Doing It

Ways of do this dialogue: 

                This dialogue may be done in a variety of ways. The ways possible may approach the infinite. It can be done beneficially in a great many ways. Ways that suit the needs of its members.

                Many of these ways have several doings in common. There maybe none of these ways which can be left out without affecting the groups effectiveness. The short list of doings which come to is to practice:

practice democracy.

inclusive participation.

live "face to face" listening and speech. listening skills.

saying something.

showing up.

                All the ways I have thought of for doing this dialogue call for a group of  people. Size matters, but a variety of sizes may prove effective. In most cases a group of over 40 participants will usually less less effective than a group of about 20. The dialogue can be useful for a married couple. A nine person group may do, but may soon feel the need for "new blood." 

The group:

                Ah, the group. This dialogue nearly always calls for a group. You may find that a group of about 17 participants can work very well. A group to be very useful ought to meet regularly. Meeting once a week for an hour or two can be great. One that meets once every three months may fall apart before the end of the first year. Members ought to share a common language, but do not need to be native speaks of that language. A dialogue group could have as a purpose, the practice of speaking a "second language."

                So, you may see that the purpose of your group can affect its make-up. The nature of your group can depend upon your purpose.

                A typical group will be doing some ongoing recruitment of new members.

                

The meeting place can be important to the practice of a dialogue group:

                The meeting place can be very important for nearly every group. The meeting place ought to be neutral so meeting at members homes can present problems. The place ought to be free from interruptions or any disruption and a minimum of discomforts. Also, for me, it is important that the area of the place be large enough to seat members in a single continuous circle. So, chairs are necessary and it is good that the chairs be of a similar nature.

                So it seems that something about the nature and setup of the meeting place ought to be included in the list above. The setup of the chairs is important

to the egalitarian nature of the meeting. The setting of the chairs contribute much to the quality of the dialogue and is part of the practice of democracy.

                It is most often best that the time a place of meeting be consistent. Each and every member needs to kept up to date as to that time and place.

                

As a matter of interest:

                I have my personal preferences for dialogue practice meetings. For example, I like a talking stick. Here at this blogsite are more than 50 essays about the dialogue and its practice. They are free for your perusal.

                This site has a month average of only about 400 viewers, though last month there were over 2,000 views. However, as this has one of my least viewed sites I have thought that it might be useful to combine it with my Governance With RCS site. Dialogue of some sort is probably vital for good governance. So, essays on democratic dialogue would not be out of place there. Have you thoughts on such a move? I'll try not to make any sudden moves.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                                                        rcs

Who Is Interested in Interacting With This Site?

                I will ramble on a bit longer here but it seems it is getting close to time to shut down Dialogue With RCS for lack of interest. The site has been up for over two years and is averaging only about 400 views a month and in that time I have only been contacted once. I incorrectly expected more exchanges with readers and perhaps some "How to" questions.

            I will keep you informed about my intentions. It may be useful for me to move some of this site to the Governance With RCS site. The Dialogue is an important part of governance and taking care of ourselves together.

Another Ramble Into Dialogue Practice:

            This piece seems to be mostly about what the dialogue is and a little about why I find it interesting and a bit about other stuff. I do not intend to say anything about how to practice the dialogue today. How is a big topic in which it seems few are interested.

           The what of the dialogue is that it can be a good way to meaning and understanding, shared meaning and understanding. It can be about kinds of peace, basketball, relationships, or whatever we like. These days I am interested in dialogue about taking care of ourselves together. I call that governance.

            However, The Dialogue is about effective dialogue. It is not complicated, but it does take practice. There are skills to practice, rules to integrate, and good practices to practice.

            In the practice you can find humor, fun, smiles, some laughter. You can also find satisfaction and new skills. You can find empowering meaning and understanding. Perhaps you can find companionship and co-operation. You may find yourself maintaining culture or even creating culture. You will get to know your practice companions better.

            It can be a supporting and strengthening process, and you do most of it with just the support of your group. I see it something like an adult primary and secondary school with no kindergarten. I can be much faster, but we find that we often have to learn one thing before we learn another.

