Models of dialogue

Learnings for the Future of Inter-Faith Dialogue (Part #4)

The exploration of dialogue is becoming of increasing interest -- indeed there is already a need for dialogue between the competing approaches to dialogue. The Quakers have long established the importance of 'gathered meetings', although even they have critics concerned at a certain complacency. David Bohm (4, 5) and Patrick de Maré each initiated experiments in dialogue which have recently become a basis for a Dialogue Project at MIT. This project is concerned with 'generative dialogue as collective creation'. Its director, William Isaacs, usefully distinguishes this emphasis from those associated with other models of dialogue (6):

'therapeutic' models using the group as the vehicle through which individuals may develop (David Bohm and Patrick de Maré)
'community building' models designed to foster a sense of shared community and mutual understanding (as advocated by Carl Rogers (7) and Scott Peck (8)),
'negotiation' models in which efforts are made to produce mutual understandingamong people holding radically different perspectives (Chasin (9))
'hermeneutic' models of social constructionists that focus on the ability to create reality through shared meaning construction through generative metaphor.

However what remains unclear (even for Type (e) above), is how different levels or qualities of dialogue might usefully be distinguished. Leonard Swidler and others, in their dialogue on dialogue conclude that 'The differences among us are partly because we each have a very different 'feel' for the words involved, but probably even more because we were speaking of different stages in the dialogue and at times had different dialogue participants in mind.' (10, p. 148).