The Dialogue Venture

Archive for the ‘Dialogue and Current Events’ Category

There I was, all ready to pronounce judgment and damnation on the two pilots who overflew Minneapolis airport a couple of weeks ago. This was unforgivable! The lives of passengers were at stake! How could any pilot make such an error?

Then I read this op-ed piece, and I realized my own error.

The article, by Peter Garrison—a pilot and contributing editor to Flying—provides a glimpse into the cockpit on a long-distance flight. Apparently it is a mind-numbing experience. Computer systems do the bulk of the flying, with no need for human input. The cockpit itself is tiny and doesn’t allow for much movement. The pilot’s job, for long stretches of the flight, is to monitor the instruments, hour after hour after hour.

Now, does that excuse the pilots of Northwest flight 188? You can still make a case that their lapse was inexcusable; indeed, the FAA has done so—and taken action. 

So what did I do wrong? 

I rushed to judgment. I assessed the situation and decided on the right and wrong of it without hearing from the other side. Garrison’s op-ed helped me to understand the situation from the pilot’s perspective. While I still might think the mistake was egregious, I now get what these folks are dealing with—and my compassion for them grows. 

Now imagine what could happen if I were in a policymaking position. Without Garrison’s perspective, I might write this off as the unique problem of two wayward pilots. Having read Garrison, I have to consider whether we need systemic change—more regular hours and sleep schedules, say, or different protocols—to support pilots more effectively. Overlooking the need for such systemic change, if that is indeed the underlying cause behind the incident, could have catastrophic results. 

This sort of thing is what makes dialogue so vital. Dialogue brings us face to face with the perspectives of the other. We cannot help but hear the context behind the decision, error, or insight that horrifies us. Even if we don’t agree—even if we still have to revoke licenses—we can have more understanding. Policymakers, by dialoguing in this way, can get the fullest possible picture and thus make the most effective changes, not just the measures clamored for in the heat of the moment. 

Perhaps this begins to answer last week’s post. Perhaps, when people ask why dialogue is important, we talk about the pilots of Northwest flight 188 as just one example.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been scrambling to update my book proposal for a university press. (This is why I posted no blog entry last week.) The whole process—which involved a great deal of hard work with no guarantee of return—set me to reflecting on a disturbing question:

Why would 21st-century people want to engage in dialogue at all?

So much of contemporary life militates against dialogue, especially (and ironically) the advance of communications technology. Laptops, iPhones, and PDAs liberate us to conduct our business wherever we are—so the culture now expects us to conduct our business wherever we are. As a result, many of us move at a pace beyond frenetic.

That has its own problems. When moving so fast, we find it difficult to concentrate on anything for very long: I once heard that if you can’t communicate your message to today’s teens within three seconds, you’ve lost them. We need more convenience more than ever: even an extra click on a website is perceived as a hassle. Is it easy? Is it short? Does it provide return on my investment of time or money? Only if the answer is yes will it pass muster.

None of this has anything to do with dialogue.

By its nature, dialogue takes time—time to listen deeply to the other, to reason together, to reflect on the issue at hand. It requires undivided attention, so we can hear everything (verbal and nonverbal) that our dialogue partner has to say. As anyone who has taken part in dialogue will tell you, it is demanding work, usually for fuzzy objectives like mutual understanding or conflict resolution. That doesn’t even take into account the spiritual preparation that, I suggest, can help us dialogue more effectively.

So back to our question: why dialogue at all?

If we’re going to draw more people into dialogue, we need to provide an answer that resonates with them. I would like to tell people about the deep human connections that dialogue fosters, the larger perspective we gain by talking with others who disagree with us, the ability to work through conflicts with neighbors, coworkers, and friends. I would like to convey the importance of contributing to the welfare of the world through dialogue, and the breakthroughs that can result.

But this is eminently countercultural. It flies in the face of so much that preoccupies so many of us. Is it enough to draw them into dialogue? If not, what would?

