John G Bell
Reflective Practicum
1
Fall ’04 - Hormann
Case Study - Dialogue
in Ireland: A comparison and study of the characteristics of dialogical
environments within the context of dialogue-resistant conflict.
As
a student and practitioner of dialogue, I have an abiding interest in the
development of dialogue, and the ways in which dialogue is encouraged and
practiced. The practice of dialogue appears to me to be essential for the
development of progress toward peace in places where conflict is present but
not instantiated as violence.
Designing
an environment to enable dialogue is a process of developing space where
differences can be honored, where participants, especially those in conflict,
are reciprocally re-humanized. The hope for such spaces is that the conditions
will exist from which dialogue can emerge. My case study is about the creation
of a particular space designed to enable a community dialogue in Northern
Ireland. The city of Derry and the community there has experienced significant
partisan and international conflict centered on the historical and current
colonization of the island of Ireland which includes political, economic,
cultural and religious dimensions. Each of these dimensions is understood and
interpreted differently by the partisan factions, each not willing and/or not
able to cross thresholds to hear the narratives of the others.
My
initial inquiry was focused on the question of what went wrong for the Tower
Museum. The Tower Museum is a civic museum in Derry, Northern Ireland. An
exhibit called the “The Story of Derry” was designed to tell the history of
Derry in an unbiased way, the history of a city with many connections to the
conflicts in Ireland. I had heard that the exhibit at the Tower Museum, while
award winning, was not popular with the local community in the city. The
locals, those involved in the conflict presented by the exhibit, were not
taking advantage of that space. This appeared to me to be a question of an
available dialogical space being ignored. If a community ignores a dialogical
space where they could develop shared meaning about a shared conflict, then, I
wondered, how could dialogue be part of a conflict resolution process? If
opportunities for dialogue were not participated in, that the community did not
have the inclination toward dialogue, then dialogue could not take place.
I
realized that my line of inquiry was based on a specific problem-seeking
paradigm, and not a well-formed inquiry within the larger context of creative
change studies. The cultural predilection toward seeking problems that need to
be solved is a particular pattern typical in the current scientific,
mechanistic paradigm.
In
order to reframe my inquiry, I generalized the focus and widened the context. A
broader inquiry is to ask how can enabling dialogical spaces be created in
communities characterized by dialogue-resistant conflicts.
When
I speak of opportunities for dialogue, I mean the presence of specific
foundational criteria. Dialogue is a form of communication that potentially
emerges from an enabling environment. As described in my literature review, an
enabling dialogical environment is characterized by time, space, inclination
and good faith. Also in my literature review I establish that an emergent
dialogue is characterized by participants peeling away layers of their
personae, suspending their judgment and arriving at their own meaning and by a
search for shared meaning. Therefore, these characteristics show that dialogue
is fundamentally a complex transformative process.
Anathematic
to dialogue is hierarchy. (Senge, 1994) Dialogue itself is disabled by agendas
and intentions. This creates an apparent paradox in creating dialogue, because
the intention to create dialogue disables dialogue. The paradox is resolved
when one is able to focus on the intention of creating a dialogical environment
from which dialogue can emerge, not in the creation of the dialogue itself.
Therefore, it becomes essential to the emergence of dialogue to be intentional
and active in developing the enabling environment. Dialogue does not just
happen.
Intention
is a mild example of hierarchy, but one that is enough to disable the emergence
of dialogue. If one enters an enabling dialogical space with an intention to
dialogue then one has precluded a shared development with the other
participants. One’s intention to dialogue becomes a barrier to seeing the other
participants as equals in the process of what emerges, in fact as has been
observed by some practitioners of related disciplines, an intention to dialogue
also precludes even being a fully engaged listener. In this sense, hierarchy
and intention is an example of a lack of good faith.
Good
faith emerged as a primary issue for the formation of dialogue within a year
long program on dialogue I attended at The Evergreen State College in 2003.
Lack of good faith is a form of deceit, and implies that the deceiver has
created a hierarchical power relationship between themselves and other
participants. Mediation also takes good faith as a foundational issue as well,
and mediators will summarily end mediation sessions where good faith is not
evidenced. (DRC, n.d.)
Conflicts
where participants are inflexible or lack good faith are examples of conflicts
around which dialogue is essentially precluded. These are dialogue resistant
conflicts. The question of how to create dialogical spaces from which dialogue
can emerge around these dialogue resistant issues and conflicts is one of
particular interest to me as a practitioner.
