Dialogue

Active tolerance by its definition needs ones’ being in dialogue with difference.

What does dialogue mean? Although there are many influential theologians (e.g. Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Ebenhard Jüngel, Michael Barnes), and philosophers (e.g. Socrates, Plato, Mikhail Bakhtin, Paul Ricoeur), for whom dialogue has been in the centre of their thinking, I cannot cover all of them and must restrict myself to the introduction of two philosophers for whom dialogue has been of great importance in their philosophical stances and who have influenced my own understanding of dialogue: Paulo Freire, who introduced dialogue to the educational fields; and Hans-Georg Gadamer, a philosopher and social theorist who used dialogue as basis for understanding and hermeneutics.

Paulo Freire (1921–1997), the Brazilian educationalist, in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1972), asserts the importance of dialogue and uses the notion of ‘critical dialogue’. Dialogue is one of the central elements of Freire's pedagogical method. For him dialogue is a key to practise freedom and to

‘liberate the oppressed’, to ‘empower the powerless’, to make changes into existing structures. For him, dialogue is a part of human nature and the main impetus for transformation. Freire argues that the dialogue, which is usually practised in pedagogy, is vertical, the so called ‘dialogue of elite’. He criticised such pedagogy, where the teacher has power and students must deposit ready-made answers; he regards this as ‘banking’ pedagogy. The student must only listen while the educator ‘deposits’ knowledge. This form of education puts those who know and those who don’t in different categories. Freire argues that knowledge is banking of information, which can be gained by monologue, but it is a critical reflection of own experiences and strategies done in dialogue. Freire viewed true pedagogy embodied in dialogue as a horizontal relationship, in which both parties have the capacity to reflect and if reflection is missing, he claims it to be ‘domestication’:

“But to substitute monologue, slogans, and communiqués for dialogue is to attempt to liberate the oppressed with the instruments of domestication.

Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the

act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.” (Freire, 1972, 52)

He opposes pedagogies which are not deeply rooted in dialogue and believes that ‘anti-dialogical’ education is a manipulation and therefore cannot be accepted. In the third chapter of the book, Freire describes what he means by dialogue. He sees words as a means to change reality (Freire, 1972, 75). There are certain elements without which dialogue cannot occur:

• Dialogue is based on love, respect and tolerance. “Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and its people”

(Freire, 1972, 77), love is condition of dialogue and dialogue itself. He sees domination and usage of power structures as an opposite of love. He believes that without love and wish to liberate people from oppression no dialogue is possible.

• Dialogue cannot exist without humility, openness to others; one should not perceive oneself as the holder of truth.

• Faith in people is an a priori requirement for dialogue, but it does not mean to be naïve; trust is albeit established by dialogue. (Freire, 1972, 77–80) Freire argues that dialogue is more than a mere act but it is rather an approach to students or overall framework of teaching.

“The dialogical character of education as the practice of freedom does not begin when the teacher-student meets with the students-teachers in pedagogical situation, but rather when the former first asks herself or himself what she or he will dialogue with the latter about.” (Freire, 1972, 81–82)

In relation to the concept of tolerance, Freire’s concept is not very helpful, as it is more involved in changing existing power structures, and does not focus on promotion of a society with harmonious relations. Yet, if to take the Freirian notion of dialogue as rebellion against intolerant society, some of his ideas could be applied to an education that promotes tolerance. In conclusion, Freire introduces dialogue as a pedagogical relationship to enter rather than simply as a method. In dialogue participants change existing [oppressive] power struc-tures by reflective encounter and mutual respect. Maybe one of the most important issues in Freire’s work for my purposes is the relevance of dialogue as a way to turn a traditionalist educational context into a reconceptualist one, not to prepare students to live in the world of yesterday, but to shape and live in the world of tomorrow.

The second person I want to introduce is the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002). Together with Freire, Gadamer argues that dialogue is essential for human existence. For Freire, the aim is to transform the context in which one lives. For Gadamer the aim is to transform one’s own under-standings. While Freire believes that dialogue is a means to give freedom to students, Gadamer believes that dialogue is a means to understand the world around oneself; he emphasises a dialogic structure of human understanding.

