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TOWARDS
A NEW COVENANT: EMBRACING A DIALOGUE AND DECISION CULTURE TO
ADDRESS THE CHALLENGES OF THE AGORAS OF THE 21ST CENTURY Heiner Benking and Farah
Lenser, Open Forum, Berlin, Germany, & Sherryl Stalinski, Aurora Now Foundation, Tucson, AZ |
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ABSTRACT
Twenty-first
century agoras, unlike their historical counterparts, are not comprised of
villages populated by individuals who know each other and share the same past,
environment, and culture. Contemporary agoras are diverse and global. Their
dialogue is often conducted across geographical and cultural boundaries. Additionally,
they often address challenges and issues that are far more complex than those
of the early agoras. This paper seeks to identify such challenges and summarize
a variety of appropriate dialogue methodologies.
KEYWORDS: dialogue, conversation,
conscious cultural evolution, dialogue culture, social systems design
CHAPTERS : REQUISITE VARIETY IN DIALOGUE * CULTURAL EVOLUTION * AWARENESS AND
CONSCIOUSNESS *
Choosing Appropriate Dialogue Methodologie * Internal, External, and
In-Between Dialogue *
Bohm-like Dialogue – Open and Free Dialogue * Cultivating Dialogue And
Co-Creation With "Magic Round Tables" (Open-Forums) * MODEL MAKING &
SHARED MODELS *
AN INFLUENTIAL CENTER OF GLOBAL DIALOGUE * CONCLUSION * REFERENCES *
INTRODUCTION
The conference announcement for
the 47th Meeting of the International Society for the System Sciences describes
the concept of 21st century agoras in relation to their
historical predecessors in ancient Greece: "The agoras were public
spaces where people congregated and deliberated on their issues. If we want to
democratize the emerging global village, we must provide agora-like
places where people can engage in meaningful dialogue." However, agoras
in a fragmented world (Beck, 1992) must create their own shared reality and
shared approaches. These agoras must construct their shared realities. They
must find flexible and adaptive ways to negotiate checks and balances, overcome
vicious cycles, and map the dilemmas of complex agendas. Examples of such
situation rooms are the inter-sectorial negotiations of sustainable development
described by Judge (1970, 86, 94, 97).
Agoras of this type are
problem, potential, solution "spaces", which are described in the Encyclopedia
of World Problems and Human Potential (1994-95), as being so complex and
multi-dimensional that no single person can grasp all their aspects. To enable
dialogue in these spaces, we propose a covenant of shared frameworks for
sharing and negotiating our views, levels, proportions and consequences (Judge
1986, 98; Benking 1997c, 1998). This covenant, which we proposed before the
Earth Summit in 1992 (Brown 1994, Benking 1994) is a collection of methods for
sharing realities. They are potential maps and models that we can use to
develop consensual paths of action. (Benking 1994, 1995a, 1996a, 2003).
David Bohm
(1994) wrote that the form of free dialogue could be one of the most effective
possibilities to investigate the crises which society is confronting today. Even
more, he felt that this form of exchanging ideas and information could be of
fundamental importance to change cultures in such a way that creativity will be
set free. Our new agoras are in the process of (re)inventing forms of
free and open dialogue that allow everybody to bring up their suggestions or
opinions about any topic in such a way that the old dualisms of speaker /
listener take much needed "communicative turns." For more see below
and (De Zeeuw 1997; Benking 1999a, 2000).
The new agoras
must overcome what we experience today in conferences and symposia where one
monologue follows another and the discussion is short and poor. This usual form
of meetings and conferences is not the way we can expect to solve our problems,
neither on group or global levels. Instead of waiting for the break or evening
to finally talk to each other, we need to build dialogue into our symposia
(Greek for convivial discussions).
System
Theory points out obvious reasons why people should value and seek out diverse
perspectives, especially when they are engaging in dialogue. We, as systems
researchers and practitioners, understand the value of diversity. We study the
principles that enable a complex, open system to be stable and sustainable over
time. In this pursuit, we can conceptualize a complex global human system, made
of increasingly specialized and diverse individuals, communities, and
countries, that evolves in ever-increasing integration and relationship, and
contains influential centers that continually catalyze its increased
organization. This is, in fact, the essence of social evolution.