Therefore,
the primary inquiry question that informs this case study is how enabling
dialogical spaces can be created for dialogue resistant conflicts.
This
case study is an examination of this larger inquiry question through more
focused research questions. The first research question is how fully do
attempts to create enabling dialogical space exhibit characteristics that I
believe to be essential for dialogue to emerge. As developed above, several
characteristics that I will look for are providing time, space, and
willingness.
I
have not included good faith in the criteria in this case study due primarily
to the sheer difficulty in determining good faith in a meaningful way as a
transient outsider to the community.
My
secondary research question is whether there is evidence that dialogue has
emerged. Elements that I will take as evidence of an emergent dialogue are the
aforementioned characteristics from my literature review: re-humanizing of the
other, a willingness to suspend judgment or otherwise have flexible positions,
a search for shared meaning, and framing the conflict within a larger context.
I
used a primarily ethnographic research paradigm, attempting to improve my
understanding of dialogue resistant conflict through participation in and
interpretation of attempted dialogical activities in context. My primary tool
toward this end was observation and participation in the social context and the
spaces where I believed dialogue was being attempted. I supplemented my
observation with review of documentation produced by the conveners of these
spaces. My choice of an ethnographic research method is primarily due to a
belief that this model can help in producing new insights and because my focus
on areas of dialogue resistant conflict involves incorporating multiple
perspectives.
Supplementing
my specific observations, I was immersed in the Republic of Ireland and
Northern Ireland for two weeks. I traveled in many of the larger cities
including Cork, Galway, Donegal, Dublin and Derry.
Two
spaces in the city
Two spaces I examined were within the larger context
of Derry and Londonderry. Derry and Londonderry are both the same place and at
the same time very different. One cannot name the city without taking sides
within the context of a larger conflict: to call the city Londonderry is to
identify with the Loyalist cause, to call the city Derry is to identify with
the Catholic cause. For this reason, I will use the terms Derry and Londonderry
when speaking about specific historical periods, but for the modern period I
will merely speak of the city, without a specific or historical name. The name
Free Derry is a specific reference to the Bogside community that is an identity
formed in conflict with the British Army during the ’70s. The place also has an
even more historical name, Doire, which is the Irish word for an oak grove
surrounded by water, from which the name Derry was derived.
Derry
was renamed Londonderry in 1613 to honor the trade guilds of London that helped
finance the construction. The city walls were built in, around and on the site
of Derry as part of the effort to fortify the settlements of the Ulster
Plantation initiated by James I of England. Thus the city walls are not only
iconic signs of the division of the city itself but are indexical signs of the
larger conflict over the colonization of Ireland. The city walls are remarkable historically because they
still exist, the only complete city walls left in Europe. The city walls are
also remarkable as a constant, daily reminder of the division between the
communities in the city and of Ireland as a whole. Similar physical divisions
have existed in Berlin and are being constructed in Israel-Palestine, not to
mention the oft-overlooked divisions created in US communities by inequitable
development patterns around railroad tracks or the active construction of
freeways along economic and class boundaries within communities.
The
Tower Museum’s “The Story of Derry” exhibit
While I was unable to visit the Tower Museum itself
due to renovations, “The Story of Derry” exhibit was temporarily moved to the
Harbour Museum. I was able to view the exhibit and review a small number of
documents from the museum about the exhibit. The primary elements of the
exhibit that interested me were the presentation of the area’s history starting
at the founding of Saint Columba’s monastic settlement in the 6th
century without mentioning previous habitation in pre-history, a side by side
view of history comparing Catholic and Loyalist milestones, and a video
presentation of the modern troubles of Derry beginning in the late 60’s and
continuing through the 70’s.
While
the video was playing there was a space to sit and watch, but the video looped
and the sitting space did not allow for group conversations. Therefore, there
was little space or time made for participants to communicate with each other.
Excepting for the space provided to view the movies, there was no space
available for people to speak with each other. Even if people would have been
so inclined, there was no encouragement to have any kind of discourse with
anything other than the material display and presentation itself.