Gadamer presents an alternative concept of human knowledge to one found in subjectivism as well in positivism, stressing that knowledge is not a fixed entity to be grasped or something ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered; neither is it an arbitrary unit. Rather, it is an aspect of a process that arises from interaction. Each human person has her or his own ‘horizon of understanding’, which always includes prejudices. Gadamer applied the notion of horizon, as

‘the range of vision that can be seen from a particular vantage point’, to the mind. Doing this he points to the fact that understanding is always limited, but it is possible to speak about the broadness of one’s horizon. If it is small, then understanding is limited to what is nearest (Gadamer, 1975, 269). The pre-judicial character of understanding means that, whenever we understand, we are involved in a dialogue that encompasses both our own self-understanding and our understanding of the matter at issue. Prejudices, in Gadamer’s view, work as prerequisites or building blocks in the everlasting process of creating new interpretations of reality.

An encounter with other understandings is essential in building up one’s own understanding. In dialogical encounter with the other one tries to relate the horizon of the other to his or her own horizon and to put one’s own under-standings under scrutiny. Gadamer sees a conversation as opening up himself to the other person:

“A conversation is a process of two people understanding each other. Thus it is characteristic of every true conversation that each opens himself to the other person, truly accepts his point of view as worthy of consideration…” (Gadamer, 1975, 347)

By such an encounter a person’s understandings become intelligible and more complex, without necessarily having to agree with the other (Gadamer 1975, 270).

One of the reasons Gadamer has a special relevance for dealing with religious issues and for religious pedagogy, is Gadamer’s positive evaluation of the role of authority and tradition as legitimate sources of knowledge. Dialogue is not only a question of the present moment, it is a continuum. Inasmuch as understanding always arises against the background of our prior involvement, it always occurs on the basis of our history. Gadamer sees dialogue as having a dimension of ‘dialogue with a tradition’, the encounter with the past and the understanding of the tradition to which one belongs. The meaning-making is continually combining old and new understandings, a fusion of horizons within a person (Gadamer 1975, 273).

Freire and Gadamer both argue for the need of change in understandings, but Freire sees prior understandings as prisoners and as manifestations of oppres-sive power structures to be freed by dialogue; for Gadamer the past can be a building block for the transformation of understandings. If Freire’s approach is revolutionary, then Gadamer’s approach is transforming and better suited to promote active tolerance, as it takes seriously the history and other people, as

well as one’s own presuppositions. It is an open-minded enquiry which is based on and promotes tolerance and tries to widen horizons by taking others’ views as worthy of consideration. Thus, not every conversation is dialogue, according to Gadamer; but genuine dialogues promote active tolerance. Dialogue is a three-fold enterprise, consisting of exploration of ones’ own horizons of understanding, that of the other(s) and that of the phenomenon.

A working definition of ‘dialogue’ for the purpose of this research is developed from Hans-Georg Gadamer (1975), but also incorporates and applies the more practice-centred ideas of William Isaacs (1999) and David Bohm (1997). Dialogue is understood here as a joint exploration of thinking towards wider horizons of understanding of oneself, each other and the phenomenon under examination. It is a shared inquiry and a means to explore assumptions, meaning and social effects, where new forms of understanding may emerge. In this sense dialogue consists of three components: exploration of one’s own ideas; discovery of the ideas of another human being; and examination of the subject. Such a definition does not demand final agreement and even does not have to be ‘soft’, and may involve conflicting issues; controversial topics are not simply put aside as unsuitable.

In the analysis I distinguish among several aims of dialogue:

• a debate which attempts to prove a view is right or more correct;

• aspiration to understand each other, find meaning in what is said;

• search for common ground, readiness to change one’s own point of view.

The last two forms of dialogue are not aimed at reaching ‘the right solution’ but recognize dialogue as an ever-changing way to understand oneself and reality, rather than as a purposive attempt to express some viewpoint(s).