And yet,
we find ourselves constantly trying to reconcile what we have learned through
empirical systems research with what we have learned through personal
experience, and trying to reconcile the experiential and the empirical with new,
relativist or postmodern perspectives. We spend enormous effort trying to
validate and honor our own diverse ways of knowing (Earley 1997; Harman, 1998;
Stalinski, 2001) while trying to respect the diverse perspectives of others. This
struggle hinders our ability or consensual action. It comes from trying to
choose between perspectives: an ingrained insistence that we must choose
one perspective or another. Instead, we could accept that there is more than
one perspective, and that several may be "right." We could hold
diverse and multiple perspectives simultaneously and seek their integration. In
so doing, we will open ourselves to the natural processes of integration and
evolution.
According
to Jay Earley (1997) who articulates the same fundamental processes of
integration expressed by von Bertalanffy: "differentiation (complexity),
autonomy and wholeness are the three basic tendencies of evolution." We
propose that, for human systems, this process happens concurrently at the level
of individual consciousness and at societal/cultural levels. This process of
increased wholeness and individuation (unity) happens through the relevant,
effective and right relationship of increasingly diverse (differentiated and
autonomous) components (Bertalanffy, 1968). The evolutionary process is not
reliant merely on differentiation, but on the appropriate relationship of
differentiated systems components; whether biological, organismic or human
perspectives. (Benking,1997b), (Kline
1996)
Human
evolution is the process of evolving individual consciousness and the
concurrent evolution of our social systems and cultures (Banathy, 2000; Earley,
1997; Harman, 1998). Rose (1998), Gebser (1986). We (Benking & Stalinski,
2001a) argue that this process is experiential and concrete, not just
conceptual. It is central to our being, and to the emergence of evolved
consciousness (and the integration of human culture). Earley likewise calls for
the integration of "participatory" and "reflexive"
consciousness—again underscoring the integration of the experiential, rational
and spiritual towards increased individual and cultural wholeness.
The
evolution of consciousness is not so much a process of changing personal
perspectives, meanings and worldviews; it is more a process of integration
(Gebser, 1986, Rose, 1998; Benking & Stalinski, 2001a) and finding internal
congruency among what we know empirically, experientially with our
understanding of meaning (Stalinski, 2001). Our cultures are influenced by this
internal congruence. Cultural evolution, then, is a process of living and
experiencing both internal and external differentiation, integration and
congruency. Often our contemporary cultures express contradictory and
conflicting values internally, and even as we ignore these internal conflicts,
humanity seems to be striving for a more global wholeness and unity.
Within our
human communities and organizations—whether local, societal or global—shared
meanings and values centralize our ‘wholeness’ as complex systems of diverse
individuals and sub-systems. Human cultures are value-guided systems (Laszlo,
E. 1996; Banathy, 1996, 2000). We learn through personal experience and
cultural influence to value that which benefits our ability to not just
survive, but thrive as individuals and social systems. The cultures
within our small local geographic communities or larger societal systems evolve
around ‘highly influential centers’ (Bertalanffy, 1968) of adopted and agreed
upon values and norms. And yet, we rarely reflect upon these central meanings,
values, and norms at a conscious level.
Astronauts
have often spoken about "instant consciousness," something impressing
and lasting they experienced the moment they saw the earth as a whole and
themselves apart from it. They report that this changed their attitudes and
awareness. They suddenly appreciated the value, fragility, and beauty of the
planet and their duty to safeguard the whole earth and not just their personal
"vicinity."
When we
really become conscious of an external object, state, or fact, we widen our
horizons, our perspectives, and ultimately our spheres of responsibility. This
idea of consciousness expands the dictionary definition that
"consciousness is the quality or state of being aware especially of
something within oneself." As we have seen above, when we widen our
awareness to take in something from "outside," we take in something
that has relevance, proportion and consequence for our survival. As our
awareness widens, our external and internal consciousness heightens because we
are integrating our internal and external aspects. We begin to survive as a
greater whole, transcending our personal survival, in and across scales,
cultures, and times. At this point, we face an extraordinary challenge: How can
we connect this instant consciousness or deep ecology feeling to others in a
way that is lasting, immanent, and permanent in an organismic (not just
perspective) mode?
