Discussed at connections-20080112

• Bela H Banathy's idea of conversation was founded on David Bohm's idea of dialogue.
• Have to have a generative conversation before getting to strategic conversation, or else people just stumbled over their boundaries.
• Bela brought David Nichols, who wrote On Dialogue, as the editor of the book, to a conversation.

• Gordon Pask came from a different place from Bela H Banathy, but ended up in the same place
• Gordon Pask wrote from a cybenetics background, David Bohm came from a physics projects.

Discussed at connections-20080113

• David Bohm version of dialogue.
  • Meeting once or twice a year, for maybe a year. No formal agenda or topics.
  • At some point, something would bring something conflictual … eventually to something offensive.
  • Point of dialogue was to back off, and then not try to win, to explore the major difference.
  • It was an unexplored assumption, at such a deep level so that they felt that they had to discuss.
  • Things that people felt deeply, but not enough for people to surface.

• Bela H Banathy felt that the precursor to the conversation was a shared world view: need a generative part of the conversation, before having the strategic view.
  • If tried to do strategic conversation first, would then stumble on the assumptions.
  • If people just come with assumptions and differences first, would then end up in compromise.

• Bela H Banathy was not able to continue to more types of dialogue, because of his advanced age.

• At NTL, have a similar/different approach to get people to a deeper level, with professional facilitation.
  • Not directed topically, but puts people into situations where they are forced to deal with their difficulties.
  • The forcing is the issue, because it takes time for people to reflect and unwind things at a different level.