What do you think?

Years ago, before I had a better hold on my temper, I screamed at a star player during a kids’ softball game. It was stupid and reprehensible. The game was emotionally charged, and I lost my cool. I promptly apologized to anyone and everyone who would listen.

My point here is that we all say insanely stupid things now and then. So I am not here to pile on Joe Wilson. Instead, I want to explore what his outburst during the president’s health care speech—and the aftermath thereof—can tell us about dialogue.

Many commentators have already covered the obvious: that “you lie!” is emblematic of the remarkable incivility that has pervaded recent headlines and town hall meetings. But where does this incivility come from? The language gives us a clue: it’s the kind of speech used by those who (a) have deeply held beliefs or vested interests and (b) perceive them to be under dire threat. Threats induce our fight-or-flight response, so Joe Wilson spoke fighting words.

The problem is, we can’t dialogue like that—so we can’t resolve anything that way.

Dialogue, by our working definition, requires a clear mind and a listening heart—an openness to the other—so we can think together toward the truth of the matter. We need this “thinking together” because no one has a corner on the truth. But we cannot cultivate the required openness if we cling to our beliefs as the only way to perceive the issue.

The health care debate is a great example. There are many good ideas on the table. But how can we think together about them if we do not open our minds and hearts? Rejecting openness just leaves us with the same vested interests and tired phrases that obscure the dialogue: “you lie,” “death panels,” etc.

Then there are the strange mechanics of apology in our current age. Whenever someone says or does something inappropriate on the public stage, he quickly apologizes. Pundits just as quickly parse the wording of the apology and conclude that it’s not enough (or it’s not sincere). The offender may apologize again, and that’s not enough. Ad nauseam.

This raises two lessons for dialogue—one based on truth, the other on grace. First, dialogue cannot proceed unless the participants share a commitment to honesty. So apologize only if you’re sorry; to craft a faux apology leads to mistrust and distracts from the dialogue at hand. Second, if you receive a sincere apology, forgive and move on.

How do these lessons promote dialogue? Consider that dialogue often involves discussions of sensitive issues among people who disagree. Discussions get heated, and yes, people can say intemperate things. That requires a mechanism for honest apologies and ready forgiveness. The participants can’t be expected to maintain their openness and trust—and thus advance the dialogue further—if “offenders” issue insincere apologies and “offendees” let their resentment linger. 

If we’re going to move forward on social issues, we need dialogue. That, in turn, requires us to open our minds and hearts and keep them open, even when the discussion boils over. 

But how do we get to this openness in the first place? This, I believe, is where the Divine can play such a powerful role. Good topic for next week.

I heard the president’s address to Congress on health care and couldn’t stop thinking about dialogue.

Two ways of looking at the speech led me down this path. First, consider it as a model of civil discourse. Obama started by placing the current wrangling in a much larger context: presidents since Teddy Roosevelt had grappled with health care, and today’s government leaders have made more progress than at any time in history. Reframing an issue in this way can help listeners break out of their mental frameworks and examine things in a whole new light.

Then, one by one, Obama raised the principal proposals and considered where they might belong in the grand scheme of things. He readily gave credit where credit was due, even if it was due to George W. Bush. More important, it was clear that he had carefully weighed ideas from all sides—with the kind of open mind that dialogue requires—and tried to craft them into a coherent framework for further refinement.

The president also displayed a redoubled commitment to the shared pursuit of truth over rigid ideology—a key to any fruitful dialogue—when he finally addressed the “death panel” accusations head on. I believe the word lie, like the word evil, carries tremendous weight and should be used only when absolutely necessary. I also believe it was accurate here. The president chose his words carefully, which any good dialogist will do to foster understanding.

Now consider the speech from a different angle: as a glimpse of where dialogue can take us. Just by opening ourselves to the other—whose views are inevitably different from our own—we often come out of dialogue with a more nuanced view of the truth. Skeptics decry nuance and moderation of thought as the “muddled middle,” an attempt to forge consensus by forcing together ideas that don’t really fit.

