A Recurring Theme

During Pope Francis' six day visit in the United States, a recurring theme emerged in his messages. The theme was his call for dialog. How exactly is dialog different from discussion? Which is more effective as a form of exchange of communication?

I discovered a great resource at the Co-Intelligence Institute.  http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-dialogue.html  Here, they note that most conversations are more like a ping pong game than true dialog. In conversations most "participants are hitting their very solid ideas and well-defended positions back and forth." 

Contrast that image with this: "Dialogue, in contrast, involves joining our thinking and feeling into a shared pool of meaning which continually flows and evolves, carrying us all into new, deeper levels of understanding none of us could have foreseen. Through dialogue "a new kind of mind begins to come into being," observed Bohm, "based on the development of common meaning... People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning, which is capable of constant development and change."

What are the essential elements that can turn conversations into dialog? According to the Institute, dialog must include these five elements:

1. We talk about what's really important to us.
2. We really listen to each other. We see how thoroughly we can understand each other's views and experience.
3. We say what's true for us without making each other wrong.
4. We see what we can learn together by exploring things together.
5. We avoid monopolizing the conversation. We make sure everyone has a chance to speak.

We can answer the Pope's call to dialog. Try it now. I believe, as he did, that it is possible. Will you give it a shot? 

The Human Dilemma

When I was growing up, my grandmother used to tell me that each of us had two natures (she used a dog as the imagery). One was selfish and greedy and the other was good and kind. She told me that how we feed them determined the control they had over our lives.

Yesterday, I was reading the introduction to David Brook's new book, The Road to Character. In it Brooks tells of a book that got him thinking about two sets of virtues. The book, Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, describes two Adam's as related in the two versions of Creation in the book of Genesis. Adam I, Soloveitchik says, is career-oriented and seeks to amass credentials and goods. Adam II is seeking to love and sacrifice self in the service of others.

I thought of this when I heard Pope Francis speak to Congress. I believe that the Pope was appealing to the Adam II persona in each of us. The question remains as my grandma used to ask me:  Which one will you feed?

Religious Liberty

America was founded by people seeking the freedom to practice their religion. In other countries there was a state supported religion and people faced actual persecution for practicing any other religion. Our Founding Fathers felt so strongly about this freedom they enshrined it in the Bill of Rights.

Now, we have groups of fundamentalists who are so afraid of other religions that they want to impose their religion- their form of Christianity on everyone. They believe their views are more important than the Constitution. What they don't realize is that the Bill of Rights protects their right to practice their religion too. No one who follows The Constitution can impose their religion on anyone else. This is a very important right that we have as Americans. We can't allow county clerks in Kentucky or Secretaries of State in Kansas to impose their religious beliefs on citizens of their state. It is un-American. They must be stopped.

The Wheat and The Chaff

To be a good consumer of information one must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. In this modern world, we are drowned in a constant stream of information. Some of it is worthwhile, but most is trivial at best and misleading at worst. Beware the propaganda machine. See previous post:  http://pageposts1123.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-propaganda-machine.html

Aside from out right propaganda, we also have misleading or trivial information to sort. How does the savvy consumer sort it all out? How do we evaluate the credibility and reliability of sources of information in the media? One technique is to compare multiple sources. Are they all on the same page? Always remember that anyone can post their opinions without being scrutinized for accuracy. Even in traditional media, i.e. magazines and newspapers, we've seen an appalling lack of oversight and down right misleading stories. Think Rolling Stone and New York Times.

We all suffer from information overload. The chaff is choking us. Sifting is hard work. If you are a serious consumer and want to truly know how to evaluate sources, then please read this PDF on how to do it:  http://www.cqpress.com/docs/cq_researcher_v18-27_internet_accuracy.pdf

This is a comprehensive manual and well worth the read. I will leave you with a quote from the article: "Becoming a journalist in the traditional media has always required jumping through a few hoops to prove oneself.  But you can get on the web and call yourself a journalist without any scrutiny or credentials.  My motto:  Question everything!