Models of dialogue -Taylor & Francis Online

BOHM SEGMENT:
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Bohm’s the spirit of dialogue

David Bohm’s (Bohm, D. (1996) On Dialogue. New York: Routledge.) spiritual view, drawn from Eastern sources, emphasizes the fact that in modern culture, people do not seem to be able to talk together about subjects that matter deeply without leading to dispute or conflict. Bohm, Factor and Garrett (Bohm, D., Factor, D. and Garrett, P. (1991) ‘Dialogue – a proposal’, the informal education archives, http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/bohm_dialogue.htm), in contrast to Gadamer, stipulate that (i) participants must suspend their assumptions; (ii) participants must view each other as colleagues or peers – ‘A Dialogue is essentially a conversation between equals’ (Bohm et al. 1991) and (iii) in the early stages, there needs to be a facilitator who ‘holds the context’ of dialogue. ‘Their role should be to occasionally point out situations that might seem to be presenting sticking points for the group, in other words, to aid the process of collective proprioception, but these interventions should never be manipulative nor obtrusive’ (Bohm, D., Factor, D. and Garrett, P. (1991) ‘Dialogue – a proposal’, the informal education archives, http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/bohm_dialogue.htm).

Bohm and coworkers write of dialogue as a means of addressing the significant crises that we face in the world today and he writes of dialogue as ‘a process of awakening’ and a ‘new kind of mind’ built on a kind of impersonal friendship ‘based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue’ ‘in which no speaker is excluded, and in which no particular content is excluded’ (Bohm & Peat, 1987: 175: Bohm, D, & Peat, D. (1987) Science, order, and creativity, New York: Bantam.).
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