It
appeared that the exhibit attempted to humanize the history of the city,
providing historical artifacts and narratives. The video presentation did offer
an emotional appeal and showed a tendency toward re-humanizing the participants
of the historical conflict. Judgment was suspended in the exhibit primarily by
providing information in an unbiased way and presenting biased materials in
combination with material from another point of view. One prime example of this
combination strategy was in a side-by-side history of milestones with one side
being a Loyalist timeline and the other being a Catholic timeline.
Little
evidence was available that framed the conflict in larger contexts of Ireland’s
history as a whole or in world history, such as the period of colonization.
Tours
of the City
Employees of the Tourist Centre conduct the tour of
the city walls. Information was primarily from the viewpoint of those within
the city walls during the Siege and much of the information was about the Siege
itself. The tour mostly follows the top of the city walls and conspicuously
focuses on the experience of those within the walls and their descendants, only
looking off into the distance from the walls to the historic place of the
catholic cannons or down from the walls at the primarily Catholic Bogside area.
No time or space was provided for the participants in the tour to speak with
one another.
The
Derry City Council publishes a series of books on Irish heritage, including The
Siege of Derry. I was able to review this
as part of the documentation on Derry from the Tourist Centre. Strikingly, the
last sentence of this book is “After three hundred years it is surely time to
absorb the Siege of Derry into a common history.” (Lacy, 1989) This expresses a
strong inclination toward dialogue and the search for shared meaning.
The
tour of the Bogside occurs on a different day than the tour of the city walls
and is conducted by the Bogside artists not the staff of the Tourist Centre. I
was unable to take part in the guided tour of the Bogside, but I did
independently view the murals and monuments there. The Bogside artists produced
Murals (2001) a book that details the
history of the murals and the history of the Bogside itself that I was able to
review.
The
two tours are divided along the same lines as the larger community. While it
could easily be that the community demanded this division, and that the issue
is so contentious that even the idea of combining the tours was unacceptable,
it is also true that little apparent recognition of the variety of viewpoints
was available. There was not an attempt, for example, to laud the similar
strength of resolve of both the protestant and catholic communities to
persevere.
This
is as much as to say that the tours did not offer a search for shared meaning.
The tours did not provide a time or space for people to talk with each other,
and were primarily oriented toward an expert model. Habermas has specifically
pointed out the difference between a dialogical mode of communication and the
presentation, or monological, mode. (Westerhof-Shultz, 2004) Communication on
these tours is presentational, one-way and hierarchical, and distinctly neither
deliberative nor dialogical.
The
division of the tours would allow participants to self-select a viewpoint that
was compatible with their previous beliefs. This division provided a mechanism
by which partisans could maintain their views without any significant challenge,
unless they were already inclined to such action. The development of shared
meaning would therefore be stagnant until some other, outside influence created
a change in the participants.
The
separation of these tours seems to evidence an inability to suspend judgment
about the history of the city. There was certainly an empathetic story told of
partisans within their context, but there was little evidence of an attempt to
re-humanize the other side of the conflict at the same time.
There
was also no information about the conflict provided in a broader context than
merely the events surrounding the specific history of the city, centering
primarily on the period of the Siege or the conflict in the 70’s.
Photo
tour of the city
Image
1 - The Tower Museum
The
original site I had hoped to study was the Tower Museum. Unfortunately, the
museum was closed for renovations. I was able to view some of the materials
from the museum’s exhibits that had been moved to a neighboring building.
Image
2 - "Derry Will Be Free" at Grianan Aileach
I
was visiting an ancient monument in the Republic of Ireland five miles
northwest of Derry called the Grianan Aileach, possibly the palace of the
northern Irish Kings. I happened to notice something was carved into the
surface of a stone that pointed out how pervasive the specific conflict over
the city was in the larger context of Ireland as a whole. The conflict in the
city is an indicator of the larger context. Therefore, a case study of the city
itself is an important opportunity toward a more wholistic understanding of
Ireland.
Image
3 - “Hands across the divide”
This is a statue at the city side of a bridge over
the river. The statue is a representation of the sides of the conflict coming
together, but not quite there. The cultural, institutional and physical
demarcations between the communities in the city are still very real and
present to all residents.
Image
4 - Hands come closer
The premise of this work is that there are divisions
that need to be mended. The implied hope in this work of art is that the divide
will be bridged by the actions of the people on either side. This becomes an
analogy for the larger conflicts in Ireland and other specific conflicts as
they manifest in other communities.
