About Dialog
Introduction
The world order is rapidly collapsing and the global instruments (UN) we possess are clearly failing on humanity. Although vetoes can be extremely useful to protect the interests of minorities, they are currently continuously misused by the UN Security Council members to achieve their own geopolitical goals in order to stay in power. This behavior is reflecting the past power dynamics of the outcome of a second world war. But, looking at global economical changes, it is by now excluding many important new voices and lacking any future; this is destabilizing the entire world. Furthermore, with the ICJ and ICC court’s judgments meanwhile being widely disrespected, there are voices rising to dismantle the only global legal system mankind possesses, adding further fuel to the disruption.
The above situation is as such not unusual, there is an ongoing transition and there are global shifts. If one lifts one billion people out of extreme poverty, like it happened over the last four decades, they will require a larger footprint than before. This causes friction and a demand for global repositioning. To settle this tension, it principally requires a giving up of some dominance by the old and a proper representation of the new forces. There are two ways to achieve this, a violent one through wars and a non-violent one through improved dialog and cooperation. Since the violent path seems to lead us to world war III and, as currently being clearly illustrated in Gaza with new AI supported weapons very capable of universally destroying everything, the question becomes how to realize the non-violent alternative. This is what this article is about or what it wants to contribute to.
The essay is based on self-developed cultural communication models. The result is six different balances between growing apart or divergence and growing together or convergence (also see www.convergence.ngo). Furthermore, as will be explained later, every culture uses only two out of the six balances as their main cultural communication components. The assumption is thus that cultures differ and that their individual potential contribution to a cooperative world varies. The underlying mechanisms will be elaborated further in this article.
Three Main Cultural Dimensions, Split into Six Elements, Polarization
Extensive travelling and working internationally have led to the observation and insight that (cultural) communication consists of three main factors: rational, emotional and spiritual communication. These three main cultural components, horizons or dimensions represent arranging the relationship with oneself (= rational), with everyone one knows or (who) is part of one’s known world (= emotional) and finally with the unknown or Omni-present (= spiritual). The corresponding communication mechanisms are argumentation (rational), association (emotional) and reflection/contemplation (spiritual).
However, there is a split of these three dimensions into six cultural elements found, depending on the level of identity a person or group acquires. There are two poles for the three cultural dimensions here, one where the collectivity stands central and one where the more personal or limited group identity is the core.
The above leads to a split of rationality into rational interdependence (model of the poor, Individual Unity (IU)) or rational independence (model of the rich, Individual Identity (II)). It leads to a split of emotionality into emotional engagement (wider community, Emotional Unity (EU)) or emotional belonging (close relationship group, Emotional Identity (EI)). Finally it leads to a split into spiritual “regard for” (submission to, Spiritual Unity (SU)) or governance (leadership, Spiritual Identity (SI)).
Six Types of Fear, Six Types of Trust, an Outward versus an Inward Orientation, Balances
Yet, the above six cultural elements are in practice further polarized and can either be fear- or trust-driven. Fear causes an outward orientation in order to protect one’s position; leading to divergence. Trust results in an inward orientation; leading to convergence. My experience is that divergent practices become a source of conflict, whereas the convergent ones do not. Dialog, convergence and trust are intertwined here. If people create a convergent attitude/goal, they will, as soon as they encounter reciprocity, enter into dialog with others and realize actual convergence, increasing their trust levels this way. Establishing a convergent attitude is thus the precondition for any dialog and will therefore be taken as the basis for this essay.
The outward and inward directed forces do not come alone but in pairs: they balance each other. This means that both forces are present at the same time. Cultural positioning is the result of these balances and immediate cultural change is the accumulated result of them varying over time. This, shorter-term, perceived equilibrium is actually a result of friction, only in “paradise/heaven” everything would be perfectly smooth and there would be the perfect trust needed to dissolve the balances and to become fully one or united. A good way to symbolize our human daily life situation is that mankind tries to expand its footprint until natural or other (human created, like wars) boundaries are encountered. Such limits force people to reflect whether the path they are on is the right one. Longer-term, there is another, different, mechanism for cultural change to be found, namely that of a change of the weighing of the three cultural dimensions themselves. However, this longer-term type of change mechanism of culture is beyond the scope of this article.
