Category: dialogue

In this blog category, we will explore (and “dialogue” about!) this precious and productive form of interacting via words – that is, how we collaborate to make meaning.

I have studied and written a lot about this special and (most would say) rare form of “discourse,” culminating in 2011 (University of Colorado – Boulder) in my 415-page doctoral dissertation, “An Anatomy of Dialogue in Teaching and Learning.”
You may safely trust that I have gained exquisite familiarity with the many varying definitions and uses of this broad term, from “what characters say, in a movie” to “how we talk, when we’re actually listening to each other.” However defined, “dialogue” tends to be viewed in a positive light, which does help (toward my mission).

For years, during and since that focused period of study, I have indulged in boiling down the substance of my doctoral research to just three words: “Dialogue: difference engaged.”

Given my present interests and focus (as suggested in this website’s name), I would lately add two more words, hence I now define dialogue as “difference engaged, in words.”

I know of nobody who is unaware of the unparalleled divisiveness now pushing Americans and others in the direction of extreme views. We are not working toward “Aristotle’s Golden Mean,” we are fleeing outward, to the extremes. Dialogue can tolerate extreme views, but it also requires open minds.

This blog area will, I hope, portray dialogue at its most engaging and interesting. We’ll look at topical events and explore how we can understand them better, by talking things through, while actually building and enhancing relationships, contrary to present norms, where “difference engaged” leads not to bonding, but to destruction – of relationships and more.