            The practice includes the development of listening skills that helps us to a more useful understanding of our practice companions, ourselves, and the human world. Our developing listening skills bring more and more meaning and understanding into our lives. We begin to find satisfaction and joy by partaking of this kind of democratic talk. The practice may even let more peace and abundance into one's life.

            The dialogue includes being listened to. I the dialogue we can be heard. Speaking of being heard, the dialogue is communion among a group of individuals. It is not a monologue. For me to advance understanding of the dialogue I need a lot of ongoing feedback. I need to know you better to write to you better. I want to write about the dialogue in more detail, more systematically, in ways more appropriate to your wants, needs, and interests. The topic is broad and and can be deep.

            I often see the dialogue as a democratic stream of meaning flowing among us and through us. Still the dialogue can be much like a parlor game that most of can enjoy and still be a meaningful practice. Even as a parlor game there can be stream of growing meaning and understanding flowing among us which might not notice or give a conscious thought to. Still that flow of meaning and understanding created by us energizes new and meaningful understanding among us.

         

            The shared meaning we create with our dialogue is a force which helps us to more peaceful and meaningful families and relationships, helps us to co-operate locally more effectively, and helps us to more healthy societies nations. and to a more useful, resistant, and meaningful culture. 

The Dialogue is Not:    

~ the analysis found in discussion nor is it an effort to persuade anyone

~ an attempt to gain points.

~ an attempt to make any particular point prevail.

            This dialogue practice is a safer, more useful way to honestly share meaning, experience, 0pinion, assumption, and understanding. And this little essay is headed for more ramble. I hope it will turn out to be useful ramble through some valuable orientation and information.

            I hope that you have begun to suspect that the dialogue is likely to hold benefits for you. I believe that it has a variety of benefits for a variety of individuals. One can be surprised to find that a single minute they have to express an opinion of theirs to an attentive groups has real value for them. They are please to know that there can be many such minutes. Others feel there is important benefit in having the words they express are listen to heard with the intention of understanding. Others feel that the knowledge that each will have and equitable opportunity to be heard and that all will have equal opportunity to be heard. All of this can happen in the first grade.

            We all may come to appreciate the benefits in learning and practicing listening skills. Nearly all can benefit practicing speaking skills. Others are gaining hearing and understanding skills, and benefiting.

            All benefit and are please that many are gaining skills at expressing themselves at an extraordinary level of honesty. 

            Others  may feel that they benefit just by learning to accept that which another says is valuable information. Accepting it as valuable not necessarily for being true or something to be believed. But seeing it rather as a representation of another's opinion, interpretation, or experience. That is as a way to a deeper understanding of another whose opinions are very different from one's own.

            Individuals benefit in a variety of individual ways. For me and others a great benefit seems to center on a flow of meaning which begins to flow through a practice group. That flow can lead to a kind of thinking together in face of great differences discovered in a group. That sort of thinking together is sometimes very powerful, perhaps more powerful than the sum of that of all individual inputs

The Practice Calls For Your Effort:

    You will need to work the practice to gain your benefits. Listening, hearing, understanding call for your attention and more. Showing up and keeping appropriate silence take effort. Co-operating with your fellow dialoguers may be a pleasure, but also calls for effort. Learning the mechanics of this dialogue takes effort which may be called work.

            You can gain certain skills and understandings. You may gain some shared meaning and culture. Showing up may be a bit of a job. But there are more advantages. You can gain word power and voice projection. It is possible to gain a more peaceful and meaningful life. Some improve their use of a language which is not their own.

            This is about all the ramble in can handle today.

        If  you have an idea for practicing dialogue online, please share it. Remember, members must recognize each other and begin to know each other. You may use the "comments" app below.

            Their are other dialogue posts to explore at this site. You are welcome to explore them.

            Thanks for going on this ramble.

                                                                                                rcs

        

             

What's to Like in an Organization?

 We know that organization increases our power enormously. We know that our organization informs and educates us well.

                    We are capable of forgetting the pleasures and satisfactions  of organization. I expect that the pleasures and satisfactions I am recalling just now will not be the same as yours. Still among mine you may find one or two of yours.

