DIMENSIONS OF DIALOGUE

Sustainable Dialogue as a Necessary Template for Sustainable Global Community (Part #2)

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In the following sections an effort is made to identify the challenges to the sustainability of dialogue seen through the frameworks of contrasting metaphors. In each case the concern is with how to envisage avoiding any break in 'the pattern which connects' the participants in the dialogue. As argued by Gregory Bateson, breaking that pattern leads to loss of quality. However there is also the question of how that pattern can be enriched and enhanced. For without that it becomes stultifying, sterile and brittle, fragmenting of its own accord.

The contrasting metaphors below are in fact complementary. Each introduces an important dimension but is in itself inadequate to capturing the complexity of sustainability. Taken in isolation, each may even be a major factor in undermining it.

Quality of life is intimately related to the depth of ongoing dialogue. What does it mean when a dialogue becomes 'deeper', more profound or more significant? How is it appropriate to think about different levels of dialogue?

This can perhaps best be explored through a metaphor that clarifies possible steps in the evolution of dialogue. There may be a case, taking an Eastern martial art like aikido as a metaphor, for distinguishing different levels of proficiency in dialogue -- up to a 'black belt' -- and bearing in mind the progression of philosophical and attitudinal subtleties in responding to an 'opponent'! Shifting metaphors, perhaps there is a case for a dialogue equivalent to a 'golf handicap' to constrain the undisciplined and to provide a 'level table' (to use a phrase vital to a stage in the Middle East peace process).

Alternatively, a musical metaphor could be used in different ways. One way is to take the stages in the historical development of musical harmony as representing stages in the complexification and enrichment of dialogue as an exercise in social harmony (**11). This could give rise to a sequence of levels such as the following:

• Level 1: Singing in unison, based on scales (Ancient Greece)
• Level 2: Use of any of 12 scale patterns of tones with characteristic functions (6th to 9th century)
• Level 3: Acceptance of only simplest 'perfect' harmonic ratios, allowing the addition of one or two exactly parallel voices, that later acquired melodic independence (9th century)
• Level 4: Acceptance of other intervals and the development beyond 3-part scoring (12th to 15th century)
• Level 5: Breakdown of the distinction between the 12 classical modes, foreshadowing the major/minor system (15th century)
• Level 6: Focus on the keynote as the point of departure and arrival in a composition (16th century)
• Level 7: Emphasis on expressive melodic line harmonically underpinned by a base line generating forces upon which harmonies were built (17th century)
• Level 8: Deliberate use of unresolved harmonies and of ambiguous chords (19th century)
• Level 9: ...

Is it possible that the many efforts by the international community towards consensus on vital issues, such as sustainable development or human rights, are trapped in a simplistic understanding of harmony that effectively dates back to Ancient Greece?

A related approach would be to consider a metaphor based on:

• Level 1: Monotone (enunciation of single pattern of values, drowning out or ignoring all others)
• Level 2: Competing monotones (recognition of discordant patterns of values)
• Level 3: Responding tones (contrasting volumes responding to each other in some measure)
• Level 4: Runs of tones...simple melodies (highlighting of sequences of values in resonance one with another)
• Level 5: Isolated chords (harmonious value complexes and combinations)
• Level 6: Sequences of chords (sequences of value complexes, providing a context for those of a more discordant nature)
• Level 7: ...

The focus is here on the Western concept of music. That of the East opens the ways to seeking parallels with developments in modes of awareness which can allow the presence of elements of an apparently higher degree of incompatibility.

In both cases levels are not 'superseded' through such development. Each always has its value. But at the 'deeper' or 'higher' levels there is greater richness. The context for any item included from a 'lower' level then becomes of greater significance. At the higher levels, it is how lower level contributions to the dialogue are combined with others that is more significant than the specific quality of that contribution. As with music, the power and genius of a piece of dialogue comes from the overall pattern of combinations. At the higher levels this may appear increasingly chaotic, but is increasingly capable of holding the degree of order found in nature. Lower levels of dialogue tend to be mechanistic, where the higher levels depend on aesthetic significant patterns of associations. Of course, from a lower level, any pattern connecting elements of significance at a higher level would necessarily be a challenge to comprehension.