Image
5 - The Loyalist area
Merely a block away from the statue is an area of the
city clearly marked as being a Loyalist zone. The curbstones are painted with
the colors of the UK flag as territorial markers. The right side of the frame
shows part of a constructed surface on which the Loyalist community annually
builds a bonfire that is lit before one of the two annual marches around the
city walls. The bonfire building takes place over several weeks, keeping the
city aware of the conflict during that period. The left side of the frame shows
a sign, black background with white lettering, which recalls the centuries old
Siege of Londonderry and the present, active identification made between the
current Loyalist community and that local history.
Image
6 - “No Surrender”
A key component of the sign is the phrase “No
Surrender” which points out an important element of the way that the Loyalist
community views itself. They still feel that they are under siege, and have an
identity that demands recognition of the strength and resolve of place and
position they represent.
Image
7 - British Army Watchtower
Here is one of two modern watchtowers placed in the
city by the British Army. These towers have been in constant use, and are still
the station of British soldiers. In recent years, the garrison has been reduced
to only 5 soldiers, but the watchtowers are a constant reminder of
militarization. These towers echo the still extant historical watchtowers along
the city walls used during the Siege of Londonderry along the city walls.
Image
8 - The George Walker Plinth
The fenced platform was the site of a large plinth,
marked by a statue of one of the key Loyalist figures in the Siege of
Londonderry. Rev. George Walker was one Governor of Derry during the siege. The
IRA blew up the plinth itself, but the significance of the area around the
platform remains. Only several hundred feet away is both the site of St.
Columba’s original monastery and the clubhouse for the Apprentice Boys of Derry
Club, the Loyalist organization that organizes the annual bonfire, march and,
until recently, the burning in the effigy of Robert Lundy. Lundy was another
Governor of Derry at the time of the Siege of Londonderry and is considered to
have been a traitor by the Loyalists because he fled the city.
St.
Columba’s 6th century monastery was built in the clearing in the
original oak grove of Derry. The name Derry itself derived from the Irish word
Doire, meaning an oak grove surrounded by water. Beneath this section of wall,
far below at the edge of the Catholic community below is St. Columba’s Well,
one of the original holy wells of the oak grove. Perhaps symbolically, that
well has been sealed and water cannot be had from the installed ornate pump.
Image
9 - View of the Bogside from near the plinth
Until only the last few years, the burning of the
effigy and the firecracker sounds would have occurred at the exact spot on the
city walls that overlooks the Catholic community, also called the Bogside.
Derry had been surrounded by water with a river on one side and a bog on the
other. Much of the Catholic community lives in the drained bog land almost
opposite the area where the Loyalist community has been located. The difference
in relation to the wall is significant. At the Loyalist section, the wall is
directly next to and on the level of the buildings outside the wall. The city
wall towers several hundred feet above the Bogside community, an imposing and
ominous height. Far below, in the Bogside, can be seen the Free Derry sign and
several murals.
Image
10 – “You are now entering Free Derry”
I was not able to determine which of the community
labels came first, the previously mentioned Loyalist sign or this sign with a
white background and black lettering. I suspect that the Free Derry sign was
first. The two are clearly intended as opposites. Free Derry is another name
for the Bogside community, and was the area that the Catholic community held
blockaded from the British Army in the 70’s. The blockade was broken on Sunday,
January 30, 1972 when the British Army pushed through barriers with tanks and
soldiers, killing several Bogside residents. This has since become known as The
Bloody Sunday Massacre and is commemorated in the song “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”
by U2. Along with a specific memorial to those killed on that day, murals
illustrate the sides of several Bogside buildings. One of these murals is on
the building in the right side of this image.
Image
11 - Bogside Mural & Current protest sign
Artists that now run the city tours of the Bogside
area painted these murals. While the murals are reminders of past conflicts,
artifacts of current and ongoing conflict exist side by side.
Image
12 - Solidarity in a broader Irish context - militarization
Solidarity beyond the context of the city is quite
apparent within the community. Not only do those present in the city identify
with a broader Irish conflict, but they also appear to have contextualized
their own experience of militarization within a broader worldwide context of
resistance. In this case, the use of Ireland as the site of manufacture and
supply for militarization is protested in stenciled graffiti on a wall in the
city. Mentioned in the graffiti, Raytheon is a multinational corporation that
produces defense technologies and warplanes for various militaries. In Derry,
Raytheon established a software plant to develop missile guidance tools.
