Meetings of Opposites: Difference between revisions
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= '''The ''Aim'' of Meetings of Opposites…''' = | |||
== ... is to create the actual experience of common ground among people with irreconcilable opinions or inflamed feelings. A curriculum of shared inquiry, readings, and experiences that occurs over several sessions of two to three hours each, | == ... is to create the actual experience of common ground among people with irreconcilable opinions or inflamed feelings. A curriculum of shared inquiry, readings, and experiences that occurs over several sessions of two to three hours each, Meetings is not about persuading or changing opinions, achieving compromise, or even forging consensus. It is about creating the precondition for those goods to be possible. == | ||
===== '''The common ground of Meeting is not in the middle; it is a different space altogether. In the same physical place, either we can indulge the automatic Us-Against-Them that perpetuates itself; or we can provide for and sustain a different way of being together. This common ground – the non-automatic We-For-Each-Other – is a matter of living together, not of agreement in opinions. The term "Meeting" is taken from the seminal work of the philosopher and theologian Martin Buber.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber]. It refers to a kind of dialogue with very particular features and one characteristic "movement": the turning-to-another-person with the intent of establishing a "living mutual relation."<ref>Martin Buber, ''On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity'', ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Univ of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 48-9.</ref>''' ===== | |||
[[Results]] | ===== '''Even in Charlottesville, supposedly the happiest place on earth, we never achieved a real dialogue on the Western Bypass, for example. Now, after the Unite the Right rally, the issue of the Confederate statues among us has carried the added voltage of violence, dividing us further from ourselves. Meetings of Opposites are designed to renew the substance of our polity, our stake in each other.''' ===== | ||
===== '''They occur between pairs of Opposites invited to participate together in a room with projection capacity and access to the outside.''' ===== | |||
===== '''The [[Agenda]] for a Meeting will depend on who the Opposites are, what they need and want, and the nature of their conflict.''' ===== | |||
'''[[Results]]''' | |||
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Latest revision as of 15:39, 24 April 2020
The Aim of Meetings of Opposites…
The common ground of Meeting is not in the middle; it is a different space altogether. In the same physical place, either we can indulge the automatic Us-Against-Them that perpetuates itself; or we can provide for and sustain a different way of being together. This common ground – the non-automatic We-For-Each-Other – is a matter of living together, not of agreement in opinions. The term "Meeting" is taken from the seminal work of the philosopher and theologian Martin Buber.[1]. It refers to a kind of dialogue with very particular features and one characteristic "movement": the turning-to-another-person with the intent of establishing a "living mutual relation."[1]
Even in Charlottesville, supposedly the happiest place on earth, we never achieved a real dialogue on the Western Bypass, for example. Now, after the Unite the Right rally, the issue of the Confederate statues among us has carried the added voltage of violence, dividing us further from ourselves. Meetings of Opposites are designed to renew the substance of our polity, our stake in each other.
They occur between pairs of Opposites invited to participate together in a room with projection capacity and access to the outside.
The Agenda for a Meeting will depend on who the Opposites are, what they need and want, and the nature of their conflict.
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References
- ↑ Martin Buber, On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity, ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Univ of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 48-9.