In terms of such a 'vertical' metaphor, the sustainability of dialogue is dependent on the nature of the connection between 'levels'. In practice any transition between levels during dialogue implies the possibility of discontinuity and therefore the breakdown of dialogue -- although some discontinuity may be tolerable as part of a larger pattern. The discontinuity from any 'lower' level arises from the challenge to comprehension of the perspectives of any 'higher' levels -- they are essentially meaningless or irrelevant. From any 'higher' level, the challenge of 'lower' levels is associated with frustration with their restrictiveness and limited applicability.

Such vulnerability to vertical discontinuity may be partially reduced through information and education. But this is seldom adequate, for the discontinuity is essentially experiential. In a sense each level implies a paradigm shift, or even an 'initiation' in ritual terms. The reality of the perspective at a higher 'level' cannot be adequately explained or justified. It must be learnt, often as a consequence of painful experience. Prior to learning, communication with those at a 'higher' level may evoke respect, even awe, but this does not ensure sustainable dialogue.

The more interesting challenge is not how to ensure that everyone dialogues from the 'highest' level. Depending on this would postpone most initiatives indefinitely whilst some participants are 'brought up to speed'. It would also be experienced as profoundly elitist(**) -- whatever the subtleties through which those at the 'highest' level discover their identification with those of the 'lowest'.

The challenge is rather how to ensure a sustainable dialogue between people whose 'centre of gravity' or 'comfort zone' are at different levels. The possibilities and challenges are clear in any family with children of different ages. Family breakdown can be seen as a consequence of unsustainable dialogue between levels of experience or generations. Note that this may be due to the children having acquired far more profound experience than the parents, so complacent paternalism or maternalism are not enough. But it is understandable how traditional family structures are seen as sustaining certain forms of social structure.

On the scale of the global community, the nature of the challenge becomes even clearer. How is a 'higher' level to be distinguished? Many in the policy sciences plead for greater sophistication on the part of policy-makers as the essential condition to meet the challenges of complexity (Dror**). Others call for 'centres of excellence'. However, other than through appeals for education and public information, they do not clarify how the dialogue between such elites and a 'many-levelled' public is to be rendered sustainable. And issues of political apathy and the democratic deficit are of increasing concern. And what exactly is 'higher' in relation to the dramatic conditions of the least developed countries or the fourth world?

It is also clear how those operating at 'higher' levels have ways of defining and protecting their own excellence so as to increase their insensitivity to those at 'lower' levels. Some have a tendency to take advantage of their 'height', disguising their self-interest under demonstrations of sophistication. It is of course possible that such levels are themselves merely the foothills to greater heights from which such manipulation is rejected. All spiritual traditions would make this claim, for example. But, switching metaphors, the challenge remains to find ways of ensuring two-way traffic between different levels.

Effort at dialogue between levels can be experienced as an encounter with 'otherness'. But this can be usefully distinguished from an encounter with difference or incompatibility at the same level, where the emphasis is not on more complex or subtle, but rather on an alternative perspective. In this case 'otherness' is experienced as the strange or foreign. In the most extreme cases it carries the characteristics of the 'shadow' in Jungian terms (***).

For an individual within a group, others holding a different point of view constitute a challenge to dialogue. In terms of a 'horizontal' metaphor, it is useful to see the relative difficulty of dialogue represented as the distance which separates people. Indeed, the phrase 'they are far apart' is often used for this purpose. Socio-metrics uses this approach.

Most of the accepted issues of inter-disciplinary, inter- faith, inter-cultural, or inter-national dialogue appear to be associated with this form of 'otherness'. But clearly it is easy to confuse vertical differences of level with such horizontal differences. Indeed a vertically different perspective, if denied as such, may instead be projected onto a horizontal plane.

The experience of otherness is associated with the challenge of diversity. Sufficient is required to avoid monotony. But in any dialogue excessive variety leads to trivial interactions or an unfruitful sense of chaos.

Otherness is closely associated with a sense of threat and insecurity. This may be partially transformed into a sense of risk and adventure. Habitual responses may be refreshingly called into question. But such unpredictability does not necessarily make for a sustainable dialogue. Some kind of context is required within which perpetual challenge is viable.

Horizontal differences readily lead to territorial behaviour in communication space. An individual, or a group, takes up a position on that surface and defends the area around it against any infringement by others. In ecological terms, niches are sought. Species in an ecosystem develop patterns of symbiosis, commensalism, predator-prey, or other relationships. For dialogue then to be sustainable, a basis for ongoing interaction must be found. Here a trading metaphor is very helpful initially. Those from different territories learn to sustain a pattern of trade and exchange.

