Dialogue And Culture
from the book "Science, Order, and Creativity"
by David Bohm and F. David Peat



In this section it is proposed that a form of free dialogue may
well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis
which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and
consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of
free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance
for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive
misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated. However, it
must be stressed that what follows is not given in the spirit of a
prescription that society is supposed to follow. Rather it is an
invitation to the reader to begin to investigate and explore in
the free play of ideas and without the restriction of the absolute
necessity of any final goal or aim. For once necessity and
absolute requirements or directions enter into the spirit of this
exploration, then creativty is limited and all the problems that
have plagued human civilization will surface yet again to
overwhelm the investigation.
To begin, it should be noted that many of the ideas to be
explored were first investigated by Patrick de Maré, who is a
psychiatrist working in England. De Maré has used his wide
experience of dialogue in therapeutic groups to support his
arguments. However, it is essential to emphasize that his ideas
about dialogue are not concerned primarily with psychotherapy,
but rather with the transformation of culture, along the general
lines that have been indicated in this chapter.
In the first two chapters it was shown how rigid conditioning
of the tacit infrastructure of scientific thought has led to a
fragmentation in science and to an essential breakdown in
communication between areas which are considered to be mutually
irrelevant. Nevertheless a closer investigation of actual cases
suggested that there is nothing inherent in science which makes
such breaks in communication and fragmentation inevitable.
Indeed wherever fragmentation and failures in communication
arise, this clearly indicates that a kind of dialogue should
be established.
The term dialogue is derived from a Greek word, with dia
meaning "through" and logos signifying "the word." Here "the
word" does not refer to mere sounds but to their meaning. So
dialogue can be considered as a free flow of meaning between
people in communication, in the sense of a stream that flows
between banks.
A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary
discussion is that, within the latter, people usually hold
relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views
as they try to convince others to change. At best this may
produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to
anything creative. Moreover, whenever anything of fundamental
significance is involved, then positions tend to be rigidly
nonnegotiable and talk degenerates either into a confrontation
in which there is no solution, or into polite avoidance of the
issues. Both of these outcomes are extremely harmful, for they
prevent the free play of thought in communication and
therefore impede creativity.
In dialogue, however, a person may prefer a certain position
but does not hold to it nonnegotiably. He or she is ready to
listen to others with sufficient sympathy and interest to
understand the meaning of the other's position properly and is
also ready to change his or her point of view if there is good
reason to do so. Clearly a spirit of goodwill or friendship is
necessary for this to take place. It is not compatible with a
spirit that is competitive, contentious, or aggresive. In the
case of Einstein and Bohr, which was discussed in Chapter 2,
these requirements were evidently met, at least initially.
However, because each felt that a different notion of truth
and reality was involved, which was not negotiable in any way
at all, a real dialogue could never take place.
This brings us to an important root feature of science,
which is also present in dialogue: to be ready to acknowledge
any fact and any point of view as it actually is, whether one
likes it or not. In many areas of life, people are, on the
contrary, disposed to collude in order to avoid acknowledging
facts and points of view that they find unpleasant or unduly
disturbing. Science is, however, at least in principle,
dedicated to seeing any fact as it is, and to being open to
free communication with regard not only the fact itself, but
to the point of view from which it is interpreted.
Nevertheless, in practice, this is not often achieved. What
happens in many cases is that there is a blockage of
commnication.
For example, a person does not acknowledge the point of
view of the other as being a reasonable one to hold, although
perhaps not correct. Generally this failure arises when the
other's point of view poses a serious threat to all that a
person holds dear and precious in life as a whole.
In dialogue it is necessary that people be able to face
their disagreements without confrontation and be willing to
explore points of view to which they do not personally
subscribe. If they are able to engage in such a dialogue
without evasion or anger, they will find that no fixed
position is so important that it is worth holding at the
expense of destroying the dialogue itself. This tends to
give rise to a unity in plurality of the kind discussed in
Chapter 3. This is, of course, quite different from
introducing a large number of compartmentalized positions
that never dialogue with each other. Rather, a plurality of
points of view corresponds to the earlier suggestion that
science and society should consist not of monolithic
structures but rather of a dynamic unity within plurality.
One of the major barriers to this sort of dialogue is the
rigidity in the tacit infrastructure of the individual and
society, which has been discussed throughout this book. The
tacit infrastructure of society at large is contained in
what is generally called culture. Within each society,
however, there are many subcultures which are all somewhat
different, and which are either in conflict with each other,
or more or less ignore each other as having mutually
irrelevant aims and values. Such subcultures, along with the
overall culture, are generally rigidly restricted by their
basic assumptions, most of which are tacit and not open to
awareness and attention. Creativity is therefore, at best,
an occasional occurance, the results of which are quickly
absorbed in a fairly mechanical way into the general tacit
infrastructure.