Self-reflective
consciousness is a uniquely human capacity. If consciousness is a state of
being aware "especially of something within ourselves," that
awareness is integrally tied to how we experience the relationship between
"awareness within" and relations outside ourselves. Since the dawn of
human consciousness, behavior has been guided by what we value, what we
determine to be ‘good’ or ‘better’ for ourselves individually and collectively.
Yet conscious choice, self-reflection, and even rational thinking are usually
secondary to habitual behavior informed by our personal and cultural experience
(see Bourdieu, 1982).
It is not
only explicit knowledge that shapes us, but the implicit understandings of
meaning and context that we each accumulate from personal experience and
cultural interaction (Samples, 1981). If we were to consciously reflect and
analyze every choice we make, the result would be a sort of paralysis—it simply
is not practical. Moreover, much of the knowledge we gain experientially, like
"knowing" we are in love, is almost impossible to reflect and analyze
in a conscious language. Yet this inchoate experiential knowledge seems to make
up the most permanent and solid bricks in our subconscious foundation for
choice. If we experience rejection, for example, then the "truth" of
our unworthiness persists in our subconscious, and that belief will influence
our decisions and behavior until we consciously reason a new conclusion or
until we experience acceptance and feelings of worth (Stalinski, 2001).
It is no
wonder, then, that Gebser calls so strongly for the ‘concrete’—the experiential
and tangible—in the quest for integral consciousness. The age of reason has
diminished the value for tacit knowledge and experiential learning and has
relegated value to only that which can be proven rationally and empirically. If
politically correct varieties of "reason" would accept the advances
in physics, systems theory and evolutionary theory, this would not be so bad. Unfortunately,
few of us bother to learn about these new understandings. Instead, we are
guided by subconscious understandings of the world and our place in it that we
have inherited from our recent past. Regardless of how embedded we are in a
consciousness dominated by the rational, much of our living is based on these
unexamined subconscious meanings.
If we are to escape this bondage
to unexamined values, we need more than words and pictures. We need to
experience new worlds and realities with all our senses and attach ourselves
empirically, rationally and emotionally to them. We need to share schemas and
models, metaphors and stories in addition to pictures and words. For that
purpose, we need to overcome the fragmentation caused by our different media
and sign systems (Benking 2003). Central to this effort, we need to review the
rituals and ways we use to share and communicate.
We might
learn from many Indigenous peoples who prefer participatory design structures
to hierarchical ones. One such group is AIO (Americans for Indian Opportunity) under the leadership of LaDonna Harris
(2003). Their ILIS Dialogue (Indigenous Leadership Interactive System) combines
AIO's core values: "relationships, responsibility, reciprocity, and
redistribution" with six established principles of dialogue and
computer-mediated methods of voting, decision-making, and consensus-building (built
upon the work of Chistakis; 1996, 2001).
Gebser, in
his The Ever-Present Origin (1986), speaks of the concretion of time as
one of the preconditions of the integral, stating "only the concrete can
be integrated." We believe he is suggesting ‘concreteness’ as being more
than just having an intuitive "gut feeling," and more than just being
open for new experiences or escaping old molds and fixations. Instead, we
believe he calls us to experience all levels of human evolution and
consciousness in ways that are sharable and collectively observable.
In his
synoptic table column 17, Gebser is searching for a "Motto for the
Integral." He plays with the German "Wahrgeben – Wahrnehmen"
distinction. "Wahrgeben" means to him to impart truth, whereas
"wahrnehmen" suggests merely imparting what we can see with our eyes
and measure. Wahrgeben connotes for us an embodiment of truth to reality,
perhaps a small facet of an ultimately unknowable absolute Truth, which we
agree is beyond our ability to define in its entirety (an agreement which can
be found in nearly all of the world's spiritual traditions). This embodied
reality then, is at once relative and real, posing no real paradox or
contradiction, and allows participants in dialogue to experience unfamiliar
facets or perspectives that can lead to creative insight.