(Maguire, 2001)
Image
13 - Solidarity in a broader worldwide context - no war for oil
On the same wall as the graffiti protesting local
militarization is evidence that the local conflict over militarization has been
contextualized as merely a specific instance of a much larger, world-wide
struggle for hegemony and military control of economic resources.
Image
14 - Connected not divided
Tangential to the mirroring of community signs, there
is a statue outside a performing arts center that mirrors the “Hands across the
divide” statue. Where the latter represents an essentially divided community
voluntarily coming together, the former represents an essentially, and inescapably,
connected community with oppositional views of the world around them. These are
completely different statements about the communities within the city.
Image
14 - Each sees through the others’ eyes
A fundamental artistic element to this statue is that
the eyes of each side are open through to the eyes of the other side. One
cannot see without the other. While the welded joints between the bodies
suggests an inescapable prison, the eyes are a humanizing and hopeful escape
for this vibrant and beautiful city that is locked in an iron mask of conflict.
The essentially interconnected nature of the eyes in this statue is a further
statement of the inescapable interconnectedness and humanity of every part of
this community within the context of a historically dialogue-resistant
conflict.
This
statue and the other are both physical manifestations of a shared search for
meaning of what it means to be a diverse and interconnected community. These
may evidence an emerging dialogue that is occurring in the city I was not able
to otherwise witness within the tours of the city and the museum exhibit.
The
Doagh Island Visitor Centre
The third space I included in this case study was in
The Famine Village at the Doagh Island Visitor Centre. Doagh Island is in
Inishowen. Inishowen peninsula is close by and directly northwest of the city.
Started in 1997, the Visitor Centre tells the story of the Inishowen peninsula
from the period of the Great Famine in the 1840’s to the present day.
The
structure of the Famine Village is a physical path that follows history from
the present back through time. Beginning with a house that was inhabited until
the early 80’s, the village walk passes displays of Irish culture and events
through the period of the Great Famine and before. Through out the village
walk, the guide offers cultural information from all sides of the issue,
re-humanizing all factions and constantly contextualizes the historical famine
in Ireland to current famines in other areas of the world. The materials from
the Centre go so far as to suggest that these current famines are occurring in
“our Ireland’s [sic] – we are their landlords.” The history of the famine
in Ireland is given but also framed in a larger context of exploitation in the
world.
Ireland’s
historical experience with famine is contextualized with its current general
prosperity and current famines across the world. An example of this framing is
when the pamphlet for the Centre suggests: “If you can walk up to your fridge
and find food in it, if you have clothes on your back, a roof over your head
and a bed to sleep on then you are richer than 75% of the world’s population.”
The visceral connection between Ireland’s self-identification as victims of
famine induced by British economic prosperity is placed in the context of
current Irish prosperity being at the expense of other areas of the world.
Contextualizing the past in relationship to the present in this way indicates a
systemic awareness, that the pattern of famine is an emergent property of economic
prosperity within the current economic model. By making this contextual
comparison, the Famine Village is pointing toward the necessity for second
order change.
The
push toward re-humanizing others and in searching for shared meaning is
evidenced in the pamphlet saying, “Based on this tour one can perhaps
understand the great need for understanding, accepting, education and unity
among all people.” Evidence of suspension of judgment is available when the
pamphlet states “The Centre is designed not to divide on religious grounds but
to show a view of past Irish history where there were no winners.”
What
the quotes from the pamphlet point to, and was amply played out during the
guided tour, was a constant connection made between the experience of Ireland
being relevant and reflective on the way that other post-colonial struggles
have manifested across the globe. There is a significant push throughout the
experience of the Famine Village to co-contextualize the specifically Irish
experience with the experience of the world as part of the human experience as
a whole.
The
famine centre constantly framed the conflicting views of history within a
structure of world experience with famine. There was an external reflection of
the issue in a distant context. This allowed for the people to be separate from
the problems. The experience of the people was presented, which focused on the
ground not the political frame in which the events happened.
By
framing the history of the famine as a shared history of pain from which
lessons could be learned and responsibility gained for ensuring that the same
pain did not occur in the world for others, there was the development of an
option for mutual gain. The Irish experience could be a way to collectively act
in a more moral and responsible way toward other countries that currently are
in the world economic position in which Ireland herself was so recently.
