Dialogic ethics

Dialogic Ethics: Meeting Differing Grounds of the “Good”

Major Metaphors

Dialogue and difference—difference is the key to learning and living well in a postmodern culture. Difference is the energy that makes dialogue possible.

Dialogic theory—situates background assumptions about dialogue in three major elements of human meeting: the different grounds/narratives from which self and Other begin the conversation and the emergent temporal answer given life by the meeting of such difference.

Dialogic coordinates—five communicative elements are needed to invite dialogue: learning from listening, refraining from the demand that dialogue take place, acknowledging bias, recognizing that not all communication is or should be in the form of dialogue, and keeping content and learning foremost.

Dialogic ethics—assumes the importance of the meeting of communicative ground that gives rise to a particular sense of the good and is simultaneously open to learning and emergent insight that belong to an ontological reality between persons, not to any one person in the conversation.

Dialogue and Difference

Dialogic ethics is the meeting place for learning in a age of difference.

Learning is the anchor in an era that rebels against universalistic foundations. Difference opens the door to learning. Dialogue opens the door to other persons and ideas.

The Content of Dialogue

This work situates dialogue within two (Buber and Gadamer) of the four traditions of dialogue theory (Martin Buber, Hans Gadamer, Jurgen Habermas, and Mikhail Bakhtin) and adds Freire and Arendt.

Dialogic Theory

Martin Buber

Dialogue is not “the” way to communicate. It is only one way to communicate with others. Dialogic ethics assumes the importance of technical dialogue and genuine dialogue.

Buber discusses the interplay of images of the self and Other in a relational exchange in order to illustrate different perspectives that are present within a dialogic encounter.

Hans Gadamer

Gadamer begins dialogic engagement with the assumption that bias is central to human understanding.

The first step toward dialogue is the admission of bias. The second step is to respect the bias of the Other. The third step is a willingness to permit the “fusion of horizons,” the interplay of two differing images, to shape a given direction. The final step is a reminder that meeting the Other can affect one’s worldview.

Dialogic Theory

Paulo Freire

Freire connects face saving and learning as vital elements of dialogue.

Freire assumes that a major common set of interests and power equity must be in place before dialogue can take place.

Freire reserved dialogue for those wanting to learn, those with similar commitments.

A dialogic communication ethics assists the Other, saving face in order to protect and promote an environment of learning.

Hannah Arendt

Arendt sought to preserve the natural dialectic of public and private life. The blurring of these two realms she called the “social.”

According to Arendt, a parvenu is a person on the outside who works to accommodate, doing everything without ever securing acceptance.

Dialogic ethics works on the basic assumption that whatever is most important about engaging another begins and ends without demand.

Dialogic Coordinates: Without Demand

Be a learner and a listener – attend to content/ground that shapes your own discourse and that of another.

Demand for dialogue moves us from dialogue into monologue and concern for our own image of what communication “should” be.

Acknowledge bias; it is inevitable.

Acknowledge that not all communicative arrangements offer the possibility for dialogue.

Keep dialogue connected to content and learning, remaining ever attentive to new possibilities that emerge “between” persons.

Find ways to nourish the natural dialectic of public and private communicative life, foregoing the temptation to blur them by trying to create “nice” or friendly spaces from places that require some professional distance.

A Dialogic Learning Model of Communication Ethics

A dialogic model of communication ethics begins with four questions:

What does it mean to “show up”?

What is the communication ethics position from which I work, and how does it inform my interaction?

How can I offer the Other opportunity to articulate the position or ground that shapes a communication ethic?

How can communication ethics work as a learning model based upon self-reflective accountability?

Dialogic Ethics

Dialogic ethics demands learning that makes ongoing efforts at communication ethics literacy possible.

Listening without demand: What is happening in a given moment?

Attentiveness: What are the coordinating grounds upon which stand the self, the Other, and the historical moment?

The ground of the self

The ground of the Other

The ground of the historical moment

Dialogic negotiation: What temporal communicative ethics answers emerge “between” persons, pointing to communicative options for action, belief, and understanding?

Temporal dialogic ethical competence: What worked, and what changes might now assist?

Temporal Dialogic Ethical Competence