Thinking Together:
The Power of Deliberative Dialogue
By
Scott London
Deliberative dialogue is a form of
discussion aimed at finding the best course of action. Deliberative questions
take the form "What should we do?" The purpose is not so much to
solve a problem or resolve an issue as to explore the most promising avenues for
action. Following a usage that traces back to the ancient Greeks, deliberation
can be defined as the process of establishing intent and resolve, where a
person or group explores different solutions before settling on a specific
course of action. "We deliberate not about ends," said Aristotle,
"but about the means to attain ends." Deliberation is necessary for
what is uncertain, he noted, when there may be reasons for deciding on one
course of action but equally compelling reasons for deciding on another.
As a journalist, I had been trained to listen for
conflicting viewpoints — that, after all, was the essence of a good story. But
as I listened to citizens deliberate in community forums and town meetings, I
made a significant discovery: people's disagreements on issues were usually the
starting point, not the final outcome, of their deliberations.
Deliberative dialogue differs from
other forms of public discourse — such as debate, negotiation, brainstorming,
consensus-building — because the objective is not so much to talk together as to think together, not so much to reach a conclusion
as to discover where a conclusion might lie. Thinking together involves
listening deeply to other points of view, exploring new ideas and perspectives,
searching for points of agreement, and bringing unexamined assumptions into the
open. The process usually revolves around a pressing question that needs to be
addressed, rather than a problem that can be efficiently solved. A problem
needs to be solved; a question cannot be solved, but it can be experienced and,
out of that experience, a common understanding can emerge that opens an
acceptable path to action.
The Greeks may not have invented
dialogue, but they introduced the idea that individuals could not be
intelligent on their own, that it was only by reasoning with others that they
could uncover the truth for themselves. The Greeks understood that if two or
more people were unsure about a question, they could accomplish something
together they could not do on their own. By questioning and probing each other,
carefully dissecting and analyzing ideas, finding the inconsistencies, never
attacking or insulting but always searching for what they could accept between
them, they could gradually attain deeper understanding and insight.
In this spirit, deliberative
dialogue among a group of people is aimed at establishing a framework for
mutual understanding and a common purpose that transcends mere ideas and
opinions. While it may not produce consensus, it can produce collective insight
and judgment reflecting the thinking of the group as a whole — personal
disagreements notwithstanding. It is commonly assumed that the only
alternatives to consensus are compromise and dissent. But deliberative dialogue
offers another possibility by assuming that individuals' views may be to some
degree amorphous and indeterminate until they have been, as Madison put it,
"refined and enlarged" through the process of reasoning with others.
My own first exposure to
deliberative dialogue was during the 1992 presidential campaigns when I
observed a number of community forums in the Midwest. I was producing a radio
documentary at the time about the mood of the country in the months leading up
to the election. My goal was to capture a sense of people's anger and
frustration about, as conventional wisdom had it, their being sidelined from
the political process. Politicians, pollsters, and opinion leaders spoke
alarmingly about plummeting voter turnout figures and a deepening cynicism and
disgust with politics. The economy was in a funk and many were pointing the
finger at gridlock and incompetence in government. Ross Perot had emerged as an
unlikely presidential contender, making headlines with his quirky one-liners
and infomercials about the excesses of the Washington establishment. It was a
heady time. And what better place to tap public sentiment, I thought, than a
series of forums on pressing campaign issues.
Yet as I listened to people
deliberating in the forums, I found that they were speaking in very different
terms than I had anticipated. It seemed that while politicians and opinion
leaders were telling one story, people in communities were telling another.
Citizens were concerned about the deepening divide between the nation's rich
and poor, not — as the press would have it — about obscure indicators on the
state of the economy. They worried about the growing pressures on working
families, not about "family values." And they wanted to discuss
pragmatic solutions, not liberal or conservative fixes. If anything, the
citizens I heard were fed up with the tiresome refrain of conventional,
he-said-she-said, left-versus-right, point-counterpoint news coverage. They
were neither as ideologically polarized nor as fixed in their political views
as the news coverage and opinion polls had led me to expect.
As a journalist, I had been trained
to listen for conflicting viewpoints — that, after all, was the essence of a
good story. But as I listened to these citizens deliberate in community forums,
town meetings, study circles and other venues in the early 1990s, I made a
significant discovery: people's disagreements on given issues were usually the
starting point, not the final outcome, of their deliberations. As people voiced
their ideas, their experience, and their opinions, as they took in the
perspectives of others and clarified points of tension and disagreement, the
emphasis would gradually shift away from ideological differences toward common
values.
That is not to say the process
always led to consensus. To the contrary, I rarely saw groups achieve real
unanimity (and in cases where I did, the participants were invariably
close-knit and like-minded). The process of deliberation, when it worked well,
seemed rather to link people's private ideas and interests to something more
closely resembling public values — values clarified and corroborated through a
process of group inquiry. Publicly considered opinion, I found, was different
from public opinion of the kind you read about in the papers or see reflected
in the polls.
