frustration will lead, on one hand to alienation or on the other to violence. It could be argued that a great deal of our culture is dedicated to distracting us from our frustrations in an attempt at defusing them. The painful experience of frustration is, therefore, something that needs to be sustained in the dialogue so that its meaning can be displayed and understood. I have come to suspect that frustration may have to be seen as the crucial motivating force that can drive the dialogue deeper into unknown territory and thus toward the experience of creative insight. If this is the case, then a facilitator can serve little purpose other than to help the other members of the group to reduce such uncomfortable periods so that the conversation will flow along a course that is more satisfying or satisfactory to the desires, assumptions and agendas of those concerned. Frustation does not require facilitation.
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On Meaning, Purpose and Exploration in Dialogue
- Communication has been ailing in the human race for a long time and Dialogue is concerned with that. But the primary purpose of Dialogue is not to communicate. It is much deeper. It addresses the blocks in communication, not merely to understand them, but to meet them directly. It is aimed at seeing resistances to communication. In Dialogue we are ready to raise topics serious enough to cause trouble. But while we are talking we are interested in being aware of what's going on inside us and between us.
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Comments on Bohm Dialogue - by Pat Styer
- David Bohm introduced a dialogue form that begins with no set purpose beyond the intention to explore thought. He proposed that seeing thought as a reflex (just a more subtle bodily reflex), could help us to understand its operation, not as something mystical, and separate from the emotions and bodily functions, but as an integral part of a material system. Bohm suggested that an appropriate environment for this exploration would be among a good number of others who shared this intention to explore the reflexes. He called this a Dialogue Group.
- Exploring the operation of thought can be a very elusive thing, but David Bohm left many "tools" in his writings and seminars, to not only make it possible to do this in a more than accidental and inadvertent way, but to make it a rich adventure as well.
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Comments on Bohm Dialogue - Ken Parejko
- Dialogue is practice; through this practice, we become more and more subtly aware of the processes which give rise to our thoughts. By intercepting these thoughts before they become engraved in our (and the collective) consciousness, we can bring about a rational accordance of intention and action.
- Thus, in dialogue, transformation is possible. Only through the transformation of individuals is larger societal transformation possible.
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Comments on Bohm Dialogue - by Donald Factor
- But this is not to deny the possibility and the probity of making distinctions. If we are to be able to enquire into any domain of experience, the nature of our thought process makes it necessary for us to create distinctions. But if we forget that these distinctions can never be more than conveniences -- valid in a limited domain where they are actually relevant -- then we are left in a seriously incoherent predicament, and I believe that this is the case more often than not for most of us. Our distinctions and the categories and meanings derived from those distinctions have value only to the extent that they give us an opportunity to see how that part of the system works. Thus if I am in the African bush, I would do well to distinguish a movement in the grass and the flash of something yellow with black spots against the background of the surrounding flora before a leapord leaps out and eats me. But such a distinction would more than likely be pretty incoherent across a dinner table in London. This example is, perhaps, trivial and obvious but I trust it makes a more general and subtle point about the nature of thought.
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On Frustation and Subversion - by William van den Heuvel
- I am glad you raised the question of frustation. You are suggesting "an approach that treats the common occurrence of frustation in dialogue as an unavoidable and necessary product of the process itself". In my view, frustation is very meaningful; it carries a message, which should be read. I can only repeat what you have said already, which is that "the painful experience of frustation is something that needs to be sustained so that its meaning can be displayed and understood". I also share your suspicion that "frustation may have to be seen as the crucial motivating force that can drive the dialogue deeper into unknown territory and thus toward creative insight". In fact, I would put it a bit stronger and say that frustation is the potential that will drive us deeper into unknown territory if only we would be willing to take it not as something to get rid of but as something that is trying to tell us something.
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The Dialogue Experiment - from Briggs, John and Peat, David
- The physicist David Bohm, who devoted his last years to the investigation of dialogue, described it this way. Dialogue is "not an exchange and its not a discussion. Discussion means batting it back and forth like a ping pong game. That has some value, but in dialogue we try to go deeper…to create a situation where we suspend our opinions and judgements in order to be able to listen to each other." This suspension is often less a willful act on the part of the group’s individual members than it is an effect of dialoguing itself. Because there are so many diverse points of view flying around in a dialogue, everybody’s opinions and judgements can end up getting suspended. Another dialoguer, painter and psychiatrist David Shainberg, called dialogue an "open process of making forms." One of the major ideas of dialogue is that people are tied to what Bohm called "nonnegotiable" convictions that underlie even their most casual disagreements. These nonnegotiables can’t be reasoned out, but they may be suspended and transformed, as Ed discovered, through the process of collective creativity.