                    I have an interest in ad hoc organizations and and those of longer term.

Below are many of my personal likes in organizations. You may find some of your likes listed.

An organization which attracts me often has:

~ members who feel connected, involve, and respected.

~ the motive of helping me and others to thrive.

~ a clear understanding of costs and benefits.

~ members who promote widespread participation and responsibility.

~ members who embrace reality and who are willing to approach the truth.

~ members who value honesty and justice.

~ a mission I find valuable and pleasing.

~ plenty of talk in which all participate.

An organization which pleases me is one which:

~ Keeps me in the information loop.

~ most members feel well connected with leadership.

~ Makes very clear who pays how much and who gets what.

~ moves in the direction of democracy.

~ tends to be inclusive.

~ tends to safeguard that which I value.

~ includes those who study and promote actions good for me and others.

~ advocates and protects people and process important to me.

~ promotes dialogue which leads to appropriate action.

I find an organization congenial when it includes:

~ teaching the process of organizing.

~ the purpose of advocating and protecting me.

~ objectives very like my own.

~ intelligent, respectful, loving ladies. (Excuse my honesty, please.)

                I am very interested in hearing of your likes in organizations. I expect to post more about organization and organizing. Dialogue skills are organizational skills for all participants in society.

                Organizing can be a wonderful move toward governance.

                More as soon as I can.

                Thank you for reading. Make some time to do some exploration among the 50 posts here.

                                                                                                            RCS

Learning to Organize as We Organize to Learn

 Co-operation:

                There is a hope among us that we can effectively co-operate for our mutual well-being; that is to co-operate for the well-being of our health, education, economy, civic life, and more. We know about co-operation, but many of us seem to be out of practice. 

                In order to organize to get something going, or to keep it going, we need to co-operate pretty well. That takes talking, it takes communication, and it takes practice. To keep on the same track or on the same page, often takes an ongoing conversation or dialogue. Carrying on a dialogue conversation effectively takes some practice and a bit of learning. 

Practice:

                We could practice such dialogue as we teach each other active citizenship, self governance, and participatory democracy, if we would.

                Learning to practice the dialogue effectively can be an important first step. Learn to use the dialogue is a very useful in many collective activities. the practice of the dialogue makes us better co-operators and more effective doers. Use of the dialogue is a great aid to organizing and and more effective learning as we become more effective organizers.

Listening and Acton:

                Dialogue practice leads us to be more meaningful listeners and understanders. The dialogue is a way to think co-operatively, to act usefully, and effectively. It can be a way to beautiful action. It can move us beautiful action. It can move us to powerful and broadly meaningful action when we so will.

                You can explore our growing blogsites of dialogue and governance when you so will. You can check the list of associated blogs here whenever you care to. Find out more about dialogue skills and how to use them at the dialogue and the governance sites here.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                                                                        rcs

Dialogue Practice Actions

What it is: a first look 

                In our dialogue practice there is no agenda in the ordinary sense. Our purpose, in large part, is the practice. The practice is the honest and just sharing of meaning and development of coherence.  We practice certain methods and skills for thinking together.

                Our present purpose is to practice skills and learn rules of effective dialogue. We hope that others will come to see how this mere practice builds and supports our culture even as we listen and speak.

                This Dialogue For Peace, this Magic Table Dialogue, this dialogue is mostly leaderless. We can practice it and share its benefits without leaders.

Suggested first steps

                To begin your dialogue you will need to talk with others about the dialogue. You will begin, probably, by talking it over, discussing why you are doing it, what it means, and how you want to do it. 

                Explore this site.

                More to come.

                Thank you for reading!


                                                                                    by Richard Sheehan

Learn to Organize as you Organize to Learn

 Co-operation:

                There is a hope among many that we can effectively co-operate for our mutual well-being; co-operate for the well being of our health, education, economy, civic life, and more. We know about co-operation, but too many of are out of practice.

Organize:

                In order to organize for fair and practical results, we need to learn to co-operate better than usual. Better co-operation takes talk which includes better listening and hearing; it most often takes face to face communication. To get on a well understood same track or same page usually takes an ongoing conversation or dialogue. Carrying on a dialogue effective takes some practice. Such practice takes place in a dialogue group.