Sometimes that’s a fair criticism, and a dialogue without depth of thought may lead us there. It’s far too soon to assess whether the new Obama plan represents that kind of force-fit. 

Somehow, though, I doubt it. Health care is not only a complex problem, but a problem with myriad causes. It might just take a plan with myriad good ideas—from the left, the right, and everywhere else—to attack such a multicausal issue and finally set it right.

That brings us to the punch line: most of our social issues are multicausal. All of them carry some nuance. Solving them, therefore, requires ideas from all sides—or at least the careful consideration of those ideas. That only happens through authentic dialogue.

Obama’s speech reflected the spirit of dialogue and reconciliation. As a result, it might just be the first big step toward a lasting, workable health care plan.

Do we have to give up our beliefs before we engage in dialogue?

I thought about this when a Religion News Service article led me to the Civility Project. Co-founded by a Democratic consultant and a Southern Baptist adviser to Mitt Romney (that combination alone should get your attention), the project sprang from a frustration with the shouting that currently passes for civil discourse. Central to the project is the Civility Pledge: a promise to be civil in public discourse and behavior, respect others regardless of their position, and stand against incivility.

What a great idea. Others have worked on civility for considerably longer and explored it more intently—P. M. Forni’s Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins is especially notable—but it’s wonderful to see a call for civility from the grass roots. The more, the better.

Two items on the Civility Project website, though, brought the belief question to mind. One page states that the project does not involve “a surrender of personal beliefs, convictions or ideology.” Meanwhile, a poster comments that civil dialogue is impossible until fundamentalists stop preventing civil marriages for GLBT people. This expresses her personal conviction, and she has made it a precondition for civil dialogue.

Can you actually be civil and not surrender these things?

I think you can—but not by leading with “never surrender.” That orientation almost automatically puts us on the defensive, listening to the other not so much to truly understand her but to find the holes in her thinking. If the other person realizes we’re doing this, she’ll perceive herself as vulnerable to attack. She too becomes defensive, we learn little about each other, and the dialogue has no value.

So how do we go about this? I think the key is not to surrender our beliefs, but to set them aside for purposes of the dialogue. In doing so, we clear our mind to consider the other’s perspective from the inside out. We can hear her logic, her passion, her values more clearly. As a result, we connect more deeply, build trust, and open up an opportunity for deeper dialogue. This gives us a richer understanding of the other perspective, which we can then explore from our own value system. 

Imagine if we tried this with, say, gay marriage. GLBT people might find that conservative Christians are not necessarily homophobic, but rather trying in good faith to see the issue from their biblical worldview. Conservative Christians might hear the life stories of gay people and realize that being gay is not a choice, but rather who they are at their very essence. 

At the end of the dialogue, conservatives might still conclude that homosexuality is sinful, and GLBT people might still be frustrated with them. But they have understood the opposing perspective more deeply. More important, they have seen the human being behind the perspective, and that can lead to something bigger than dialogue—compassion and peace across the ideological divide.

Can the way of dialogue make any impact on health care reform? Consider its effect on one human mind (mine) and tell me what you think.

When the latest version of the debate heated up in earnest, I had no grasp of the issues whatever. So I started reading, listening, and thinking—and discovered some interesting insights. One article, written by the president of a regional health center, came out in favor of single-payer as a way to cover everyone and drive costs down. On The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Richard Armey (one of my least favorite politicians) talked about allowing insurers to compete across state borders, thus giving people more choice and driving costs down. I read about the Massachusetts model and what it might teach us. Because I learn by writing, I also wrote an article to ask questions about the issues.

At first, and through most of this process, I’ve leaned in the direction of single-payer. Now, after hearing other good ideas, I’m not so sure.

And that’s the point.

