Post by Toby Benoit on Sept 21, 2008 10:03:25 GMT 12.75
Hi Folks!
I really appreciate Toby's elucidation of his personal views, and the follow-up comments.
The list inspired me to write another book in response to every point. Not disagreement per say, just a reflective exploration and elaboration into the various topical areas.
No, I'm not going to bore you, wear out your eyes or potentially push any buttons quite yet; but it was a fun diversion from my work and helped me reflect on where I stand on the various topics
I've heard that the difference between the two ideologies can be explained via two generalized approaches:
1. a simplified, black and white approach to issues
2. an approach that embraces the multi-hued complexity of any given topic.
One almost seems to imply an approach that favors immediate knee-jerk reactions with no thought to the subtler aspects or potential unintended consequences. Whereas the other sort of implies endless talking and deliberation without any productive action.
To me, both approaches have value and are an inherent part of our human experience...like yin/yang. If we let one or the other approach be our only vehicle for perception and movement than we have limited the capabilities of our human brain. In my opinion, that is essentially what has happened and we have created a civilization that is totally out of balance and destined to fail.
Anyways, it may not be too late and I feel one way to bring things back into balance is to listen to all sides of any given story, find common ground and lay out a strategy to manifest what we all want to create for ourselves, our families and future generations.
But such endeavors can be very challenging as active listening is a very tough skill to learn and it's easy for some people get defensive and very hot and bothered over certain things. If there isn't a framework of sorts a battle can easily emerge and then the whole process falls apart and becomes very unpleasant.
Such an endeavor is almost like a challenging adventure, an extreme sport.
So not only do I enjoy trying to partake in conversations with folks who have very diverse perspectives, I also like to experiment with various conversational literacy tools.
One of these tools or models is called a Conversation Cafe. <http://www.conversationcafe.org/>
Constantine and I hosted a Conversation Cafe at the end of March where about 30 folks came to enjoy great Athens' Own food and have a conversation around the question How do humans need to adapt to the changes predicted for this century?.
The crowd wasn't as diverse as I would have liked but it was still a good experiment. We broke into circles of 8-10 folks and everyone, from what I heard, really got a lot out of it. We also had a director for government relations give a presentation on how climate change may affect us in this area. Some great questions and challenges emerged from her presentation as well. (It was also fun because we experimented with the incident command system to plan, organize collaborative partners and pull off the event. It worked splendidly!)
I hope to host another one next March around a similar question and have some "expert" speak about how the peak oil situation might affect us here and what we can do about it on a local level.
Anyways, there are ground rules and a structure to the process. One aspect is that everyone who participates in a Conversation Cafe agrees to the following:
- open mindedness: listen to and respect all points of view.
- acceptance: suspend judgment as best you can.
- curiosity: seek to understand rather than persuade.
- discovery: question assumptions, look for new insights.
- sincerity: speak what has personal heart and meaning
- brevity: go for honesty and depth but don't go on and on.
I have the most trouble with the last one
BTW, I googled "palin with gun bikini" and a lot of web pages turned up, here is just one of them:
guanabee.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-bikini-and-rifle-p.php
I've got a deer snorting in the woods...must be a signal to get back to work. Hope you are all having a great day. kj
Huh??? Zat mean you agree or disagree with me? If you disagree, okay, but tell me straight and on what points, otherwise how can we debate? If you agree with me, just say so.
You'd make a heck of a politician yourself ya know. Because, at the end of all that, I can only guess as to what you're trying to tell me! ;D