Practice:

                You can practice such dialogue as we teach each other the nature of the dialogue, as we teach one another, say, active citizenship, self governance, participatory democracy, appropriate mutual trust.

Learn:

                Learning to practice the dialogue effectively can be an important first step to more effective co-operation. Learning to to use the dialogue is a very useful early step in many collective activities and may be vital throughout those activities. The practice of the dialogue makes us more understanding co-operaters and more effective doers. 

Dialogue:  

                Use of the dialogue is a great aid to organizing to learn, as we become more effective organizers. The dialogue leads us to be more meaningful listeners and understanders. It is a democratic way to think together so as to be thoughtful and effective individuals of useful action. It is a democratic way to think together so as to be free, thoughtful, and effective people of good and useful action. Powerful, beautiful, broadly meaningful, and good action results when you so will.

Action:

~ Powerful co-operation results for those who practice learning to more truly understand one another.

~ Practicing democratic listening results in more powerful understanding.

~ We develop powerful understanding by practicing the dialogue and so coming to better use it.

~ The dialogue is simple, but it does take practice.

~ The practice is effective when it takes place in a dialogue group.

~ I dialogue group begins when two people find a third person to practice with them.

Check out these two sites;

~ Governance With RCS

and

~ Dialogue With RCS

                

                Thank you for reading; may it lead to reasoned action.

                                                                                                rcs

                                                                                                        

                

            

  

                

Get Familiar With Some Benefits of the Dialogue Group Practice,

         

                On this new blog I continue posting on a kind of dialogue with which you may be becoming familiar. Some churches, corporations, civic organizations, and others have been this sort of dialogue for years, so it is not brand new.

               

                 For those who may not be certain of what I mean by dialogue, In brief, it is meaningful talk within groups.

                

                Below I will begin to note a few of the dialogue's benefits. As we are now on the internet I will say now that, I do not know of cases of the dialogue's being used successfully online. However, I believe that it is now possible to do so, but am not sure how. If you would like to suggest something the "comments" window below is for your use.

                

                As I know it the dialogue is best used face to face, in person. And seems most effective in groups of between 20 and 40 participants. Groups of 15 and less have been please with it. Much of it can be used to good effect between husband and wife. It has been used with groups with groups much larger than 40 with professional facilitators and more as a demonstration than as well functioning group. I would like to see it use online. 

                

                The following list is far from inclusive and not completely representative, but can serve to introduce something of the dialogue.

                

                I have called this dialogue the Magic Table dialogue and a Dialogue for Peace. We can just call it the dialogue.

                    

 Benefits include:

~ learning to make yourself heard.

~ being heard.

~ being listened to.

~ coming to enjoy being heard.

~ an opportunity for the practice of listening.

~ learning that dialogue is more than talk.

~ gaining motivation to listen.

~ improving your us of language.

~ practicing a language new to you.

~ learning new listening skills.

~ the possibility of getting in touch with traditions of knowledge new to you. 

~ getting to know yourself better.

~ getting to know an interesting other.

~ knowing new people.

~ having fun while realizing that the dialogue is a serious activity.

~ experiencing the creation of culture. 

~  increasing your word power.

~ Seeing how better dialogue can be a way to a better world.

~ sharing meaning and understanding.

~ the possibility of beginning an interesting new exploration with safe, comfortable "baby steps." Still there might come a time that you will want to take a step beyond your comfort zone.

~ improving your ability understand others, even those quite different from you.

~ learning more of the effect of assumptions in our lives.

~ the possibility of increased meaning and understanding in our lives.

                                            

                Take a look at the other posts on the dialogue here and you may come to find a way to practice it to your great benefit.

                                                                                                                        rcs    

                             

A Reminder About This Different Kind of Dialogue.

 RCS Posts dialogue including: A bit of a definition of our usefully different kind of dialogue.

 

             I write about a new kind of dialogue. It is mostly for groups of as small as 9 to groups of about 39. 

