On Dialogue!!

On Dialogue or as I like to call it "the secret to the social reconciliation"

It took me longer to gather my thoughts and write about this book than to read the book itself. Anyway I managed to do both. I believe this isn't a book that you should read once. I know that I need to read it over and over to be able to develop my personality based on its concept. To me, this book is a guideline to self-awareness. It helped / will be helping me to be aware of my mind, my thoughts, and my roles not as an individual in the society but as a member of my society.

In the next two paragraphs, I've picked some of the most enlightening phrases from the book. I've quoted Bohm directly from his book for those who are not familiar with the concept of Bohm Dialogue.

According to Bohm, "the word Dialogue means “a stream of meaning and ideas” among a group of people. It is possible that it occurs even within one person’s head (from page 7). …While Discussion is like a ping-pong game that ideas are going back and forth and the goal is to win, Dialogue is only talking about ideas; nor believe them neither disbelieve them and definitely not to judge them as good or as bad… The objective of a dialogue is not to analyze things, or to win an argument, or to exchange opinions. Rather, it is to suspend your opinion and to look at the opinions … and to see what all that means. If we can see what all of our opinions mean, then we are sharing a common content, even if we do not agree entirely". (from page 30)

"…I am saying that it is necessary to share meaning. A society is a link of relationships among people and institutions, so that we can live together. But it only works if we have a culture- which implies that we share meaning; i.e., significance, purpose, and value. Otherwise it falls apart. Our society is incoherent, and doesn’t do that very well; it hasn’t for a long time, if it ever did". (from page 22)

“…Dialogue is “socio-therapy” not individual therapy… This is not group therapy”. It is supposed to transform everyone in the group and help them to reach that higher level, which is "sharing a common content".

You can find the principles of dialogue as established by David Bohm here.

I was intrigued by the idea of Dialogue maybe because of the examples Bohm provided throughout his book. As a scientist, he knew exactly how scientific community works; its flaws and shortcomings. I used to consider myself a scientist. I've been studying science most of my adult life. I've been in close contact with many many scientists for long time. Maybe that was the reason that I could easily relate to his examples and nod as I was reading the book page after page.

“Science is supposed to be dedicated to truth and fact, and religion is supposed to be dedicated to another kind of truth and to love. But people self-interest and assumptions take over (from page 14). ... Science is predicated on the concept that science is arriving at truth- at a unique truth. The idea of dialogue is thereby in some way foreign to the current structure of science, as it is with religion. In a way, science has become the religion of the modern age. It plays the role which religion used to play of giving us truth; hence different scientists cannot come together any more than different religions can, once they have different notions of truth". (from page 43-44)

I am not trying to generalize here. I know there are many scientists out there who are open-minded and very good in communication. However, I've met so many high ranked scientists who reject any ideas that contradict their own. They only believe in a unique truth- not different possible truths- and that is not limited to scientific issues either.

Another interesting example that I came across was the conflict between Einstein and Bohr. Apparently these two geniuses avoided each other company because they could not agree on the same thing. “If they would have listened to each other’s opinions perhaps they both would have moved out beyond relativity and beyond quantum theory into something new.” (from Dialogue)

One last thing I would like to share with you is my new motto by Krishnamurti, “The cup has to be empty to hold something” (from page 19). This is the secret on how to be more open-minded, less judgmental, and able to learn new things.

p.s. Thanks Shobeir for your recommendation.