Some Notes on Non-Exclusive Dialogue

Here are some notes that I penned (during tonight's talk) out of the motivation that keeps coming with my frustration:

Conditions for Non-Exclusive Dialogue:

• Simplicity, Clarity, Occam’s Razor applied to logic, sentence structure
  

• Logical foundation: use of arguments with premises and conclusion, not messy thoughts that contradict themselves and perhaps even go on to deny such contradiction, ever so presumptuously; the parliamentary debate system is useful for building this skill for strong, non-cryptic argumentation

• *Vernacular language preferred; specialized language will certainly exclude (I prefer this vocabulary because it doesn’t require what debaters call “spec knowledge,” special knowledge available to a select few)

• Changing the tide: dialogue that includes “normal” people (non-academics) has somehow been debased, degraded, been thrown out of favor, which is unfortunate

*Students shouldn’t feel stupid (my notes confound me even if I return to them an hour after writing them. I can’t remember, but I believe I started writing down this principle based off a related comment made earlier in the day, but nothing in my notes could possibly demystify this for me) and neither should non-students…if we ever want to achieve inclusion, expand the currency of ideas and their usefulness, and yield a smarter population, how would we accomplish that if the majority of people aren’t part of the conversation? There seems to be more potential in a kind of hive mind, lurking in community dynamics, in connection. The World Café technique calls it “collective intelligence,” something acquired by cross-pollinating focused dialogue with other conversations. The technique is incredibly well designed, but there must be other ways to achieve similar purposes, though I don’t think constantly holding cafés, one a day or one a week, would be a bad idea. It might finally bring out the genuine subtext from those withholding it when they speak; if people come into the process humbly, willing to work with its simple rules, then perhaps finally everyone will not only be on the same page, but also more efficient. Perhaps we will even, with a shared purpose, start working towards achieving something remarkable.