But use of a trading metaphor quickly points to the ways in which such dialogue can be distorted to the point of unsustainability. Dominance and exploitation are well-known issues in any dialogue. The options of 'free trade' versus 'managed trade' are also a cause for concern. The 'environment' may itself be exploited such as to deplete non-renewable resources. The dialogue then peters out, or breaks off, in ways that might even foreshadow humanity's own decline.

This metaphor raises the issue as to exactly what forms of information or insight can be traded between very different perspectives. How can that exchange be sustained? What cultural or other resources get irreversibly depleted through inappropriate dialogue? A meeting session can certainly be 'exhausting', but people can often continue after a 'break'. What gets regenerated during the break? Why cannot such regeneration be integrated into the meeting session? When is a break insufficient to ensure sustainability?

But the trading metaphor also facilitates understanding of the issue of interdependence. In principle there is a complementarity between different perspectives that should encourage fruitful exchanges on a sustainable basis. The different territories could be positioned onto the surface of a map. In the case of inter-faith dialogue, for example, a necessary preliminary is to ensure that all the religions are represented on such a map. If they are not, any dialogue is already of limited significance. Assumptions that such a map can be divided up into the 'spheres of influence' of the 'five major' religions, are reminiscent of outdated 'great power' geopolitics. Distributing all the faiths onto a map with minimal distortion is a major challenge, especially when even the 'smallest' faiths consider themselves to be of the greatest significance. As suggested by the following section, two dimensional surfaces cannot respect a multiplicity of such privileged perspectives. But much can already be achieved by using such features as islands, dividing ranges, separating oceans, and the like - - provided the map is effectively redisplayed for each faith to give it central prominence (as is still down in many tourist brochures to highlight a promoted destination). Why are such maps never produced as a guide to dialogue?

Direct and indirect exchange relationships can be indicated on the map, possibly with an indication of what is exchanged. Issues of net losers and net gainers can be highlighted. Who gains and who loses from a dialogue and what does this imply for its sustainability? What happens to a dialogue when some participants are categorized as winners and others as losers?

But within the trading metaphor there is also the obvious challenge of maintaining 'competitiveness', to avoid the perceived danger of being a loser, and to perceive a sense of place that is threatened. This is quite insensitive to the niceties of interdependence. Competition is also a temptation in dialogue. An environment perceived as competitive may be one reason many withdraw from a dialogue process. Both people and nations seek to position themselves on territory to their best advantage -- and even withdrawal (or delinking) can be seen in this light.

To understand how it can maintain its sense of worth by acting less competitively, appears to be as difficult for a nation as it is for a person or for a group. In both cases some value must continue to be exchanged, maintaining a sense of appreciation, for the dynamics to be sustainable. How should what line be drawn, where, and for what? Clearly one issue is what value is best exchanged for this purpose. Maybe there is a more fruitful basis for competition (**). But an artificially bounded (weekend) dialogue does not bring people face-to-face with the survival issues and options faced by a nation in savage global markets. Clues to sustainability in both cases must be sought elsewhere.

The horizontal metaphor leads to a perception of the winners being progressively more centrally positioned, whilst the losers are progressively marginalized to the periphery -- even to the point of falling off the edge of the map. This is for many an operating assumption within the global community. Africa and the South are recognized as unfortunate victims of this process. An analogous process is perceptible in many dialogue situations. Often there are the few who effectively monopolize the discussion and the many who are often effectively ignored -- even though much effort may have been devoted to negotiating their participation from distant regions.

The centre-periphery situation mapped by the horizontal metaphor has been extensively criticized over the past decades. Marginalization of any kind has been called into question, although few clues exist as to how to avoid it in practice -- even it there were the will to do so.

Another metaphor may be used to counteract such marginalization. By wrapping the 'horizontal' map around a sphere (or a topologically similar surface, such as a torus), there is no longer any edge off which those at the margins can be safely allowed to fall. In such a closed system the negative consequences of the marginalizing tendency any where on the surface must necessarily result in corrective feedback pressures. Account must then be taken of the other occupants of that closed system: refugees are an increasingly important example. This is the argument of environmentalists. How to achieve this is another matter. But there is intuitive value to using a sphere as a surface given its isomorphism with the planetary surface over which our collective survival issues are being played out.