At present, a truly creative dialogue, in the sense that
has been indicated here, is not at all common, even in
science. Rather the struggle of each idea to dominate is
commonly emphasized in most activities in society. In this
struggle, the success of a person's point of view may have
important consequences for status, prestige, social
position, and monetary reward. In such a conditioned
exchange, the tacit infrastructure, both individually and
culturally, responds very actively to block the free play
that is needed for creativity.
The importance of the principle of dialogue should now be
clear. It implies a very deep change in how the mind works.
What is essential is that each participant is, as it were,
suspending his or her point of view, while also holding
other points of view in a suspended form and giving full
attention to what they mean. In doing this, each
participant has also to suspend the corresponding activity,
not only of his or her own tacit infrastructure of ideas,
but also of those of the others who are participating in
the dialogue. Such a thoroughgoing suspension of tacit
individual and cultural infrastructures, in the context of
full attention to their contents, frees the mind to move
in quite new ways. The tendency toward false play that is
characteristic of the rigid infrastructures begins to die
away. The mind is then able to respond to creative new
perceptions going beyond the particular points of view
that have been suspended.
In this way, something can happen in the dialogue that
is analogous to the dissolution of barriers in the "stream"
of the generative order that was discussed at the end of
the previous chapters. In the dialogue, these blockages, in
the form of rigid but largely tacit cultural assumptions,
can be brought out and examined by all who take part.
Because each person will generally have a different
individual background, and will perhaps come from a
different subculture, assumptions that are part of a given
participant's "unconscious" infrastructure may be quite
obvious to another participant, who has no resistance to
seeing them. In this way the participants can turn their
attention more generally to becoming aware, as broadly as
possible, of the overall tacit infrastructure of rigid
cultural and subcultural assumptions and bringing it to
light. As a result, it becomes possible for the dialogue to
begin to play a part that is analogous to that played by
the immune system of the body, in "recognizing" destructive
misinformation and in clearing it up. This clearly
constitutes a very important change in how the mind works.
There is, however, another extremely important way in which
the operation of the mind can be transformed in such a
dialogue. For when the rigid, tacit infrastructure is
loosened, the mind begins to move in a new order. To see
the nature of this order, consider first the order that has
traditionally characterized cultures. Essentially this
involves a strong fragmentation between individual
consciousness - "what the individual knows all together" -
and social consciousness - "what the society knows all
together."
For the individual, consciousness tends to emphasize
subjectivity in the sense of private aims, dreams, and
aspirations that are shared to some extent with family and
close friends, as well as a general search for personal
pleasure and security. In society, however, consciousness
tends to emphasize a kind of objectivity with common aims and
goals, and there is an attempt to put conformity and the
pursuit of the common welfare in the first place. One of the
principle conflicts in life arises therefore in the attempt
to bring these two fragments together harmoniously. For
example, as a person grows up, he (or she) may find that his
individual needs have little or no place in society. And in
turn, as society begins to act on the individual
consciousness in false and destructive ways, people become
cynical. They begin to ignore the requirements of reality
and the general good in favor of their own interests and
those of their group.
Within this generally fragmentary order of consciousness,
the social order of language is largely for the sake of
communicating information. This is aimed, ultimately, at
producing results that are envisaged as necessary, either to
society or to the individual, or perhaps both. Meaning plays
a secondary part in such usage, in the sense, for example,
that what are put first are the problems that are to be
solved, while meaning is arranged so as to facilitate the
solution of these problems. Of course, a society may try to
find a common primary meaning in myths, such as that of the
invincibilty of the nation or its glorious destiny. But these
lead to illusions, which are in the long run unsatisfactory,
as well as dangerous and destructive. The individual is thus
generally left with a desperate search for something that
would give life real meaning. But this can seldom be found
either in the rather crude mechanical, uncaring society, or in
the isolated and consequently lonely life of the individual.
For if there is not common meaning to be shared, a person can
be lonely even in a crowd.
What is especially relevant to this whole conflict is a
proper understanding of the nature of culture. It seems clear
that in essence culture is meaning, as shared in society.
And here "meaning" is not only significance but also
intention, purpose, and value. It is clear, for example,
that art, literature, science, and other such activities of a
culture are all parts of the common heritage of shared
meaning
, in the sense described above. Such cultural meaning
is evidently not primarily aimed at utility. Indeed, any
society that restricts its knowledge merely to information that
it regards as useful would hardly be said to have a culture,
and within it, life would have very little meaning. Even in our
present society, culture, when considered in this way, appears
to have a rather small significance in comparison to other
issues that are taken to be of vital importance by many sectors
of the population.
