Dialogue: thinking to gether (by Leland R. Beaumont)

บทความนี้เรียบเรียงโดย ม. โชคชัย
บทความนี้น่าสนใจมากตั้งใจอ่านช้าๆ ท่านจะได้เรียนรู้การอยู่ร่วมกันและการทำงานร่วมกันอย่างดีในสังคมไทยปัจจุบัน

Dialogue is the creative thinking together that can emerge when genuine empathetic listening, respect for all participants, safety, peer relationships, suspending judgment, sincere inquiry, courageous speech, and discovering and disclosing assumption work together to guide our conversations. Dialogue is a form of conversation that is distinct from discussion, debate, distortion, dismissal, delegation, disingenuous, diatribe, and dogma because dialogue is the only form of communication where the participants act as authentic peers. Dialogue is driven by genuine curiosity and respect rather than by power.

Dialogue requires the skillful use of practices to balance inquiry-seeking to understand-combining the skills of listening while suspending to gain a deeper and newer understanding, and advocacy-seeking to be understood-combining respect for all participants with the courage to speak your voice, share your insights, and advance the dialogue toward a new understanding of the whole.

There are many common obstacles that prevent dialogue from emerging. Removing sources of fear, suspending the exercise of power, eliminating external influences, removing distractions, and providing excellent communication conditions can all promote dialogue. People are often afraid to trust other participants, they hold back and fail to participate fully and genuinely because of their fears. During dialogue, we have to remain open to new ideas, hearing someone for the first time, abandoning the status quo, thinking in a new way, allowing for change, acknowledging your old habits and beliefs, abandoning your stubbornness, admitting you don't know or don't understand, admitting you may have been wrong, exposing vulnerabilities, anticipating the ramifications and future consequences of new ideas and agreements, becoming authentic rather than merely polite; and confronting assumptions, issues, and people; these  obstacles require courage to overcome. Dialogue needs autonomy. Speaking your voice requires thinking for yourself and making your own decisions. Dialogue requires focus, and full attention, also respecting often require patience and cannot be rushed. Your lack of attention and concern also distracts others and may prevent others from participating in dialogue.

Dialogue requires careful, detailed, delicate, and nuanced communications. The room used to communicate should be acoustics, physical distance, language difference, accents, jargon, local vernacular, unfamiliar vocabulary, cultural differences, unshared abstractions, logical fallacies, intentional and unintentional distortions, hearing difficulties, and poor sound systems can all prevent dialogue from emerging. Sarcasm, barbs, attacks, insults, reification, and condescension should be avoided too.

We need to use dialogue to focus on the collective problems of living together in the communities. It prepares us to make decisions.

คำศัพท์ที่น่าสนใจ
dialogue     การพูดคุย/ถกปัญหากัน
condescendscion   การแสล้งอ่อนน้อม
barb  ถ้อยคำกินใจ/แสบ
sarcasm   คำถากถาง
acoustics   มีเสียงด/ฟังชัด
reification   มีข้อแม้/ตั้งท่าต่างๆน่าๆ
to distract    ทำให้เขวไป
collective problems    ปัญหารวมๆ
 status quo   ฐานะ
jargons   ภาษาเฉพาะพวก/เหล่า
cannot be rushed    ไม่เร่งรีบทำ
all participants   ผู้มีส่วนร่วม/ผู้เข้าร่วมทำ
peers    พวกเดียวกัน/คนเสมอๆกันฐานะพอๆกัน
to eliminate   ขจัด/กำจัดทิ้งไป
external influences    อิทธิพลภายนอก
detailed    รายละเอียดต่างๆ
abstractions    นามธรรม
local vernacular    ภาษาท้องถิ่นนั้นๆ
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