Debate vs Dialogue

"Do we want a world built on domination or a world built on relationship?

A world of debate or a world of dialogue?

A world of victories, or a world of understanding?"

Discussion

Don Vande Krol:

* Debate Is About Dominance

"In our public life today, we—and our children—are exposed to two very different modes of communication: debate and dialogue. And debate, as it’s now practiced, has little to do with finding truth. It begins with seeing two sides, one of which is the opponent.

And then it proceeds to try to win by:

- humiliating the other side

- reducing the opponent to a caricature

- asserting dominance

Name-calling fits perfectly into this logic. Calling someone “Piggy” isn’t communication. It’s a maneuver. It ends thought and empathy in a single blow.

* Dialogue Is About Mutual Understanding

Dialogue is different. Dialogue treats the other as a fellow subject, a center of experience with something real at stake.

Where debate treats the other as an obstacle to be overcome, dialogue treats the other as a partner in meaning-making.

Where debate is built on force, dialogue is built on curiosity and respect.

From a Process/Relational perspective, every word is part of the world we co-create. Speech shapes the relational field. It can tighten the bonds between us or tear them apart.

Name-calling always tears.

...

Relational power is the quiet strength that transforms. It doesn’t destroy an opponent; it converts an opponent turning rivalry into relationship and conflict into cooperation.

Name-calling belongs to a different tradition; a world of unilateral power, where domination and humiliation are substituted for strength and argument.

And because so much political speech today is framed as a fight, , many people no longer notice the shift. But it matters."

(https://donvandekrol.substack.com/p/debate-dialogue-and-the-temptation)