Regardless of whether a cultural element in itself is individual or collective in nature, there are finally always two perspectives to be found. One perspective looks at the relational aspects from the “collective environment” point of view downwards, and represents the society’s dynamics towards its participants (top-down). The other perspective looks from the individual towards their surroundings and represents the upward individual-driven input to such a society’s framework (bottom-up). To analyze dialog, the second perspective is more useful, it directly shows how an individual can communicatively contribute to a society. This means that, other than in most of my previous publications, this bottom-up view from the individual upward towards their surroundings is used here.
As can be seen in the final diagram below, the end result of a further fear/trust polarization is the determination of twelve polarized cultural elements, which come in six balances. The aim of this article is to determine the potential practical balance shifts between these elements that would contribute to convergence. These twelve cultural elements and their six balances will therefore be elaborated now. Some further explanations can also be found in my other publications.
-1- More Equity, Less Liberation
Interdependence (IU) becomes split in Equity (inward orientation = convergent = +IU) and Liberation (outward orientation = divergence = -IU).
This balance takes place in an environment of (extreme) poverty where people are fully dependent on each other. People use a trial and error model similar to that of ants in order to survive. The convergent side of the balance is based on correcting/controlling the error (focusing on one’s boundaries) and has as its outcome to share any surplus, individuals may have, with others in order to maximize the efficient use of the community’s limited resources and to reduce “waste” by distributing those resources to where they are most needed. This way, the equity of the weaker participants is increased and their chances of survival optimized.
Sharing one’s surplus (rational, it is a mutual safety net approach) leads to a “live and let live” growing together and interdependence becomes convergent. The other, divergent (-), side of the balance is based on struggle and follows the rule of the jungle where only the “fittest will survive”. An example of this side is the violent gangs in ghettos. It means that some try to aggregate a disproportionate share of the limited resources and try to liberate themselves from poverty this way. People take their chance (the focus is on the trial aspect of trial and error) to escape misery. However, as we talk about a closed eco-system from a resource perspective here, this type of escape is realized at the cost of the poorer or weaker, who will receive even less. Liberation of some will mostly threaten the existence of others.
To conclude: people can, in an interdependence context, individually contribute to convergence by sharing the surplus they may have, and to transfer it to those who are most in need. They thus increase equity and optimize the survival of all, instead of to divergently aggregate (unneeded for their own survival) resources in the hands of a fittest few.
(Remark: the lifting out of poverty we have experienced due to globalization is an incomparable process and is not related to the above type of liberation. There is a win situation in this case, where, other than in the above situation, an absolute increase of resources for mankind is achieved. This leads to a revolution from a general interdependence to a general independence for many people.)
-2- More Authenticity, Less Expression
Independence (II) becomes split in Authenticity (inward orientation = convergent = +II) and Expression (outward orientation = divergence = -II).
This balance takes place in an environment of independence of individuals. People possess sufficient resources to independently “materialistically” survive alone. The result is that communication with others becomes more or less voluntary; one can very often choose or decide with whom to interact.
The rational polarization is found in whether one focuses on listening to the other and as a result on learning to distinguish between what is real or important for oneself as part of a person’s authenticity and what is fake or a distraction. This also relates to listening to the interests of others (convergent) versus a focus on talking and on building an image or persona towards others by expressing one’s arguments or opinion (divergent).
Using an expression-based outward orientation, mostly means to consider everything as an (to be protected/defended) exclusive private possession and to base one’s individuality or personality on a comparison with the outside world. In our current “virtual social media world” this has led to the creation of individual avatars, which very often largely express what we would like to be, instead of who we are.
Where in the past there was a clear balance between physically talking and listening, this is meanwhile in today’s social media environment much less the case. Whereas radio and television in the beginning were a catalyst for conversation and discussion (because everyone watched or listened to the same program) this has, due to the increase of the number of available media channels to watch and select from, meanwhile fundamentally changed. Currently, each individual watches a more or less personalized social media stream. Since these streams are commercially optimized to maximize their achieved screen time with their customers/users, they try to keep people busy with steady (mostly shallow and brief) impulses. The effect is that most people have replaced face time by screen time.