Most
significantly for me, a primary component of the exhibit, and included in the
price of admission instead of as an add-on, is a pot of tea and plate of
biscuits in the Tea House on site. This is a space where unstructured time is
provided for participants to be together, with the social inducement of tea and
finger food. Significantly, participants in the exhibit actually talked to one
another, exchanging personal stories and reflections on the larger contextual
issues raised by the exhibit.
The
tea and biscuits at the end of the tour were provided in a space where tour
participants could engage each other in non-directed conversation. This created
a time, place and encouragement for further participation in human connections.
Conclusion
While the other spaces appeared to exhibit some
elements of a dialogical space and an emergent dialogue, only one space
appeared to fully develop both. The Famine Village exhibited all the criteria I
outlined for an enabling dialogical space and I was able to identify all the
characteristics of an emergent dialogue. Of the three spaces in this case
study, the only one that had all the characteristics of an emergent dialogue
was the space that met all the enabling criteria. This suggests a strong
positive correlation between the criteria and the emergence of dialogue.
Due
primarily to the limitations of time, I was not able to explore in this case
study change over time. For example, is the apparent success of the Famine
Village at developing an emergent dialogue sustainable? Another question
remains about the possible dialogical space evidenced by the statues in the
photo tour. Questions also remain about what one might do in a community faced
with dialogue-resistant conflict to develop dialogical spaces, and this inquiry
would be aided by a more thorough investigation of the design and development
that preceded the implementation of the spaces in this case study.
Further,
what does it mean that all these different implementations and models are in
close proximity to each other?
A
similar experience was a lecture series on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,
which included a variety of technologies intended to develop a community
dialogue, including lectures, demonstration of collaborative behaviour and
listening circles. This experience was hard to evaluate as either being
effective or not, but in the way that it resembles the structure of the Famine
Visitor’s Center experience I can see that dialogical space can be aided by the
development of similar supporting activities.
Anecdotally,
humans switch strategies to try to accomplish tasks that seem insurmountable,
so it should not be much of a surprise that the multimodal engagement that
utilizes a sequence of supporting activities appears to best support the
creation of a dialogical environment.
A
broader view of my experience in Derry could not ignore the way in which each
element of a holistic experience is supporting activities for the other
elements. While neither the tours
nor the exhibit in and of themselves are fully able to develop an enabling
dialogical space, it is possible that these discrete elements are part of a
larger web of supporting activities. This suggests that a community in conflict
may need to utilize as many different tools intended to increase engagement as
possible as part of a long-term relationship with itself.
Finally,
even though the spaces I examined in Derry were not fully developed enabling
dialogical space nor had definite characteristics of an emergent dialogue, the
evidence from the photo tour of the City did suggest that there is a search for
a shared meaning occurring. Further study could show that dialogue is taking
place in spaces characterized by good faith, and that the tours were far too
public for that condition to be true. There may in fact be private, local
dialogue occurring that I was unable to witness as an outsider to the
community.
Literature
Review
A
review of the literature on the topic of dialogue is useful for constructing a
working definition of canonical dialogue.
In order to study and evaluate the relative qualities of spaces
attempting to promote dialogue, one must first have an idea about what dialogue
is and what characteristics those spaces might most likely exhibit.
Criteria
of enabling dialogical spaces
Time
& Space
The
necessity for time and space is primarily one of self-evident logistics for
dialogue to occur. However, there is reason to believe that time and place need
specific characteristics for dialogue to emerge.
The
work of Oldenburg (1999) makes it clear that time and place must be
unstructured. Oldenburg develops the idea of time and space in relation to the
needed for a commons, a third place that is neither home nor work, where people
can meet and interact with one another in un-programmed ways.
Havel
(1986) developed the concept of self-conscious culture in which a community is
aware of the way its culture has developed, and points to theatre as a time and
place where this self-conscious development can take place. Theatre then
provides time and place as a foundation for the development of a community
dialogue about its own cultural development.
Brown
(1995) speaks of sharing “sticky rice” which is her metaphor for the way in
which sharing meals creates bonds between people. A more technical term for
this comes from Christian theology is commensality, the sharing of meals as an
act of community. While I certainly agree the creating time and place for
dialogue is essential, as I've pointed out in the past, there must also be some
intentionality and purpose. One primary tasks of the Compassionate Listening
Project (Hwoschinsky, 2002) is to create for the participants a safe place to
both speak and to be heard as an experience of these which they may not have
had before. The speaking and listening is essential to a process of discernment
that reveals the fundamental connection between humans. This specialized listening
happens in an intentionally created time and space.
