DIALOGUE & TRANSFORMATION

 

I had been thinking about the 1960s. History gives us a picture of the left challenging the establishment with fervor. Although it is opaque, the same history  reveals that after the violent response by the powerful establishment (e.g., killing of students in Kent State) in the Anglo American world, the left started to look at new ways of confronting the right and causing social transformation. Without the approval of thinkers such as Marcuse, some well-intentioned psychologists decided that in order for a society to transform, first its individual citizens must transform and become what Maslow called “self actualized” persons. Borrowing from the Romantics, the so-called human potential movement prescribed a new theory of individuation; express your inner feelings and you shall transform and be free. The logic of this process of transformation promised a social transformation that would naturally generate as a result of its citizens becoming free. This was of course a nice and safe approach for the privileged members of the Anglo American world, but what about the underprivileged classes? Could they afford to take time to individuate? Could they operate as separate individuals, and only after their personal transformation rejoin the other members and unite to transform their society? The answer to that question has been a huge NO! Capitalism has very quickly co-opted the human potential movement and turned it into the so-called New Age movement filled with expensive workshops, attire, books, and gurus of various kinds. With globalization operating with high octane the new age of narcissism and hyperindividualism is permeating the planet. So much for personal transformation leading to social transformation…is there hope for that approach? The world must transform. We must get out of our alienated paradigms and enter into an age of planetary citizenship in solidarity with one another.

Hope never dies, to be sure. From Plato to Habermas the idea of dialogue facilitating transformation-for more than one person at a time-has been theorized and practiced by thinkers, teachers, and other intellectual practitioners of social justice. What is dialogue? Is it like a tennis match? I listen to your point of view, catch the main points, and once the ball is in my court, I respond with my point of view to crush yours and make you miss the ball or hit it into the net? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Imagine, if you will, that the self and the other have an opportunity to engage in dialogue.  

To practice dialogue the self not only listens to the other, but also allows the other’s point of view to be heard as a whole and ushered into the self’s consciousness with welcome. The self only responds when the other’s point of view has been understood at a satisfactory level. Only then does the self present his or her point of view, dialectical, complimentary, or in concurrence to the other. To be sure, the other will have to do as the self and accept the self’s point of view to land in the other’s consciousness in its entirety. This process takes time and what is required of the self and the other is patience and mindful attention. There exists a need for a field of mutuality between the self and the other in order to the self to merge with the other. If and when the self becomes the other and conversely, then and only then transformation can take place. This is a diffused form of transformation and can lead into a collective transformation for societies at large.        

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