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~~~ Table of Contents ~~~ by Leah C. Wells the process of becoming human and science fiction by Dennis Rivers The Role of Dialogue in
Resolving Community Conflicts (from PBS) Positive Deviant is a magazine article about the transformative power of deep listening, as it occurred in a program to reduce child malnutrition in Vietnam. It is one of the clearest examples I have ever read of what is now called "appreciative inquiry," which advocates that helpers pay disciplined and systematic attention to the strengths, capacities and past successes of those people they wish to help. Sandhi Institute Nonviolent communication training and community building in war-torn Sri Lanka. Beyond Intractability (conflict resolution resources) Initially created by a team of more than 200 distinguished scholars and practitioners from around the world, the Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base is built around an online "encyclopedia" with easy-to-understand essays on almost 400 topics. These essays explain the many dynamics which determine the course of conflict along with available options for promoting more constructive approaches. [Please suggest great articles you have read for this section. Send suggestions to rivers@newconversations.net]
On behalf of the world-wide Cooperative Communication Skills extended community, I would like to express our deep appreciation for the contributions of our guest scholars and essayists, Leah Wells, (Ms.) Gene Knudsen Hoffman, Barnett Pearce, Sam Keen and David Richo. Dennis Rivers, Editor
STREAMING
AUDIO:
Sam Keen
MAKING SOCIAL WORLDS BETTER:
(PDF file) Note: In order to keep many footnotes and references in place, this article is only available as an Adobe PDF file. If you have not yet installed the free Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer, expand your online experience by downloading (and installing) it today from www.adobe.com. Introductory excerpt from MAKING SOCIAL WORLDS BETTER: A friend exclaimed, "What a wonderful world! Water falls out of the sky; food grows right out of the ground; and we get to keep all the love that we can make!" In less exuberant terms, Richard Rorty described our social worlds as largely "contingent" and the quality of our lives determined by the consequences of our collective actions. And so the question is, what kind of world are we making? What kind of world can we make? Perhaps
there was a time in which predators (the cave bear?),
competitors (Neanderthals?) or cataclysms (the Flood?)
threatened humankind (the species, not just an
individual), but we have become the dominant life form
on the planet and - within some broad limits - the
collective authors of our own fate. The greatest
threats we face, as well as our greatest
opportunities, are the products of our own ingenuity,
initiatives and actions. Among other things, this
implies a dramatic shift from the technical question
of "will we survive?" to the aesthetic and moral
questions of "how well can we live?" and "how can we
live well?" TAKING A COMMUNICATION PERSPECTIVE
ON DIALOGUE (web
page) Excerpt: Until recently, the disciplinary study of communication has apparently had little impact on the development of thought and practice of dialogue. To the best of our knowledge, none of the seminal figures in dialogue formally studied communication and none based their thinking about dialogue on theories of communication. For example, although the first chapter of David Bohm’s (1996) On Dialogue is titled “Communication,” the short (four page) treatment shows no connection to the scholarly work done by the academic discipline of communication. Martin Buber’s (1958) work was grounded in his philosophical investigations of the qualities of different forms of interpersonal relationships. Mikhael Bakhtin’s concept of dialogue emerged from a preoccupation with language and literature from the perspective that “No word can be taken back, but the final word has not yet been spoken and never will be spoken” (Morson & Emerson, 1990, p. 52). In a similar manner, most practitioner organizations that focus on dialogue ground their work on sources other than communication theory and research. For example, the Public Conversations Project applies concepts from family therapy to the public discourse (Chasin, et al., 1996); the National Issues Forums grounds their work on classical models of deliberation (Mathews, 1994, pp. 111-116); and Study Circles (2002) develop their practices on concepts of participatory democracy. ... In addition to asking what [the growing body of work on] dialogue has to offer [the field of] communication [studies], we wonder what communication theory and research might offer for understanding and practicing dialogue. At Home in the Universe with Miracles and Horizons: Reflections on Personal and Social EvolutionThis is version 3.1 of the earlier paper posted in this space. It was originally written as a gift for participants in the Festschrift that dear friends organized in my honor, and has mutated into a statement of sorts of my perception of where I have been (e.g., my life's work), where we are (e.g., all of us, in the universe), and the meaning of life (as a teaser: "wholly but not fully human"). Among other things, I have a coherent statement of what I mean by "making better social worlds." If such a rambling document has a thesis statement, it is: To be at home in the universe is to know the universe as well as we can, to know our place in the universe as well as we can, and to be, as fully as we can, what we are – the seventh miracle; the makers of better social worlds through the coordinated enactment of compassion, empathy and mindfulness. Enjoy! Dialogue and Deliberation, Virtuosity as a Practitioner, and Taking a Communication PerspectiveWritten for the Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement graduate certificate program, Fielding Graduate University, July, 2007 in this paper, I want to focus on the question of how we can make a world in which people participate in making the decisions that affect them. And this starts at what might seem an unusual place: communication.... I am more convinced than ever that attention to forms of communication is an important and relatively neglected leverage point for dealing with such issues. To put it bluntly, I believe that if we can get the form of communication “right,” then the best things possible will happen. Further, I believe that focusing on the forms of communication – in addition to or instead of focusing on the “issues” themselves – is the best way of breaking through the self-sustaining patterns that hold in place the problems we want to address.