The resulting shallowness has several aspects; it starts with reducing the required attention span by enabling to zap channels or swipe messages. This reduction also rewards shortening or compressing messages to their core content, mostly reducing them to moments instead of stories. A further point is that other simultaneous non-verbal expressions like body language and intonation etc., are missing, which is one of the causes for the information exchange to become superficial.
Participation in this “virtual” communication system generally means to continuously share each other’s life events. However, this sharing must match the superficial reception process, making it predominantly based on which mark or impression of oneself one wants to leave to be optimally accepted within one’s social bubble.
An example of how our communication behavior has changed over time. When people were travelling alone by train in the past, many of them looked into the train compartments in order (besides a place to sit) to select people to have a potential chat or dialog with upon sitting down. Currently, most people try to move as far away as possible from each other, maximizing their personal space and physical distance to others in order not to be disturbed in enjoying their virtual world. This is a clear example of increased growing apart or divergence.
The overall result of this balance shift on a practical activity level is an increased focus on expression at the price of a neglect of one’s ability to distinguish and develop authenticity. If this trend continues, many people will be kept pleasantly occupied or entertained by AI in future. They will namely lose their ability to be human and to distinguish between what counts for developing one’s human authenticity and what is just keeping people busy or distracted. Another important effect of this communication shallowness is loneliness, if people are not truly embedded socially and nobody trustfully listens anymore, people will be completely lost. To only meet people talking small talk instead of truly listening isolates. AI can become a strong enabler for a loss of trust here.
To conclude: individuals can, in an independence context, contribute to convergence by investing in exploring their authenticity, which is mostly a listening process. In order to do so, people will need to free-up screen time or shallow type of expression time and replace it by more in-depth face time again, thus limiting being one’s avatar instead of a human being. This is in principle a personal decision open to anyone.
-3- More Hospitality, Less Exclusivity
Engagement (EU) becomes split in hospitality (inward orientation = convergent = +EU) and exclusivity (outward orientation = divergent = -EU).
Other than in the first two examples, this balance takes place in a collective emotionality-based society where the role of the individual is determined by their social environment. Peoples’ behavior is based on their participation or engagement rather than on individual interdependence or independence. The polarization is found in whether one is principally warm or cold towards outsiders. From a personal communication perspective, there is either hospitality or exclusivity.
Being open or convergent in one’s engagement means to possess a welcoming attitude towards outsiders; this position is internalized and leads to hospitality in relation to strangers. The other pole is to look outwards and considers oneself to be exclusive in the engagement with the society. This leads to the treatment of others as unwelcome intruders instead of being welcome guests.
To conclude: individuals can, in a society engagement context, independently contribute to convergence by developing a hospitable attitude towards outsiders. They thus increase the closeness to others instead of fencing them off by being patriotic and to exclude outsiders from participation.
-4- More Adhesion, Less Animosity
Belonging (EI) becomes polarized in either building an “us” type of adhesive group with others (inward orientation = convergence =+EI) or a focus-on-“them”-based animosity (outward orientation = divergence =-EI).
Like in the previous example, this balance takes place in a collective society environment. However, the society is more fragmented in smaller groups like families or clans here. Peoples’ belonging is based on their social emotional behavior in their direct surroundings rather than on their more general engagement in the collective society as a whole. Polarization is found in the treatment of perceived insiders or outsiders of the group people think to belong to. There is reciprocal adhesion between insiders and as a complement, animosity between the group’s identity and outsiders.
Adhesion means to look inwards in relation to the group one belongs to, and to focus on what one has in common with the others in the group. It means embracing the other and to laugh and cry together. This commonality is the basis of the group identity and for developing closeness between its members. The other perspective is one of looking to the outer world from the perspective of protecting the group identity, here one focuses on the differences between the in- and outsiders. The latter will lead to animosity towards others. It in this context means to reject the other(s) and to keep one’s distance, for example, by bullying or ignoring them.
To conclude: individuals can, in a context of belonging, independently contribute to convergence by focusing on what one has in common with each other instead of to focus on what makes one different from the other (and as a result separates social groups). The above behavior increases adhesion between people and reduces the animosity between them.