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On Dialogue - by William van den Heuvel
- In ancient Greek philosophy, reason was considered to be the controlling principle of the universe. The christian theologists have interpreted this as meaning "the word of God". David Bohm often used words like "the whole" or "the unknown" or "the unlimited" or "the intelligence". I suspect that he meant roughly the same as the Greek "controlling principle of the universe" (or the christian "word of God"). The "controlling principle of the universe" could be expressed through speech or writing (i.e. making a logos or theory). Following this line of thinking, we could say that dialogue is the means by which the whole expresses itself. That would make dialogue a play of the cosmic intelligence. Generally speaking, however, our dialogues don't exactly appear to be expressions of a very high order of intelligence: Chaos usually seems to be a better description. How can chaotic dialogue be an act of intelligence?
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Dialogue and Freedom - by William van den Heuvel
- dialogue - Dialogues are not the only way to get upset. People, who have no opportunity to participate in a dialogue group, need not feel deprived: Dealing with situations in daily life can equally well stirr up the emotions, as we probably all know. These reactions, irrespective of how they are aroused, can be sensed when one pays attention to them. The sensing of one's own reaction is called proprioception. David Bohm has mentioned the word proprioception quite often, so I will take for granted that everybody knows what he meant. Reactions are "food" for proprioception: Without reactions there is nothing to proprioceive. In this sense, the purpose of dialogue is to provide an opportunity for developing proprioception.
- freedom - The collapse of my boundaries also means the breakdown of intellectual fences and emotional walls. But this is freedom! So, there certainly is a path from dialogue through proprioception, self-awareness and passion towards freedom. The price to pay, however, is to give yourself up. You can't be somebody and be free at the same time. (If you react to this, please turn on your proprioception.) There is, however, still more to come.
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Dialogue and Coherence - by William van den Heuvel
- David Bohm once said that society is based on shared meaning, which constitutes the culture. This shared meaning is the "glue" or the "cement" that holds society together. Shared meaning is necessary for society to function properly and for it to survive. David Bohm used the word "coherence" to denote the binding effect of this shared meaning. So, it seems appropriate to investigate somewhat into the nature of coherence. What is meant by coherence? "Coherence" comes from Latin co+haerere. The verb haerere means to stick. Hence, coherent means "sticking together". According to my dictionary (Webster), the criteria for something to be coherent is that it shall be consistent, congruent, in accord, logically integrated and clearly articulated, united in action or connected naturally by a common principle.
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Dialogue and Anarchy - William van den Heuvel
- Admittedly, anarchistic dialogue (i.e. "among equals") does tend to become somewhat chaotic, at least on the surface of it, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Provided the dialogue is sustained for a while something mysterious may eventually happen. In spite of the frustation and the sense of despair that is so characteristic of anarchistic dialogue, some curious kind of order seems to emerge out of the chaos. This order is not a man-made achievement but it is a sense of coherence that somehow emerges "between and among us". This happens unexpectedly on its own accord and it wouldn't have happened if there were no anarchistic chaos. Based on this surprising discovery I now tend to think of anarchy as a necessary condition for the emergence of coherence. I.e. there appears to be a natural tendency towards coherence but this is a phenomenon that happens spontaneously in the process of free-flowing dialogue. It probably won't happen if the flow of dialogue were directed by a moderator, or if it were constrained by some rules, or influenced by an expectation that something must happen. Any form of expectation seems to interfere with the appearance of the unexpected.
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The Flow of Meaning - presented by William van den Heuvel
- dialogue means - "the flow of meaning between or among us". But meaning can only flow between or among us when we listen and respond to each other. Only when that is the case, are we dialoguing. So, the emphasis is on the flow of meaning.
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Dialogue - from Du Versity Gurdjieff, Bennet, Systematics and the Enneagram - Solioonensiu
- Dialogue is people talking together. The important thing is that the people agree to do just that and nothing else. They are not concerned with winning arguments, coming to conclusions, solving problems, resolving conflicts, achieving consensus - or anything else other than talking. This gives them an opportunity to delve into talking and what it does. Talking plays a big role in creating and sustaining human culture. Culture is built out of the words, metaphors, points of view, ideas, beliefs, etc. that people exchange. This is true in any kind of meeting, whatever its purpose. The process of talking underlies the business meeting as well as idle conversations in the pub. It is shared by men and women, by young and old, by people from the east and from the west. Talking deliberately, yet without any explicit purpose, is at first felt as strange. But, most people rapidly adjust; after all, talking is a natural human activity. It helps us to find meaning. However we talk, we are immersed in meaning, even if we have no apparent purpose.
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