            Below are some descriptive notes about what is, and what it is not. See other posts on the benefits of this more productive and satisfying way to communicate. It can work wonders with your husband and has been successful in some very large groups.

Our dialogue practice is not a:

~ place to make a particular point prevail.

~ debate or even a discussion. 

~ time to attempt to make points.

~ game to win or lose.

 

This new dialogue practice is a way to:

~ meaning and understanding.

~ an activity which helps us to be us.

~ through the meaning of word.

~ an honest, supportive activity.   

~ greater awareness and enhanced consciousness.

~ hone your listening skills.

~ develop new speaking skills.

~ effective methods of communication. 

~ cultural preservation and creation.

~ make a healthy, effective society more probable.

~ meet interested people in an interesting environment.

~ put honest thoughts "on the table" where we can look at them and begin to find their meaning.

~ be heard.

~ find pleasure in speaking-up.

~ understanding among us and within us.

~ satisfying relationship.

~ exchange idea and opinion more safely. 

~ share experience.

~ more effective communication beyond the group.

~ practice a "second" language.

~ peace and good will.

~ to see our words as gifts.

According to Dr. David Bohm a similar dialogue practice is:

~ participating in a flow of meaning between us, through us, and among us.

~ an activity out of which emerges new and renewed understanding.

~ an activity which helps us to be an us.

            Could you find a way to practice a dialogue of this sort? Could you practice a dialogue more of this sort in your group?

            You can open a window below to make a comment, a suggestion, and ask a question. You might have to click on where where "no comment" is printed below.

            Thanks for reading.

            Now comments are needed. 

                                                           RCS

          

Rethinking Governance Together

            We may be the best of friends, but it appears that we are too often also our worst enemies.

            It seems to me that we may not be to blame, but that we are responsible.

            Some of my rethinking of our situation follows below. If this work seems to lack some organization it may be because it reflects the state of my thought. However, it is my intention to be both honest and thoughtful. This is how I see it just now.

            We can come to understand what it means to "aim high" and that which it means to aim high enough.

            I believe that we are capable, and that together we can do enough well enough. I believe that we can better understand the nature of our language. We may be more aware of the importance of our words. We can help one another to improve our understanding the value of our words and our language.

            At the risk of sounding too academic I say that the quality of our understanding of the nature of culture in general and of our own culture in particular can be very useful to us.

            We can learn and help one-another to learn.

            We can come to better understand each other's meanings.

            Much of of that which we can do, we can do by ourselves, but it is often better done together.

            Much of our important learning depends on our words. This can be a problem because what a word means to one person often has a somewhat different meaning to another. For example, when one person calls another a "liberal" she may mean that person wastes money, while when he calls a person that he may mean that the person called liberal is happy to let other people be as they are. Others may use the word in very different ways. So, it can be useful to find out what an another sees as the meaning of our word. That seems to suggest that we may benefit by talking we mean and listening carefully to what the other means.

            For example, when I hear the the term "illegal immigrants" I may think of criminals. Another hearing the term may think of your great grandparents.

            As another example, when I hear the word "organized" used to describe people, I may think of a group empowering itself. Another may think of  crime. Even the word "power" suggests or implies different things to different people at different times in different places. Maybe we need to talk a bit more about the other guy's meanings or to listen a bit more to his understandings. 

            In governance and all of life we may benefit by practicing to think for our selves. We could also benefit by learning to think together and probably would.

            It is not difficult to see that words can be problematic. "Government" for some, means those other guys who are referred to as them. They seem to forget that even they themselves often practice government in governing the details of their personal lives. Some others forget that "republic" implies that we are responsible for our governance and others forget that "democracy" implies that we are the government. 

            By our talk, listening and speaking, we can help one another and each other to be less confused or mistaken by our words and perhaps to be more illuminated by them. 

            Some say that "information is power.'' Some say that information is more beneficial when it is contemplated to better reveal its meaning  and so that we may better understand its value.

            We can begin much just by the practice of giving ourselves good information. By that practice we give ourselves a good chance to gain more power to act in beneficial ways.