The gulf between individual consciousness and the social
consciousness is similar to a number of other gulfs that have
already been described in this book, for example, between
descriptive and constitutive orders, between simple regular
orders of low degree and chaotic orders or infinte degree,
and, of course, between the timeless and time orders. But in
all these cases, broad and rich new areas for creativity can be
found by going to new orders that lie between such extremes.
In the present case, therefore, what is needed is to find a
broad domain of creative orders between the social and
individual extremes. Dialogue therfore appears to be a key to
the exploration of these new orders.
To see what is involved, note that as the above dialogue
develops, not only do specific social and cultural assumptions
"loosen up," but also much deeper and more general assumptions
begin to be affected in a similar way. Among these, one of the
most important is the assumption that between the individual
consciousness and the social consciousness there is an
absolute gulf. This implies that the individual must adjust
to fit into the society, that society must be remade to suit
the individual, or that some combination of both approaches
must be carried out. If, however, the dialogue is sustained
sufficiently, then all who participate will sooner or later
be able to see, in actual fact, how a creative movement can
take place in a new order between these extremes. This
movement is present both externally and publicly, as well as
inwardly, where it can be felt by all. As with alert attention
to a flowing stream, the mind can then go into an analogous
order. In this order, attention is no longer restricted to the
two extreme forms of individual and social. Rather, attention
is transformed so that it, along with the whole generative
order of the mind, is in the rich domain "between" these two
extremes.
The mind is then capable of new degrees of subtlety, moving
from emphasis on the whole group of participants to emphasis
on individuals, as the occasion demands. This is particularily
significant for proper response to the strong emotional
reactions that will inevitably arise, even in the friendliest
group, whenever fundamental assumptions are disturbed. Because
the mind is no longer rigidly committed to the individual or
to the social extremes, the basic issues that arise in a
disagreement between participants are to a considerable extent
"defused." For the assumptions that are brought to the common
attention are no longer implied to have absolute necessity.
And as a result, the "emotional charge" that is inevitably
associated with an assumption that is dear to one or more
members of the group can be reduced to more managable
proportions, so that violent "explosions" are not likely to
take place. Only a dialogue that can, at the same time, meet
the challenge both of uncovering the intellectual content of
a rigidly held basic assumption and of "defusing" the
emotional charge that goes with it will make the proper
exploration that is being discussed here.
It is possible to have such dialogues in all sorts of
circumstances, with many or just a few people involved.
Indeed even an individual may have a kind of internal
dialogue with himself or herself. What is essential here is
the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is, in short,
the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along
with a primary interest in the creation of a common meaning.
It is particularly important, however, to explore the
possibilities of dialogue in the context of a group that is
large enough to have within it a wide range of points of
view, and to sustain a strong flow of meaning. This latter
can come about because such a dialogue is capable of having
the powerful nonverbal effect of consensus. In the ordinary
situation, consensus can lead to collusion and to playing
false, but in a true dialogue there is the possibility that
a new form of consensual mind, which involves a rich
creative order between the individual and the social, may be
a more powerful instrument than is the individual mind. Such
consensus does not involve the pressure of authority or
conformity, for it arises out of a spirit of friendship
dedicated to clarity and the ultimate perception of what is
true. In this way the tacit infrastructure of society and
that of its subcultures are not opposed, nor is there any
attempt to alter them or to destroy them. Rather, fixed and
rigid frames dissolve in the creative flow of dialogue as a
new kind of microculture emerges.
People who have taken part in such a dialogue will be able
to carry its spirit beyond the particular group into all
their activities and relationships and ultimately into the
general society. In this way, they can begin to explore the
possiblity of extending the transformation of the mind that
has been discussed earlier to a broader sociocultural
context. Such an exploration would clearly be relevant for
helping to bring about a creative and harmonious order in
the world. It should be clear by now that the major barriers
to such an order are not technical; rather they lie in the
rigid and fragmentary nature of our basic assumptions. These
keep us from changing in response to the actual situation
and from being able to move together from commonly shared
meanings.


see also: On Dialogue
Participant Comments follow below
it seems to me that we need open-minded persons involved in a successful dialog, the ones who don't try to win his opinion over the others, rather make a beautiful 'painting' from a wide range of color, synthesize from those diversified opinion. as far as i'm concerned, it is a quality that woman has.
along the course of the history of mankind, the patriarchal system of value has been deeply rooted in the society, the system which is established by male. it has brought a tremendous destructive power on our society.it wins the competition, rational values over the receptive, cooperative and intuitive values. thus it doesn't promote a good dialogue to take place. since the dialogue will play an important role in shaping our new social order, we, in my opinion, will need more woman to be the next leader.

anas nashrullah anashrullah@hotmail.com
10/23/02 18:18:37 GMT