Preparing for authentic dialogue means absorbing ideas and perspectives from many parts of the ideological spectrum, even—especially—those that drive us crazy. It’s critical to hear from conservative and liberal, doctors and hospitals, government officials and poor people, those who have been denied coverage and the insurers that denied them.

This is hard work. It asks us to set aside our vested interests and emotional stakes. For instance, I resent the health insurance industry because a family member was denied coverage for desperately needed treatment. But to sort out issues as complex as this, I have to set that resentment aside…and listen.

How do we get to the point where we can do this? By cultivating certain attitudes of heart, especially openness to others—and the willingness to take on the risk that such openness involves. When we absorb other perspectives and listen to other people, we might find out we’re wrong. In my case, I might learn that health insurers include good people with honorable intentions. If I do, I’ll have to let go of my resentment permanently.

Which, by the way, will bring more peace to my soul and more generosity to my spirit.

If we do this hard work—if we approach the health care debate with an open heart and an inquiring spirit—we give ourselves the chance for good ideas to emerge. Good ideas sometimes lead to good policies. By contrast, the current climate of shouting and misinformation actually distracts our attention from listening, weighing alternatives, striving for consensus, and letting good solutions emerge.

We have nothing to lose by applying the way of dialogue to health care. And we have much to gain—maybe even a workable, compassionate policy, worthy of the name reform.  

Let’s try some word association. I’ll give you three words, and you say the first word that comes to mind. Here we go:

Intolerant.

Rigid.

Confrontational.

Did you read these words and instantly think fundamentalist, or conservative, or something like that? I have, for many years.

To those of us who think along such lines, let me tell a story.

A friend recently wrote me about two of his old classmates, buddies since high school, who have had a falling out. One is a mainstream Protestant minister, seminary-trained, with 20 years’ experience. The other just became born again and is sharing her newfound (fundamentalist) faith with the minister. My friend perceives that it’s the minister, “liberal” as she is, who’s become defensive.

I can imagine that, because I see it in some of the progressives I know. They’ll embrace anyone of any stripe—except conservatives. They view fundamentalists through stereotypes and have little interest in hearing traditional perspectives.

So what does this show us? Certainly that intolerance is not confined to one specific worldview. If we go deeper, though, we might just find that (to borrow from Pogo) we have met the intolerant and they is us.

I know this is true of me. I am delighted to enter into dialogue with Hindus, Baha’is, New Agers, gays, you name it. But Baptists? Health insurance executives? Do I have to?

Yes. Dialogue calls me to encounter everyone. No exceptions.

But how? This is what makes authentic dialogue far more than just a series of techniques for use once we’re at the table. To talk with those who set our teeth on edge and our blood pressure soaring, we have to prepare our inner selves—to till the soil of our souls, as it were—long before we start the dialogue itself. By cultivating such virtues as humility, openness, an ability to risk, and a commitment to love, we gradually become people of clear mind and open heart, which empowers us to share with anyone.

Goodness knows we need this. What might happen if, say, single-payer advocates and health insurance executives were to prepare their inner selves and then come back to the table? No, they probably wouldn’t agree on a strategy for health care reform. But at least they could conduct a civil conversation, a give-and-take that might clarify the issues for the rest of us—including our elected leaders—and thus clear a path to a better solution.

Idealistic? Perhaps. But given the current state of the health care discussion—or the debate over abortion, or gay marriage, or any other issue—surely it is a place to start.

War in the Middle East. The Western invasion of an Islamic land. Muslims routinely demonizing Christians and vice versa. One energetic leader who, rather than perpetuate the violence, starts a dialogue.

 Not much has changed since 1219.

Nearly 800 years ago, without regard for life or limb, St. Francis of Assisi walked straight into the enemy camp during the horror of the Crusades to meet with Islam’s leader, caliph Malik al-Kamil. No one knows exactly what happened during the meeting, but the fact that it happened at all speaks volumes about the two participants. 