Going Public: Working Systemically in Public This paper has been published in Spanish, Portugese and Italian, but not in English.We have learned many things from systemic practitioners. We've tried to extend this work by moving from private face-to-face conversations to work in public with the public. We found that some aspects of systemic practice is robust enough to survive the shift in contexts and that we had to make some adjustments. Toward Communicative Virtuosity Presented to "Modernity as a communication process (Is modernity 'on time'?)", a seminar sponsored by the Department of Communications and Social and Political Theories, Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow, April 15, 2005.I believe that we (collectively) make the social worlds in which we live by the way we communicate with each other (this is what I call "the communication perspective"). To think of communication this way requires concepts that include temporal extension and pattern recognition. In this paper, I offer a some concepts for thinking holistically about communication (using a gradient of increasingly large concepts) and revisit my earlier descriptions of "forms" of communication. Using a case study of incivility in contemporary American political discourse, I argue that changing communicative acts is unlikely to produce desired improvement. Instead, we need to develop the ability to discern and differentiate among forms of communication, and learn how to call preferred forms of communication into being. Civic Maturity: Musings about a MetaphorPresented at the Action Research Symposium, Fielding Graduate University, July, 2001.I've been involved in projects that improve the quality of public communication about public issues in cities; my concern was how to make these improvements permanent and/or sustainable. As the title suggests, this paper was a record of and vehicle for thinking about this issue, not a statement of conclusions reached. For the complete Proceedings of this symposium, go to: http://www.fielding.edu/research/ar2001.htm. Reflections on the role of "dialogic communication" in transforming the world.Presented to "Change and Development at the Turn of the Millennium" On the occasion of DISPUK's Tenth Anniversary, Rhodes, October 9-13, 2000Scenario-planning is a powerful technology that guides decision-making in the present by envisioning possible futures. This essay is both a reflection on "epistemology" (the study of how we know) and a critique of a particular instance of scenario-planning. The critique claims that the process of scenario-planning per se depends on a very high level of good communication but that the possibility of that quality of communication is not included as one of the drivers of change when developing the scenarios themselves. I argue that whether "dialogic communication" becomes a normal part of society is a major determinant of the kind of future we will have, and thus decisions in the present should focus on improving the quality of communication. Systems: Schools of Thought and Traditions of PracticeI have learned a great deal from systems theorists and systemic practitioners. This essay is my attempt to make some useful distinctions among the various schools and traditions. This file is a 400k .pdf file. You will need Acrobat Reader to view it. Thinking about Systems and Thinking SystemicallyThis unpublished paper is a meditation on the distinction made in the title. It argues that both are useful but that they are not the same thing and have very different values and potential usages.
A Guide for the Classroom and
Everyday Life from the introduction: This is a book for people who are interested in learning more about not only what peace education is, but where it is, when it is and how it is. It is about hearing perspectives on how it is taught, reading evidence that peace education is working, learning about the struggles and case studies and present-day evidence that nonviolence works and is not mere passivity as it is often mislabeled. This book is an opportunity to learn more about liberation education and to participate in the vision of how American education is an integral part of a global revolution to create balance and harmony between people, nature, technology, religion, economics and many other disciplines. Leah Wells is a teacher and writer with a Bachelor of Science in Linguistics from Georgetown University. She has taught high school classes in Washington, DC, and California, lectured in cities all over the United States, and written extensively on the topic of teaching peace. Leah co-coordinates the National Campaign on Peace Education, a project endorsed by several notable organizations such as the Hague Appeal for Peace and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, to network teachers and learners working on peace education across the US. Thanks to Leah Wells and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for making this document available.
COMPASSIONATE LISTENING: AN
EXPLORATORY SOURCEBOOK EIGHT ESSAYS BY GENE KNUDSEN HOFFMAN
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For more information about David Richo's tapes, classes and workshops, please visit www.davericho.com To order
books by Dr. Richo, through links
This essay explores one possible
value or principle that could make a stronger
claim on people than revenge and nationalism.
I am especially concerned about this because
personal and national revenge seem to make so much
sense, yet lead their followers into a spiral of
escalating injury from which there appears to be no
exit. I propose that focusing on the love of
children could provide a face-saving way for all
sides to back away from the brink of mutual
destruction. It would not be easy or
automatic, but it would be worlds better than what
is going on now.
I give thanks for the life that
lives within me I give thanks for the life that
lives between us I give thanks for all the life
forms that surround and support us I give thanks for all the life of
the future I give thanks for the source of
all life, and the source of my life,
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Radical
Questions For Critical Times
Human Becoming