-5- More Compassion, Less Subservience
Regard (SU) becomes split in compassion (inward orientation = convergent = +SU) and subservience (outward orientation = divergence = -SU).
This balance is about the positioning of people as part of the entire ecosystem rather than on any rational individual or emotional social view. The entirety rules the spiritual domain; individuals are just atoms in the wholeness and thus neither individually nor socially separated. They have no other choice than to dissolve their “identity” by voluntarily showing open mutual confidence toward the entirety and to contribute to consensus this way, or to be involuntary forced to show subservience, becoming disciplined by the entirety.
Compassion means to look inward and as a reaction to focus on one’s own contribution to be made towards the absolute consensus of the entirety, people become united or one this way. This approach often uses or makes use of a concept of an omnipresent higher force to voluntarily respect, which is the core of most religions. The opposite polarity is that of a superior worldly leader who requires discipline from the entirety, this means being forced to live according to rules from above and to show one’s subservience in relation to the power-based worldly leadership in control.
To conclude: individuals can, in the context of regard, independently contribute to convergence by evaluating what their role can be in achieving consensus. They thus can increase their spiritual compassion levels towards others instead of to follow a discipline-based imposed subservience approach in which they subordinate themselves to the rules of an autocratic leader and become obedient.
-6- More Empowerment, Less Enforcement
Finally, governance (SI) becomes polarized in empowerment (inward orientation = convergence = +SI) and enforcement (outward orientation = divergence = -SI).
This last balance is the complement of the previous one and about control over people as part of the entire ecosystem. The entirety rules the spiritual domain here. However, to implement such an arrangement, one often needs guidance or leadership. Such a spiritual arrangement can be based on empowerment where everyone is positioned by optimizing their fitting or matching capabilities to the entirety or, alternatively, it can be founded on a hierarchy, enforcing people to fit.
Empowerment is based on optimizing the use of everyone’s capabilities as mentioned above and gives people the freedom to apply their skills in the service of the goals of the entirety. Enforcement as its complement means human control and to create a hierarchy of giving and taking orders in order to manage the entirety.
To conclude: individuals can, in a governance context, independently contribute to convergence by using empowerment as their internal model of governance and to thus avoid or reject being ruled by enforcement when and wherever possible.
Six Balances — the Three Dimensions in Daily Practice, Two out of Six
The three dimensions are not static, their application and balance can substantially change over time. However, in order to establish an exchange between people, one of these dimensions, in any culture, at any time, is always used as a clear starting point for any communication and is therefore dominant. Each of the above three dimensions can be this first normative mechanism though, and thus become the dominant communication method in a community, resulting in cultural differences between societies worldwide.
In the event that the first chosen method of finding a common frequency is unable to realize proper information exchange, establishing communication between people is too important to just fail. Instead, there now starts a second attempt to set-up a connection. An alternative method, a secondary dimension or new perspective is chosen. It is used to substitute the old, non-functioning, first communication method, and comes in as a new optional point of view. The chosen secondary dimension thus serves as a kind of pre-agreed “emergency” attempt to connect. An approach that is quite similar to using a pre-defined fallback frequency in order to improve the safety of technical communication.
My observation is that the choice of this second dimension is, like the first one, strongly coded and rigid in a community at any point in time. This leads to the phenomenon that there is in general no room for a third communication option to be used. Simultaneously using a third dimension would mainly generate confusion or noise. It would, namely, become necessary to choose which of the two remaining dimensions (after attempting to use the dominant first one) should be activated as one’s “emergency” secondary dimension.
This aspect in turn leads to the remaining third communication dimension becoming disabled or disconnected. As a result, humans use a two-dimensional information exchange whereas we possess a three-dimensional communication potential. All people worldwide use in practice a distinctive balance between their two chosen dimensions instead of their more extensive capability. This has strong impact and makes us culturally “different” from each other. Thus, while everyone possesses a fully universal three-dimensional human communication potential, we tend to simplify this more complex reality via our two-dimensional reduction approach. (A more detailed explanation can be found here).
The above mechanism takes place at the top level of the three dimensions. However, this indirectly impacts any further polarization, a dimension which is absent will also be absent in its polarized form. The result is that only two out of the six personal balances (from different dimensions) are momentary used in a culture, one being dominant, and one activated at the moment the first one fails. This implies that there are different contributions from different cultures to be expected if one seeks for a convergent path and a non-violent cultural contribution.