In a dialogue many efforts can be made to ensure the effective participation of all the participants. An appropriately configured dialogue is important to the coherence and integrity of the group. It is vital to any sense of belonging and as a counter to any sense of alienation. But it is one thing to use artificial devices like 'allowing everyone to speak for the same time' ('talking sticks', etc) and another for participants to find the dialogue meaningful as a whole. This is especially the case where some participants have perspectives that are very distant in preoccupation from others. Such distance may be so great that participants may be 'over' a communication 'horizon', or effectively on the other side of the sphere. In this sense communication between them can only be achieved through the mediation of a chain of others. For others any such 'global' perception can be ignored since everything seems to be satisfactorily handled from a 'local' perspective. A horizontal, 'flat Earth' metaphor is quite satisfactory for the many day-to-day issues of specialists and neighbourhoods.

The spherical configuration introduces a useful pattern of constraints through which export of negative impacts into an infinite environmental or behavioral 'sink' is brought into question. Some form of recycling becomes increasingly necessary, however much every 'local' tries to export such impacts rather than import them. In a dialogue of any significance people are increasingly challenged with their own behavioral problems as others refuse to tolerate having to deal with their effects.

The challenge from any perspective is to know how to distinguish an uncomfortable alternative mode of behaviour, valuable to the diversity of the whole, from one which calls for (self-)constraint in the light of some global norms. How can perspectives be optimally positioned over the surface of the sphere to allow for maximum diversity, minimizing counter-productive confrontations? Does this suggest that aspiring to achieve direct communication between all is a mistaken understanding of 'universal brother/sister-hood'? A rich dialogue of appropriate diversity may depend upon some people not being able to communicate with some others - - if only because the results would be totally disruptive? How is the meshing between local and global norms to be achieved? How are global norms to be understood from a local perspective -- and how are local norms to be understood from a global perspective?

The preceding metaphors all repress the time dimension in favour of essentially static frameworks. This is quite unrealistic in practice -- if only in that people 'take turns' to speak. In a dialogue a participant may act or perceive one way and then later act in a quite different way without any sense of inconsistency. Behavioral diversity is not only appreciated in a participant, it may be vital to the life of the dialogue as a whole. Repetitive behaviour patterns are questioned. The complex coherence of an individual may only be expressible at any one time by acting differently over time. Similarly dialogue in a group may have a range of characteristics and qualities over time -- including seriousness, humour, technicality, commemoration, affirmation, and the like. Dialogues effectively have their 'weather' and their 'seasons' to whose rhythms experienced participants learn to adjust their behaviour.

The global community can also be seen as expressing itself through interweaving cycles, of which those most carefully studied are the business and economic cycles. Much more rapid cycles are a major feature of the financial markets. Analogues to these are to be sensed in the rapid shifts in the value attached to dialogue participants and their contributions.

In responding to the time dimension, the major issue is how to mesh short- and long-term perspectives. Short-term survival issues may appear to undermine long-term survival issues. In a dialogue, failing to correct unacceptable behaviour in the short-term may reinforce a pattern which renders long-term corrective measures impossible. And yet the identity of the participant exhibiting that behaviour may seem closely tied to that behaviour so that any suggestion of the need for constraint is perceived as infringing on freedom of expression. Most global policy- making is in practice based on the short-term interests of nations and corporations (including the appearance of adhering to long-term policy measures).

There is little sensitivity to the variety of cycles which interweave in the ongoing life of any dialogue. Using a Jungian perspective, for example, one approach is to think in terms of intellectual, affective, intuitive and sensation cycles all simultaneously active and inter-locking -- peaking and troughing at different times, possibly for different people in the group. More cycles might be envisaged. The difficulty of being aware of such cycles in a dialogue is matched by the difficulty of similar awareness in the case of the global community. Economic cycles are one thing, but what of cycles of public opinion, fashions, collective excitement or gloom, religious fervour, and the like? And yet it is through such cycles that both a dialoguing group and the global community move beyond monotony and express a living quality -- a quality of life.

It is one thing to perceive a cycle of changes over time in a group, namely the different conditions and moods the dialogue can get into. And acquiring this detached awareness may be difficult enough. It is quite another to understand how the quality of the dialogue is developing or changing over time beyond such cyclic phasing. After the fact, there may be a shared perception that the group 'changed', and that 'things are different now'.

