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Conversation, discourse, exchange, open-ended transactional inquiry

Paul Grobstein's picture
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 4:43pm

The trick is to focus not on what people can't agree on, nor on what they can agree on, but rather on issues/questions/problems that have the potential to generate ways of thinking that no one has thought before. 

More to come on where that thought came from, and what its useful for .... 

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alesnick's picture

Where

Submitted by alesnick on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 8:37pm.
did that thought come from, and what is it useful for?  My sense is that it's useful as a way to keep dialogue moving forward, to keep it in the lived and living present rather than direct people's focus/energy to what they already are invested in believing, and in this sense to what is past.  So it's an inquiry skill having to do with ability to re-frame conflict as a source of invention?
Paul Grobstein's picture

inquiry and conflict

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 9:06pm.
Yep, but its even more than that. Its an acknowledgement that conflict, intrapersonal, between the person and the inanimate, interpersonal, and social/cultural, is actually the primary source of invention. Its something to encourage, make use of, rather than to avoid. See Making Sense of Understanding and the discussion of conflict as "generative" toward the end of The brain and mental health: PG reflections.

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Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)

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