Stalinski
(2001) explores the current obstacles to imparting such an experiential
embodiment of truth (wahrgeben) within the current traditional/modern
perspective, which relies solely on the empirical (wahrnehmen). Benking (2003)
suggests that we should use, in addition to absolute and relative space, a
synthetic model space with scaffolding that can be filled and emptied with real
or synthetic artifacts. This space would allow us to make extra dimensions and
levels (beyond the meso-scale) embodied and thereby tangible. It is a modeling
space adapted to the context of social systems decision-making.
This
approach goes beyond relativist and postmodern approaches, which remain
ultimately abstract and vague. In model space, we make room for multiple and
competing perspectives in a way that enables us to see, feel, touch, and even
measure when appropriate, various ways of understanding. Surrounded by these
perspectives, we draw upon our ability to apply and embody ideas, meanings, and
facts on order to evaluate the conceptual situations that come up. Integration
and transcendence ultimately arise in ways that allow people with diverse
perspectives to share jointly created meaning in ways that honor and
acknowledge the values brought by each of them.
For
example, we work with youth on an educational curriculum to establish and
compare different perspectives (called "eyes"): worm, fish, bird,
generation, culture eyes. Our experiences lead us to believe that holding many
incompatible perspectives makes sense and is most natural to
"non-intellectuals." This multi-modal way of thinking in an
architecture of situated and structured perspectives (Benking, Rose 1998) might
help all of us to overcome our culturally induced impulse that demands that we
either agree with someone or else fight him/her to prove that we are
"right." For the work of Helmuth Plessner (1928) on overcoming
dualism by assuming an ex-centric position see (Benking, Stalinski 2001a).
In short,
the synergy that emerges from consciousness and dialogues that embrace many
perspectives is "universal,"not tied to any one perspective, it is a
perspective that somehow observes a conversation from a distance. (Of course,
people and groups need to appreciate many perspectives before they rise to a
higher-level perspective. This is shown by Gebser’s demonstration that the
inclusive level must precede the evolutionary one.)
It has
been said that wisdom is knowledge applied. We humans seem to learn best by
experience. As we conceptualize new possibilities and apply them, new ideas
become ‘real’ and give meaning to information that would otherwise be lost. Anyone
who has teenagers knows the exasperation involved in trying to tell them about
the possible consequences of their behavior. They, like the rest of us, seem to
learn best in "the school of experience." The experiences we have
over our lifetime either reinforce or contradict previously held values. Considering
the impact of experience on our subconscious and conscious values, and its
ability to transform those values and subsequent behaviors and choices, it is
surprising how little value we place on experiential learning.
New
information is automatically tested against our personal experience for
congruency in order to evaluate it usefulness, if not at the conscious level
then at the unconscious. If we make a conscious effort to reflect on this
congruence, we can question whether our experience has resulted in learning
that improves our sense of meaning, purpose, and values. In experience-based
conversation and dialogue, we have a healthy environment to explore, evaluate,
and possibly re-create our fundamental perceptions and perspectives (Stalinski
2001).
Dialogue
in a universal mode is dialogue of shared Wahrgeben that resonates in a group
and is owned by it. It is a meaningful experience of co-creation that includes
rational discourse, but not at the expense of interactive myth, magic,
metaphor, stories, play, and artistic expression.
CONSTRUCTING AGORAS
In order
to create new agoras, we think it is necessary to build up a kind of
"communitas" in the sense of Martin Buber
(1984) and also to build a "polis" which includes the
"not-common," that is, the differences which make a difference. For
Buber, the first and indispensable vital step, communitas, is the
outcome and consequence of a dialogue process that expresses the relation
between the I and the You. The upshots of I – You interactions
is dialogue, mutual respect, and shared meaning, which according to David Bohm
is the "glue" or "cement" that holds people and societies
together.