            Most of us agree that education is important, but do not keep aware that we are each responsible for our learning and that our learning results in our ongoing education. Many have believed that we are each responsible for our learning and education, but that it is OK to receive some help.

            Some say that the bliss of ignorance may lead us toward sickness and death. Some say that it may also lead to slavery and madness!

            I believe that we are each responsible for our own education. I believe that we are helped by our natural curiosity and urge to develop and grow. Some of us are helped by our God and our friends. Many of us believe that it is to help our children, our youth, and each other to learn the useful, the good, and the beautiful.

            All that we learn and know comes from the past. What you learned yesterday is history. We are very much our history. How to build a house is history. Your favorite song is history. Our culture is history. Some say all that is remembered from the past is history. All that we have learned is history. History is important. A lot of history is still in books. Some of our history has been made into stories. 

            We know very little of the future. However, from what we learn from our memory of past experience we can make some help guess about the future. Our understanding of our past has helped develop useful beliefs. With awareness and contemplation we can improve our understandings.

            We know that what we know of songs and love comes from the past and from our contemplation of our memories of the past. Our good ideas come from the past. It's good to remember that our bad ideas come mostly from the past. Our culture is from the past. That which we remember and and contemplate of the past is our history. Our history plus experience we do not remember nor contemplated is our culture. All that we know is history.

        As we know most of our history is in our books. Your reading of some of those books can be a source of power for you. You can learn to judge the value, usefulness, and truthfulness those books. That's good because a significant number of them have been written by liars and manipulators. Others have been poorly translated or interpreted.

            Still are reading can lead to our doing well. We can learn to bake an apple pie from a cookbook. It's all history.

            For most of the history of the USA we have been responsible for the schooling of our children and youth and doing completing that responsibility at a local level. For the last several generations many of us in many school districts have not been carrying out that responsibility very well. We have not adapted well.

            

            We have not understood our responsibility well for generations. We had very good reasons for neglecting our duties, but that ignorance and neglect was not good for us. I must add that there remained some good schooling and some good advances in methods, but they didn't get shared widely enough

              Soon after the schooling began in the USA, we formed schoolboards with parents and other interested citizens. Those schoolboadrs were formed in local districts close to home. For good reasons after a time many parents and others did not show up to keep them running well. In the beginning, we decided together what was to be taught and how it was to be learned. The story of US education is long and somewhat convoluted. Still I can say that local interest and cash fell short in many school districts especially in larger cities. School officials and other citizens sought help at the county and state level and finally at the federal level. They got help. That help had strings attached. Finally this help from afar often did little to help students or teachers.

            To this day many school districts suffer from ignorance of governance by local citizens.

            Government in republics is up to we the people. Seems we need to learn more about governance. Governance in republics with some intention of being democracy is not just our responsibility it must be us ourselves who govern.We have not leaned to be a democratic republic and we seem nearly unable to maintain a republic. I think this calls for some talking over. I think we need to listen to one another a lot and begin to decide what it is we are ready do. We could forget this experiment or even forget bring a we. I think our situation is worth a lot more dialogue and some coherent activity.

            I think that very many of us are capable of  useful co-opperation. We can practice that co-operation at a local level and a bit beyond right now. 

            Many agree that truth is important. It seems that honesty is an important part of truth. We can be honest and intend to tell the truth. Some, have call a propagation of a falsehood a source of insanity. I believe that enough of us can be honest enough to be a capable we.

            We can help each other to move towards reality, honesty, and truth and be better off for doing so. Does it help to say that truth is true no matter who believes it? Truth seems more of orientation than  destination. 

            We can learn the nature of social responsibility, how to recognize appropriate facts, how to co-operate to better effect. Let's consider how we shall do so.

            Today there are many parents whose parents went to schools not actively supported by their parents. In what condition are the schools of the children of those parents? We can learn and we have a lot to learn.

            We are not to blame, but if we are not responsible for our governance, who is?

        

            It seems that we have not practiced enough self governance for too many decades. When we are not responsible for our governance, who is? Nobody? Someone really nice? 

            As us we can do it, we can govern us.

            It will take some dialogue practice to make us a good enough us.

          Thanks for reading!

                                                                                        rcs