In particular, it speaks of dialogue. Lawrence Cunningham, in his book Francis of Assisi, writes that the saint “dared cross enemy lines at the risk of painful death in order to speak face to face with someone who was demonized by the crusaders.” In the caliph, writes Rev. Dominic Monti in Francis and His Brothers, Francis did not “encounter the ‘fierce beast’ of crusading propaganda, but a man open to dialogue.” 

Why does this matter now? Precisely because so little has changed—right down to the presence of an energetic leader who started a dialogue. Barack Obama is hardly St. Francis, but as Monti points out in a recent article, the two share a willingness to set aside violence whenever possible for an honest exchange of views. The president’s Cairo speech serves as a welcome invitation to such a dialogue. 

But how do we, as ordinary citizens, take up the invitation? The example of Francis is instructive here too, especially in its simplicity. He laid aside the stereotypes about the “fierce beast” of Islam and instead uncovered the truth in the most direct way possible: firsthand, face to face. 

The same goes for us. It’s harder for us to call Islam “an evil religion” if we personally know good, compassionate, thoughtful Muslims. It’s harder for us to believe the typecasting if we talk face to face with Muslims and read their books. This goes the other way too: people who think that all Christians fit a narrow stereotype—particularly a stereotype of uncompromising rigidity—might spend time with a few and realize it ain’t necessarily so. 

By hearing the perspectives of others firsthand, we learn to appreciate the thought behind them and see their validity. Just as important, we come face to face with the human being behind the “opposing” belief system. That cannot help but foster compassion and peace. 

If enough of us have these dialogues, maybe the peace for which St. Francis prayed so ardently may finally come to pass.

I must be hanging around the wrong media. Only two days ago did I become aware of the wild rumors surrounding health care reform.

The strangest of the strange is that under the new plan, seniors must undergo counseling that encourages them to cut their lives short. (Factcheck.org, an arm of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, debunks this rumor in a recent post.)  But there are other rumors as well: The plan amounts to government rationing of health care. Ordinary people would lose their current insurance under the proposed plan. Health care reform will cover illegal immigrants.

Some of these rumors, on their face, involve legitimate concerns and deserve accurate answers. Others don’t stand up to a moment’s thought. The key for our discussion here, though, is that none of them are true—and yet some government leaders and pundits keep spreading them.

This is reprehensible: not just because misinformation is reprehensible in itself, but because it makes serious dialogue—which might lead to a more satisfactory resolution—much more difficult.

This is nothing new, of course. With every issue du jour, it seems, comes at least one claim or well-turned phrase that subtly shapes public perceptions. That might be fine if the phrase precisely captured the truth of the issue at hand. Unfortunately, those who craft such phrases are often less interested in seeking out truth—or even dialogue—than in promoting their argument.

As an example, think of how Republicans have used the “tax and spend” label to taint legislation from Democrats, regardless of the merit of the particular bill at hand. (Don’t most bills—even those for the best programs—involve taxation and spending?) Or consider the phrase “a woman’s right to choose” (or even the terms pro-choice and pro-life), as if the entire complexity and delicacy of the abortion question could be boiled down to a single sound bite.

When we hear these words and phrases over and over, we automatically begin to assume that they’re the only way to think about the issue. To borrow a business cliché, these terms set the “box”—and make it more difficult to think outside it.

Health care reform is far too complex and nuanced an issue to reduce to sound bites, let alone wild rumors. Dialogue, in contrast, would help us explore those nuances and bring them into the light. But where do we start?

Maybe we start with questions. Last year, realizing how woefully ignorant I was about single-payer and HSAs and whatnot, I started asking questions about health care. Maybe the answers to the questions we raise would start a dialogue. Maybe the dialogue would take hold—and reach the people who make the decisions.

Idealistic? Perhaps. But dialogue has more potential to generate a satisfactory solution than the rumors do. So let’s start the conversation.