Bohm - On Dialogue

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Personal notes.

1. Key Quotes

1.1. Introduction

  • General feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere.
  • People living in different nations… are hardly able to talk to each other without fighting.
  • Comes from commun; to make common.
  • Artists cannot express onself, as the imagine in their mind is not accurately represented.
    • Note That isn’t the process for art, though.

1.2. On Dialogue

  • Dialogue can be among any number of people.
    Stream of meaning
    Flows among us and through us and between us.
    • Makes possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which may emerge some new understanding.
  • Discussion - emphasizes analysis, breaking up.
    • same root as “percussion” and “concussion”.

    • point is to “win” the game.

      Discussion is almost like a ping-pong game, where people are batting ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yoursel.f Possibly, you will take up somebody else’s ideas to back up your own - yo umay agree with some and disagree with others - but the basic point is to win the game.

    • trade-offs, negotiations are not dialogue. whole question of two different systems is not being seriously discussed.
      • people have different underlying assumptions which are touted as untouchable. also known as opinions
    • “We haven’t really paid much attentions to thought as a process. We have only paid attention to the content.”
    • Ecology - “We are constantly producing that sort of problem - not just that particular problem, but that sort of problem - by the way we go on with our thought.”
      • Thought produces results, but thought says it didn’t do it.
  • Engaging in Dialogue:
    • Sit in a circle, without any agenda or any leader.
      • We are not going to decide what to do about anything. Leisure - empty space. Occupied - full.
        • Biblical analogy of seeds - some are dropped in stony ground and some of them fall in the right place and they produce tremendous fruit.
        • Fixed dialogue that makes a change.
    • The group is a microcosm of society, so if the group - or anyone - is cured