Dialogue
gives us a way to communicate, share, listen, ponder, reflect and jointly
elaborate issues. It can get us out of the conventional rut in which prepared
statements are read with typically no reference to what was said before, and no
time for discussion as everybody is overusing his time slot, as we have all too
often not learned to be brief and concise.
Choosing
Appropriate Dialogue Methodologies
Dialogue
takes place in both informal and formal gatherings. The informal gatherings
usually make use of open formats that allow change agents to emerge. The formal
gatherings often use structured formats to tackle complex issues with diverse
stakeholders, and attempt to create consensual action plans. Both open and
structured formats have their place in order to match the needs, assumptions,
requirements, expectations as well as the location, space and time available. All
dialogic facilitation methods are a kind of "one family" (Owen, 2000)
– as long as they allow the free flow o meaning and hinder the dominance of
self-selected presenters.
There are
a number of fine participative planning and design methodologies that are
practiced by hundreds of experienced and successful facilitators. Some of these
methodologies include dialogue (structured and unstructured). Some of them are
solidly based on years of scientific research, academic review, and practical
application. They may well be in order for groups with complex problems and
groups that have made first steps with informal methodologies. These
methodologies are not the focus of this paper.
Instead,
we focus on more informal, less structured dialogues, especially the Bohm-like
ones, Open Space TechnologiesTM, and Magic Round Tables. These
methods are relatively easy to use and they produce genuine transformative
dialogue.
Internal, External,
and In-Between Dialogue
In the
process of evolving to a more unified systems complex of diverse cultural,
socio-economic, religious, psychological individuals and social systems
(building agoras), we can use dialogue to discover the relevant and
integrated interrelations, which will make us more autonomous individually, and
more unified globally. This dialogue may be internal as we seek congruency
between what we know empirically and experientially within our individual and
collective lives. This conscious reflection on personal values and meanings
will impact our behavior and how we perceive others who may seem different, and
cause us discomfort. Our willingness to engage in external dialogue – the
co-creation of meaning with others—becomes an exploration of discovery in which
we find out how we fit together, as individuals, communities, cultures and
nations (Bohm & Peat, 1987; Lopez-Garay, 2001; Christakis, 2001).
Additionally,
there are "in-between" dialogues, which are designed to give space
for surprise, for the unexpected and tacit to surface. For example, in
gatherings like Open Space TechnologiesTM or Magic Round Tables,
people take on the responsibility themselves and as a group to co-create and
form something, which cannot be planned, which can only emerge if the situation
is right and "control" is abandoned.
Open SpaceTechnologiesTM
Open and
free dialogue is en vogue. The method of Open Space TechnologiesTM
is enjoying popularity similar to the "future labs" of Robert Jungk
several years ago. It seems to be in use everywhere.
The
originator of "Open Space", Harrison Owen, in his work with groups
discovered that, if one has an open space and some "ingredients," and
then adds some roles for moving in-between internal and external dialogues,
then "surprises" are possible. A sample open space might be a
marketplace with the "law of the two feet" (in which people can
"vote with their feet" by moving between places and groups) with a
bulletin board, and then allow or encourage some participants to adopt the
roles of as "butterflies" (a person sitting for example at leisure,
at the bar or playing guitar) or of "bumble-bees" (a person
cross-fertilizing by "jumping" from one group to another). This setup
enables movement and dialogue between the other forms of dialogue, and can add
surprises. In surprise and exchange, we experience a self-organization in
social systems that is similar to the evolution that biologists see in nature. Owen
has featured this process in great detail in an interview (Lenser 1998).
With the
dynamic of embodied voting tokens at magic round tables, we experience
something very similar. The results strengthen our belief that open dialogue
methods can change people’s frames of mind and modes of communication. In these
Magic Round Tables (see Open Forum 1995-2003), people tell stories, stay
silent, do several kinds of art, and sometimes reset their agenda and
priorities, just as the audience is ready for it. Dynamic voting at the round
table and the surprises in Open Space TechnologiesTM encompass the
dialogue spectrum and help us to cherish, explore and learn from our differences.
Bohm-like Dialogue
– Open and Free Dialogue
In Bohm’s concept of free and
open dialogue, people come together in a circle (often 40 or more people)
without agenda or moderator. Several methods approximate this ideal.