Since that time, I have continued to
observe the power of deliberation, both as a journalist and as a sometime
organizer and moderator of National Issues Forums. Nowadays I am also part of
an open dialogue group where people from my own community of Santa Barbara,
California, gather each week to discuss local, regional, and national issues.
These ongoing dialogues are not always deliberative, in the strict sense of the
term — to a degree because the object in them is to explore issues rather than
weigh the pros and cons of various paths to action. Yet they are a powerful
mechanism by which we generate a sense of mutual understanding and common
purpose in the community.
Deliberative dialogue tends to
unfold in a fairly predictable sequence. The moderator, if there is one,
typically begins by welcoming the participants, having them introduce
themselves, and reviewing the guidelines for dialogue before launching into
conversation. Once the preliminaries are out of the way, participants enter
into exploratory dialogue. This is the most delicate and tentative phase of the
process since people are usually uncomfortable speaking up at first,
particularly among strangers. Sometimes they are suspicious of the process
itself, preferring to simply sit back and listen before contributing thoughts
of their own. Relating personal stories of their relationship to the issue at
hand can go a long way toward establishing a comfortable dynamic in a group.
Beyond establishing trust and
cohesion in the group, the exploratory phase of dialogue allows a group to
collectively identify what is at issue. This process of "naming" the
issue is critical because without it participants may have no way of
reconciling what to begin with are merely different and personal perceptions of
what is at stake. The process often takes groups in new and unanticipated
directions, particularly if they find that the issue they thought they had come
to discuss is merely the symptom, or perhaps a part, of a deeper and more
complex issue. I have seen this happen in communities where people gather to
talk about one set of issues, such as neighborhood crime, but wind up focusing
on a broader set of concerns, such as poverty or youth at risk. It can be a
daunting experience for participants, especially if they come wedded to a fixed
set of ideas about one issue and how to address it. But it can also be an
exciting breakthrough, particularly among groups that are diverse, even
potentially polarized. Distilling the essence of a problem is, after all, a
step towards taking action to resolve it. Besides, there is little point in
deliberating about how to address an issue until participants are in broad
agreement about what they are coming to grips with and trying to do together.
In principle, deliberative dialogue
often does not require an extended exploratory stage because briefing
materials, such as issue books or starter videos, introduce the issue and
present a range of practical approaches for discussion. The dialogue now shifts
from inquiry and exploration to more purposeful deliberation — to the business
of negotiating trade-offs and wrestling with what may look like competing
choices. This process is usually a rigorous one because people must not only
reason together about difficult practical questions but also develop lines of
attack that reflect the core values of the group. This can be both frustrating
and enlightening. Conflict and disagreement is almost certain, but productive
groups can bring forth new understanding of the limits of tolerance — in
respect both to the problem and to what might be demanded in resolving it —
because, as they weigh individuals' concerns, they begin to discover what is
valuable to them as a group.
Groups come together for different
reasons and with different outcomes in mind. Some are content to set directions
or arrive at a shared sense of how best to address an issue. Others use that
collective judgment to arrive at decisions about action. Either way, the
deliberative process comes to an end with a process summing up what has been
said, points of agreement and disagreement, the concerns that are shared, and
allowing for any final comments or clarifications.
The most powerful aspect of a
deliberative session is the glimpse it offers of how people "reason"
about public issues. Opinion polls and "on the street" interviews —
the conventional mechanisms for capturing public sentiment — tell us very
little about this process. At best, they give us a snapshot of where people
think they stand on an issue; at worst, they offer a distorted and misleading
view of how and what people are thinking. A useful opinion, after all, is not a
momentary response to an unexamined question but a process of thinking, shaped
by the continuous acquisition and rearrangement of knowledge and the activity
of inquiring, exploring and evaluating. A question may "invite" an
opinion, but it also may modify and recast it. In this sense, people typically
do not "have" opinions but are, rather, involved in
"opinioning." That an opinion is conceived of as a measurable thing
falsifies the process by which people, in fact, do their
"opinioning." Polling that relies upon "short form" answers
to predesigned questions tends to hide this process from our view and to
substitute a "vote" (or checkmark) for a judgment.
Deliberation gets us closer to the
truth about how people grapple with issues. The process illustrates that
predetermined opinions tend to obstruct rather than further dialogue. When
people become identified with their ideas and assumptions, they struggle to
defend them and persuade others of their validity. The purpose of deliberative
dialogue is to move beyond the clash of opinions and arrive at a deeper and
shared level of understanding.
In this way, there tend to be
noticeable shifts in dialogue as participants subject their views to other
perspectives. Instead of simply talking together or exchanging opinions, people
begin actively thinking together — collectively exploring a question, weighing
the strengths and weaknesses of alternative points of view, and searching for a
common understanding. It is not unlike a group of musicians coming together to
play a tune. While each member of the group has his or her own distinct role
and musical sensibility, it is only by joining in harmony that they can create
something beautiful together. Similarly, a group of people engaged in dialogue
can discover a flow of meaning that, like music, reflects a synergy of
perspectives that includes but also transcends the contribution of each
participant.
