Dialogues? Why?

Dialogue? Why do we do it? 6/21/09

Isn’t it a part of human nature to want to compete? We participate in sports in the hope of winning; we play card games, enter talent shows and beauty contests, participate in spelling bees and quiz shows---all with the goal of emerging as victor. Isn’t our motive in a dialogue the same as in a debate, i.e. to present the better argument and hopefully to persuade the other to our way of thinking? If so, then the challenge is: how to go about this constructively so as to avoid alienation and instead build trust and goodwill.

Here are some things to avoid:
1) a superior attitude (I’m OK, you’re not OK)
2) closing the door on new ideas or info.
3) put-downs; making the other person feel unvalued.
4) hidden agendas; not being honest.
5) being defensive, or causing the other to be defensive (acting out of emotion
rather than reason)
6) interrupting.

Things to do:
1) listen and give feed-back: “What I heard you say is____. Did I hear
correctly?”
2) ask questions: “What do you think about____?”
3) give credit where credit is due: “That’s a good thought,” or “a challenging
idea”; or “I can tell that you’ve given this a lot of thought”.
4) define your terms to avoid ambiguity.
5) be honest about feelings, yet respond from reason.

Population Growth and Its Effects

Population Growth and Its Effects

The economy of this country, and probably the entire world, is built on population growth and the ever increasing demand for products and services. Capital is invested on the supposition that such growth will continue into the future. State governors, city mayors and chambers of commerce all clamor for “growth”, i.e. more businesses, more tourists, more construction, more sales and more jobs. So far, so good. The problem is that few are giving any thought to the negative aspects or the various costs of “growth”.

When the population grows, so do the problems of waste disposal, pollution of air and water, traffic congestion, destruction of forests and natural habitat, lack of adequate water supply, etc. With the population of the world doubling every 40 years, how much longer will it be before the planet becomes such an unhealthy place to live that the death rate increases enough to reduce the total population? It now seems that we will not face up to our prospects willingly while we still have time to head this off. We could learn to live with a zero population growth if we put our minds to it and resolved to change our expectations about our life style. Here’s hoping we do this before it is too late.