One ancient and venerable method
is the Native American tradition of the "talking stick." Native
Americans used to come together in a circle sharing their ideas and thoughts
and feelings – often with the help of a talking stick. The one who has the
talking stick can talk as long as she/he wants and the others listen carefully
without commenting. After finishing, she/he will put the talking stick in the
open space in the middle of the circle and someone else will take it – at once
or after a creative silence.
This
method has been re-established by the Native Americans themselves (Council
process), and is used today in some therapeutic groups and in some new age
circles, but it holds further promise as is shown with dialogues not only in
public – but also, for example, in prisons – a very demanding application area
(see Manitonquat; Medicine Story, 1997).
Another
important Bohm-like approach towards shared meaning and peace employs
architectures or structures of meaning to design meetings and gatherings; such
as is the case with the Asilomar and Fuschl conversations. This kind of
dialogue, which seeks to create, redesign or refine human systems, requires
competence in the area of creation, co-creation and design. The design
conversation engages participants in both generative and strategic dialogue in
order to gain design competence, conceptualize, and create complex human
systems. (Banathy,
1996; Laszlo, Laszlo, et al, 1996; Stalinski 2001).
Conventional
pow-wows, talking stick methods, Fuschl conversations– and many other ways
requiring time without constraints – are exceptionally successful, if the group
has enough time for the process and each individual honors the group. The
problem in our times and our culture is how to cultivate listening and share
ideas when everybody considers time as the only thing they do not have and
speakers fight for "air-time" in order to "sell" their
message" in the tight time-budget of a meeting or conference.
One way is
to go on retreat to create time. This is the method employed in the Asilomar
and Fuschl conversations. In Magic Roundtables, we propose another way. We
create a kind of "time" that is valuable only for others. In
roundtables, dialogue participants are given tokens for a given amount of time,
they are encouraged to give their "time" away to other participants
in order to give voice to others.
Another
problem with Bohm-like dialogues is: "how to stop the talkers"? David
Bohm (1994) underlined this issue in the last footnote of his book On
Dialogue, saying that it would be helpful to develop some "rules"
to handle talkers who monopolize a group. To overcome this problem many
dialogue methods parcel out the time that participants can use. For more see:
The Mary Parker Follett Foundation (2003-2004).
Cultivating
Dialogue And Co-Creation With "Magic Round Tables" (Open-Forums)
The
purpose of dialogue is to create shared meaning. Since we currently experience
life within the constraints of linear time, we need to nurture the diversity
needed for shared meaning by enabling diverse participation in equitable ways. Time-sharing
roundtable exercises enable participants to reflect the other’s perspective and
at the same time to practice "communion" through empowering, giving
voice, and sharing empathy in a process of establishing shared meaning. (Judge,
1994; Benking, 1998; Bohm [online]).
The Magic
Round Table method (Open Forum 1995-2003; Lenser, Benking 2002) presented here
is one approach to tackle the nightmare of self-presentation and isolation of
individuals in groups. We think this approach is in perfect tune with the work
of David Bohm (1994, 1998), Anthony Judge on "Time-sharing Systems in
Meetings" (Judge 1994), and the DaZiBao
participative conference messaging approach (Nadia McLaren 1992),
which was first exercised at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
So what we
do and propose is to modify the generally accepted timesharing methods where
every speaker has his/her speaking-time. Instead of just dividing and
distributing the time available (maybe only one hour equal 60 tokens) to
pre-selected speakers, we give tokens – physical time-beats like stones, nuts,
straws, etc. – to potential speakers and surprise-guests. To introduce the game
we nominate a "moderator" as time-keeper and independent guard to
secure that the rules are understood and applied.
Participants
preferably sit in a circle and are kindly asked by the facilitator not
necessarily to introduce themselves, but primarily to propose a topic or theme
to the group they would like to elaborate. This offer can be anything – a
passionate project, a dominant feeling, the wish to do something else (offering
a little performance, to go for a demonstration which is happening around the
corner, asking for some silence or meditation or anything else – all these are
examples we experienced the last 10 years). After the "offer of themes and
proponents" the participants are asked to give their token time-credits as
a present and encouragement to the persons who offer something that they want
to hear and havd jointly explored.