Needless to say, not every dialogue
succeeds in creating this level of sharing and insight. The difference between
an ordinary and an extraordinary dialogue is the presence of some transforming
moment, or critical turning point, when participants shift out of an
identification solely with their own point of view and entertain the
possibility of a common and collective understanding of the issue at hand.
Observing deliberative groups, I
have seen this process at work on numerous occasions. In a recent forum on
affirmative action, for example, a Mexican-American man related a poignant
account of how the system that had promised him much-needed opportunities
failed to provide them when he most needed them. The benefits of affirmative
action came late in his case, he explained, and it was after he had earned a
bachelor's degree and proven his ability to succeed in the system that it began
rewarding him with additional opportunities. What he had really needed, he said,
was help in reaching the bottom rung of the latter, not climbing the last steps
of the way. After he related the story, the dialogue took a dramatic turn from
the general to the specific, from the abstract and ideological to the practical
implications of affirmative action practices. The man's story brought to light
important facts about the policy, and more importantly, it gave the issue a
human face.
These "transforming
moments," I have found, come in response to distinctive elements of
dialogue, including the sharing of personal narratives, provocative and
open-ended questions (posed by one participant to another), the questioning of
some fundamental assumption, and the collective search for common ground.
Personal
narratives. In deliberative dialogue, personal
stories allow participants to identify with each other and recognize others'
experiences as valid on their own terms — even when they may disagree about
their "positions" on an issue. Narratives build confidence in a group
because, when participants have a better understanding of where individuals
among them are coming from, they are more likely to understand and therefore
trust their motives. Most importantly, personal stories are potentially
transformative because they allow participants to identify and empathize with
one another, even when their own experience has given rise to a different
concern. Seeing an issue through the eyes of another person, especially someone
of a different culture or background, can be a powerfully affecting experience.
Open-ended
questions. Open-ended questions can
challenge us to examine our own values and beliefs, put them into words, and
subject them to the test of public scrutiny. That process, in the context of
ongoing dialogue, may reveal to us the limits of our own thinking and the
possibility of an expanded way of understanding the issue at hand. It tends to
shift the conversation away from facts, statistics, and other kinds of
information to the underlying sense of what is valuable, and to moral
imperatives at issue. This is especially important when viewpoints are being
posited as "facts" of unclear relevance but clearly driven by values.
The process can be particularly effective when one participant poses a direct
question to another since it not only stimulates the thinking of the person
being asked but, more importantly, allows the participants observing the
exchange an opportunity to experience the question vicariously. In dialogue,
people often make points by asking rhetorical questions; but a question, if it
is effective, will play on the common values of the group by probing what their
implications are, in practical terms, and perhaps highlighting some moral
tension.
Revealing
hidden assumptions. Assumptions are like
comfortable frames of reference that save us the trouble of repeatedly figuring
things out anew. These mental shortcuts are convenient; but they can be
troublesome when we are dealing with complex public issues. Since they are
typically resistant to change, they can sometimes lock us into set ways of
understanding a problem and thus hinder the emergence of mutual understanding.
One of the main functions of deliberative dialogue is to call attention to such
assumptions and bring them into the open: our hidden assumptions protect us
from challenging thought; people with other assumptions push the challenge.
In his book, The Magic of Dialogue, Daniel Yankelovich has pointed
out that the process of revealing hidden assumptions is arguably the most
striking difference between discussion and dialogue. "In discussion,"
he writes, "participants usually stay away from people's innermost
assumptions because to poke at them violates unwritten rules of civility."
In dialogue, on the other hand, the process requires that "participants be
uninhibited in bringing their own and other participants' assumptions into the
open, where, within the safe confines of the dialogue, others can respond to
them without challenging them or reacting judgmentally."
The
search for common values. All
too often, people in groups tend to emphasize the things that make each of them
separate and unique — the things that set them apart from others — rather than
the qualities they share. By searching for points of agreement, particularly
values that are held in common, a group can begin to transcend their
differences and speak with shared understanding, if not always a unanimous
voice. More important, politically, each participant discovers that part of his
or her own voice that may contribute to a broader public good.
Deliberative dialogue represents a
striking contrast to the sort of discussion and debate that too often passes
for public discourse today. In our poll-driven and media-saturated political
culture — where rhetoric and sound-bites masquerade as serious ideas, and where
political and professional elites often presume to speak on behalf of the
people — we rarely take counsel of the public. And when we do, it tends to be
in the most superficial of ways — through snapshot polls, perhaps, or "on
the street" interviews. Deliberative dialogue illustrates that the consent
of the governed is not an abstract or elusive democratic ideal. It is a matter
of people playing a greater role in shaping the debate and setting directions
for public policy not just by talking together but by thinking together.
By Ava Homa 
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