Dialogue: towards the dynamics of the archetypal Round Table?

Implication of Toroidal Transformation of the Crown of Thorns: Design challenge to enable integrative comprehension (Part #6)

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It is curious that the quality of dialogue with regard to the challenges of global governance appears to be itself fundamentally inadequate to engaging effectively with those challenges. This is despite the many interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral symposia, and claims of a multiplicity of facilitators, models and processes -- franchised and otherwise. Each is presented as the "best thing since sliced bread", but with no capacity to engage with advocates of other processes. Dialogue then deteriorates into binary assertion and denial -- with outcomes significantly reframed by "spin".

This strategic challenge situation is reflected both in academic debate and in that between worldviews, as separately discussed (Guidelines for Critical Dialogue between Worldviews, 2006). Given the inherent complexity, the question is how to imagine the dynamic patterns inherent in fruitful dialogue, as implied by those of the archetypal Round Table and the cognitive "moves" that might be variously characteristic of the "Knights" seated there and the game-playing in which they might indulge (Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007). How is each Knight able to "catch" and pass on the "curve balls" characteristically thrown by others? How does such a Round Table "work"?

The challenge may be explored in terms of the aesthetics of play (Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance, 2010). As specific cognitive biases of individual Knight's, various frameworks for understanding their "curvature skills" have been identified (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993).