The
difference from other methods is the dynamic, embodied allocation of attention
and interest, which encourages co-creation and the exchange of ideas where the
group jointly elaborates and models in the given time. Time symbolized as a
token given to other people encourages and gives them a sign of interest and
sympathy, which invites them to share meaning, follow joint lines of interest,
and learn about common threads, concerns, assumptions and approaches.
The magic
round tables have been introduced during recent years in a very broad range of
settings, with a great variety of participants in political, scientific, peace
and mediation environments. The topics and outcomes of the dialogues, and how
they evolve is always a surprise. It is almost always unclear who would get
speaking time and what would attract the most interest.
We find
that the method works with all kinds of participants, politicians, scientists,
artists and youth, having all manners of cultural, social and political
background. Nobody has refused to obey to the rules, not the sheik of a
traditional Sufi group, nor the right-wing youngster who started with an
"offer" to beat up somebody in the group, nor the follower of a
radical left-wing political group who first refused to sit at the table with
somebody who belongs to an opponent group. This last one refused to sit at the
table with his supposed opponent/enemy and disturbed the group with aggressive
remarks, but was stunned with astonishment, when this person got up to give him
"time to speak." In such cases, the method works as a tool for
mediation, as people realize and change their assumptions and prejudices. In our view, it is important to attract people from all
strands of life, people from the exact and fine arts, from policy and industry.
What we
experience in life, the tactile, sights, smells, sounds, tastes and emotional
feelings, give us our sense and understanding of our human experience. While we
may sometimes use our capacity to reason to try to understand these
experiences, it is often difficult to argue rationally against what we have
learned experientially. In dialogue, we can create valuable experiential
learning through our senses and emotions by expressing concrete experiences and
listening to the stories of others. In such dialogue, the use of models, maps,
and metaphor are strong tools for sharing, in writing and also outside the
parameters of our symbolic languages. (Benking 1996, 1997c; 2001b, Rose, 2000;
Stalinski, 2001).
AN INFLUENTIAL
CENTER OF GLOBAL DIALOGUE
Systems
evolve around ‘instigating causalities,’ which influence and catalyze the
organization of a system (Bertalanffy, 1968). In our cultural systems, these
influential centers are the values that define the cultural system. Cultural
leadership catalyzes the norms and behaviors that reflect these values. By
understanding the role of leadership as "centralizing" and
influential for the application of a culture’s values, leadership can be seen
not as a "dominant" role, but a "predominant" role, which
empowers integration and interrelationship among all system members to create a
more unified and individuated ‘whole’ culture (Stalinski, 2001). At a global
level, the Institute for Global Ethics lists five values identified around the
world: respect, honesty, compassion, fairness and responsibility (Glenn &
Gordon, 2001). These fundamental, life-affirming values, by being integrated
within cultural dialogues at all levels of the global human systems complex,
can provide a meaningful and valuable ‘centralizing influence’ as we strive for
an increased unity that is expressed in myriad cultural, ethnic, and religious
traditions.
There are
numerous other groups around the world who promote dialogue approaches. To
enumerate and describe them would require another paper. Moves are afoot to
coordinate the efforts of these groups, but with little tangible success so
far.
Dialogue is a central component
of any real agora. We have explored the nature of 21st
century agoras, their need for a variety of viewpoints, the nature of
cultural evolution, and the role of consciousness. We have discussed the
construction of agoras from the viewpoints of choosing appropriate
methodologies, varieties of dialogue, Open Space TechnologiesTM,
Bohmian dialogue, and Magic Round Tables with some mention of models and
organizations that promote dialogic methods.
To construct a meaningful number
of agoras using dialogue methods, we need to do a great deal of work. Starting
now.
Banathy, B. H. (1996). Designing social systems in
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alternative courses of action. Both open and structured formats have their
place in order to match the needs, assumptions, requirements, expectations as
well as location, space and time available.