Willingness
Anecdotally,
I’ve suggested that even if unstructured time and space is available, people in
western culture lack the inclination to dialogue. The simple interest in
meeting another that is different than oneself is singularly lacking across
most of the population in this country. Most people are more than willing to
stay within their comfort zones; in fact they are hostile to the idea of any
situation that might be uncomfortable or lead to self-reflection.
One
of the most insidious qualities of a shopping mall is that is caters to people
who essentially want to have no meaningful connection to their own community.
One can go to a mall and be assured that no one will attempt to interrupt the
individual pursuit of consumption.
Good
Faith
Mediation
places a high value on good faith as the foundation to successful
outcomes. (DRC, n.d.) Much effort
is spent by the Dispute Resolution Center in establishing that requests for
mediation are likely to be successful, specifically that the potential
participants are coming to the negotiations with good faith. The DRC defines
good faith as having an open mind and willingness to compromise. The importance
of good faith cannot be underestimated, and entire negotiations can be scuttled
because one party in the dispute is not negotiating in good faith.
Senge,
among others, has pointed out how damaging hierarchy can be to the emergence of
dialogue. (1994) In dialogue, when so much is dependant on the willingness of
the participants to come together without hierarchy, a lack of good faith is an
implicit, often silent claim of superiority. This superiority is an assumption
of a hierarchical relationship between participants. Therefore, good faith is
the antithesis of hierarchy and is a necessary condition to be met before
dialogue can emerge.
Characteristics
of an emerging dialogue
Re-humanizing
Krishnamurti
specifically points out the need to remove the personae, the masks worn by
people, in order to re-connect to a shared humanity. The compassionate
listening project is primarily focused on the development of a fundamental
connection on this level, and proposes that this connection must take place
before dialogue can emerge.
Compassionate
listening views itself as foundational to dialogue, and is very much focused on
creating an awareness of shared humanity specifically in cases of
conflict. In a compassionate
listening experience, one is working to discern the humanity of another in
spite of collectively charged topics. (Hwoschinsky, 2002)
Suspension
Bohm
(1998) points out the need for suspension of judgment. Suspension of judgment
not as an absence of critical thought, but is suspending value judgments.
Krishnamurti points out that individuals must drop their personae, the masks
they wear, in order for dialogue to emerge. (Boga, 2004) Bohm is clear that the
suspension of judgment does not mean that one gives up their identity or
individualities, but that space is made for new ideas to emerge.
Search
for Shared Meaning
The
intellectual and emotional space created when participants suspend, develops an
opportunity for the development of shared meaning. Bohm points to the search
for shared meaning as an essential component of dialogue.
Atlee
categorizes the field of dialogue by how transformative the conversation is for
the participants. Atlee suggests that the field of practices that can be called
dialogue is characterized primarily by more or less transformative effect. I
think this is far too simplistic, and draws the field far too broadly. The
transformative nature of a search for shared meaning is not the same as, for
example, the transformative process of personal mastery, although they can be
informed by each other. A transformative experience cannot in and of itself be
dialogical, because dialogue has additional specific characteristics that
differentiate from other transformative processes, which are being outlined
here.
Framing
in a larger context
As
a systems thinker, I have a bias toward the necessity of systems thinking. I
presented a paper to the National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation
specifically calling for both wholism and systems thinking as intentional
practices within the dialogue community.
I
noticed a correlation between the aforementioned three characteristics and the
recommendations or strategies for what Fischer and Ury call “principled
bargaining” outlined in Getting to Yes. (1981) The strategies they suggest are: separate the people from
the problem; focus on interests, not positions; invent options for mutual gain;
and insist on objective criteria. The strategies to separate people from the
problem and to focus on interests both seem to be related to the criteria of
re-humanizing the other and suspending judgment. The strategy of inventing
options for mutual gain seems to be related to the search for shared meaning.
The third strategy appears to be something new, an impulse toward wholism or
finding a larger framework or context.
In
this way, the fourth strategy for principled bargaining is related to a
response to paradoxes, which is to search for a wider context in which the
paradox resolves. (Boga, 2004)
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