Many specialists in group dynamics are concerned to help bring about such developmental changes. It is however difficult for a group to be conscious of how it is developing. What characterizes the development of a group towards 'maturity'? What is a 'transformative moment' in the life of a group? What is 'group consciousness' or 'community spirit' -- and how are these related to the emergence of the 'solidarity' that so many leaders plead for? In the light of the above metaphors, are there ways of understanding such changes as changes of configuration and phasing, for example?

If such developmental transformation implies greater 'integrity' in the dialogue, namely greater 'group integrity', how is the sequence of such progressively higher orders of integration to be understood and described? Can a dialoguing group be usefully understood as metamorphosing through developmental phases like some insects: from caterpillar, through pupa, to butterfly? Is such a final stage what is meant by a group 'taking off' or 'flying'? The same phrase, 'taking off', is of course used to describe a particular stage in the successful economic development of a country or a region.

Development has been an explicit major issue for the global community for a number of decades. Despite much effort, the situation can be seen as becoming progressively worse, at least for some countries. And, even within industrialized countries, the challenge of the 'marginalized' is reaching dramatic proportions, especially in urban areas. Developmental theorists of the past have been discredited - - as is evident in the criticism of the World Bank and UNDP track records and calls for their reform. There is much call for 'new ways of thinking' -- to enable the much heralded 'paradigm shift' or 'quantum leap'. This is the current plea of the UN Secretary-General in launching the UN World Conference on Social Development (Copenhagen, March 1995).

It can be argued that inability to adequately distinguish developmental phases in a dialogue process systematically undermines ability to give credibility to the development process. The quality of thinking is inadequate. The image of a more mature dialogue is unclear and lacks credibility. Ironically much discussion of development takes places through dialogue processes that manifest many symptoms of such lack of maturity. Even if there were calls for it to be different, there is no ability to distinguish the quality of dialogue at the World Conference on Social Development from that of any other United Nations conferences of the past.

Such conferences are trapped in a particular unchanging form of dialogue whose conceptual restrictions are unquestionable. Such dialogue reinforces inability to respond to the issues with which the conferences purport to deal. Tragically conferences of the 'greens' are subject to the same constraints. In failing to use their own ecological insights as richer organizational metaphors to counter factionalism and integrate divergent perspectives, it is little wonder that their political credibility remains questionable.

Just as developmental change in a dialogue is difficult to distinguish in practice from the cyclic phase changes in that dialogue, so it is even more difficult to distinguish evolutionary changes from developmental changes. Developmental changes occur because they are inherent in an underlying pattern (the genotype in biological development), of which only a small proportion is actually expressed at any one time. Evolution on the other hand is the result of an unpredictable mutation which changes that underlying pattern, drawing upon some of its inherent potential. Is there confusion between the 'new thinking' or 'paradigm shift' as a developmental change and what would be required for an evolutionary change? Worse still, is 'new thinking' confused with the need for short-term cyclic changes (see above) that are essential to the life of any dialogue?

In a social community any such evolution of some part of it raises special challenges. Pleas for 'centres of excellence', notably in the sciences and in industrial research complexes, lead deliberately to a new mode of operating, of which Silicon Valley and Route 132 are classic examples. This is also true of spiritual or artistic communities. The special challenge is the interface between such 'evolved' communities and the rest of the social system. In deliberately designing them to have a competitive advantage, they naturally result in the rest of the system being placed at a competitive disadvantage. This may not necessarily be to the advantage of the social system as a whole, as the issue of transfer of technology and know-how, and the protection of intellectual copyright, are currently illustrating.

In inter-faith dialogue, participants remark on the almost mystical breakthroughs achieved within a suitably (self- )selected group from different religions. They will bear witness to the possibilities of such an evolution, although they may have considerable difficult in describing the nature of what they experienced. However this is far from being the case when the participants 'officially' represent their religious hierarchies. The dialogue then seldom, if ever, progresses beyond the niceties of diplomatic exchanges and symbolic tokenism. Too much is at stake. No evolution in perspective could be effectively communicated back to the respective religious communities. Such emergent insight could not be in any way integrated into their fixed understandings of their uniquely privileged insights into the truths which humanity must necessarily come to understand in their particular terms. The bearers of such insights would need to be 'sanctioned'. This phenomena is also evident in inter-disciplinary, inter-cultural and inter-sectoral dialogues.

Clearly this challenge of evolution in dialogue over time creates the challenge of levels of dialogue at any one time, as discussed with respect to the first metaphor.

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