truthSeeking

[|truth seeking environments] Bill Kerr

[|a dialogue manifesto] by Bill Bruck

Which outline, in draft form, a series of beliefs I have about the importance of dialog, some of its key characteristics, and their implications for collaborative technologies.
 * 1) Lack of understanding is often the result of differing assumptions, beliefs, and values.
 * 2) Our assumptions, beliefs, and values come from our personal experiences and history.
 * 3) Sometimes people are aware of their assumptions, beliefs, and values. Sometimes they aren't.
 * 4) Sometimes they are willing to explore them. Sometimes they aren't.
 * 5) People often hold onto them at an emotional level, because they get something out of it.
 * 6) Thus, the roots of lack of understanding are often at the emotional as well as cognitive level.
 * 7) Dialog, when done well, allows people to identify differences in assumptions, beliefs, and values.
 * 8) Deep dialog allows people to explore the sources of those assumptions, beliefs, and values.
 * 9) When people explore these together, they often understand the source of their differences
 * 10) They also often find common ground
 * 11) This common ground is often the source of a reconciling principle that can lead to agreement.
 * 12) Understanding is thus often best achieved through deep dialog
 * 13) Deep dialog can be rewarding.
 * 14) It can also be scary and painful.
 * 15) Deep dialog requires self disclosure, commitment, and trust. It requires vulnerability.
 * 16) In the give and take of dialog, trust can be built through increasing levels of mutual self disclosure.
 * 17) This type of dialog requires that each person speak his or her own truth.
 * 18) It requires that each person listen to, acknowledge and respect the truth spoken by the other.
 * 19) Deep dialog can happen in a dyad, a small group, or a community characterized by strong ties.
 * 20) Within a community, it is important to have participants who stand in relationship, one to another.
 * 21) It is important that the community evolve norms that facilitate self disclosure, respect, and acknowledgement.
 * 22) Otherwise dialog becomes debate, and self disclosure becomes a competition to prove one's point.
 * 23) Vulnerability is extremely difficult in crowds, or social networks characterized by weak links rather than strong ties.
 * 24) Deep dialog is easier face to face, where cues are rich and feedback is immediate.
 * 25) It is also possible when communication is mediated by technology.
 * 26) Deep dialog within a technology mediated group has the same requirements of dyadic, face-to-face dialog.
 * 27) It still requires that people stand in relationship one to another, and norms of respect and acknowledgement.
 * 28) Collaboration technology will not make deep dialog happen, but the wrong technologies can inhibit it.
 * 29) Technologies that support deep dialog provide containers for a group or community to converse with each other.
 * 30) They ensure that conversations are contained within, and accessible to, the group.
 * 31) They enable sustained back-and-forth exchanges.
 * 32) They enable the group to create the conditions within which self disclosure and exploration can take place.

I've added this comment to Bill Bruck's manifesto: I can envisage two different types of dialogues being discussed here: (1) truth seeking, (2) people centred.

The first implies that there is such a thing as truth and that it can be approached using the scientific method, which could also be described as a theory-practice cycle. In scientific communities individuals do get egg on their face sometimes because truth is valued, that there is some sort of objectivity and there is an agreed method available to work it out. More or less. It's a continual ongoing process. I would argue that because of this sort of scientific activity our society is far more advanced than it would otherwise have been. Medical progress is a good example from my perspective because it is hard to argue against medical progress :-)

I would say that Bill Bruck's list is more concerned with a "people centred" type of discussion, that peoples feelings are viewed as more important than truth seeking activity. ie. the outcome that "we agree to differ" is more likely to be reached through application of Bill's list. "Agree to differ" is a good strategy to preserve a marriage between a Christian and an Atheist but it is not a good strategy to determine the funding priorities for cancer research.

I can't see anything in Bill's list about scientific method or the theory practice spiral as a way to test who is correct. - BK 23Jan, 07

There is more dialogue at [|a dialogue manifesto]