Hi, Joan. I couldn?t resist responding to your concerns about the possible ?scholarly? nature of dialogue. The truth of the matter is that, in my experience, dialogue is anything but that. I?ve been involved with a dialogue group at the Wosk Centre for three years and our conversations are anything but scholarly. Au contraire! And we?re a pretty diverse and eclectic group of people, representing various parts of our society. And our dialogues have taken us to some pretty amazing places.
Yes, the field of dialogue can be and is informed by the works of everyone from Plato to Foucault, from Lao Tze to Habermas and Gadamer, from Rumi to Buber?but in the end dialogue is just about two or more people engaging with one another in ways that develop understanding. William Isaacs, who wrote a great book on dialogue called ?Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together? has a great definition of dialogue that states, simply: ?Dialogue is a conversation with a centre, not sides.?
And as to ornate halls, etc., Daniel Yankelovich (?The Magic of Dialogue?) once said (during a visit here at SFU, where he is a Fellow of the Wosk Centre) that in his experience the best and most productive dialogues usually took place, not in the boardrooms, executive suites, ornate halls, and seminar rooms, but rather in the walks in the woods between formal sessions, or when people sat around informally just talking casually, in the late-night conversations that got started and just wouldn?t quit. That was when the magic happened. Of course, it?s possible to create that magic within the formal settings; part of the key to doing so is in creating and sustaining the various elements of that safe, informal atmosphere.