(Disclaimer: analyzing a by definition common denominator — communication, my theory and models strongly stereotype people. Yet, all people differ and possess their own personal cultural identity. This implies that an individual has and uses the freedom to behave differently from a general cultural norm or expectation. But, there is a trade-off in doing so; people pay “a price” for this freedom or deviant behavior in a community, and will have to accept the noise or misunderstandings their communication behavior causes. Not respecting norms can eventually mean that they become an outcast or a member of a subculture and no longer belong to the mainstream of a society.)
About Dialog; How to Contribute to a World Growing Together: Less Divergence, More Convergence
When enough members of a society change their personal behavior, the society changes with them. This has for example been a factor in the ending of the Vietnam War in the 1970s. As we can see above, all individuals have two direct handles for change, being their two current cultural balances. They have a direct influence on the balance between the convergent and divergent polarities of these two elements and can thus bottom-up change their society from within. Furthermore, they also have longer-term leverage on cultural change by altering the balance between the two cultural dimensions they use and by modifying the balance with their third, disconnected, cultural dimension. However, this longer-term process topic is beyond the scope of this article.
The shorter-term key is to reduce the use of the divergent polarity and to improve or to stimulate the use of the convergent side of the two balances one possesses. Every individual can personally do this and in the end, a society is no more than the sum of its members, regardless of its current structure.
However, there are limitations. One needs a critical mass to have impact. If one would be the sole individual changing, the only effect would be that one places oneself outside of the society. In practice, this limits the speed of change because one has to establish a movement of equals to be effective. The second factor is that sometimes divergent decisions have to be reversed and that only the current power or enforcement-based leadership is able to do so. In order to end a war, one first needs to negotiate truce and only after this, a peace-building process within a population can start: replacing fear and hatred by trust and empathy. Still, public opinion is an extremely powerful force and in most situations relatively influential.
Conclusion
It is important to realize that, unlike what many people perceive, there is the possibility for any human being to individually contribute bottom-up to a change of society. People are not dependent on waiting for top-down changes but are actually in control and are the ones who mostly induce such changes by forming a “critical-mass bottom-up movement” within a society.
The six balances described in this article are the universal tools to be used and every individual has the potential to independently contribute to a growing together of mankind (or as I name it convergence). By emphasizing any of the convergent elements, regardless of whether one lives in a dominant or subordinated culture, people can improve their attitude towards others. This is the precondition for enabling dialog and to realize actual convergence; resulting in increased levels of trust.
In practice, there are limitations found. One namely needs a critical mass of individuals behaving in the same manner and direction in order to create the necessary movement for cultural change from within a society or between societies. As explained in the article, a further limitation is that every culture only possesses two main cultural handles to connect to in this respect.
Personal contribution to shorter-term convergence is thus, because of the required scale, mostly related to one’s existing cultural environment. The creation of a successful movement in a society is in the end predominantly determined by which two cultural handles are available. A more detailed explanation of which two handles any distinct culture exactly possesses can be found here. Notwithstanding the above, everyone can contribute in their own manner; there are no exceptions on people’s ability to do so.
The main shift is to develop more internalized (convergent) references and to depend less on being driven by outward oriented (divergent) external stimuli. In order to do so, people have to develop their personality primarily on processing one’s environment instead of being controlled by it.
The six individual convergent keys for this are: Equity, Authenticity, Hospitality, Adhesion, Compassion and Empowerment. By creating more emphasis on these six keys in daily life, there will be a shift in the balance generated with their divergent counterparts, being: Liberation, Expression, Exclusivity, Animosity, Subservience and Enforcement.
By collectively changing these balances towards convergence, mankind can start growing together again and will over time become able to address the problems which impact all of us, like conflict, climate change, inequality and forced migration together.
Although it is late and the world is already fully on fire, it is hopefully not too late to extinguish the current wars and to replace them with their convergent alternative paths of dialog and cooperation. Contributing to these paths is the responsibility of every single person, and there is no excuse for non-participation; we may all be culturally different but we share this planet as equally valuable human beings.
