[Dialogue] Guernica & Conversation Roots & Shoots

[steve har]

Regarding Wayne's assertion: "The basic phenomonology of the conversation
method has not changed. It has always been oriented toward the ontological.
If it isn't, it is some other method - put it that way."

With respect, I'm afraid I disagree with Wayne's assertion that the basic
conversation method has changed. What has changed is the the emphasis of
the conversation.

In the Art Form method the conversation is "for" being. It is
ontological-existential and ethical. In the ORID format [as articulated in
ToP] the focus is knowing and sharing something inside the context of a
facilitator-client agreement with a particular group of participants. the
conversation is "for" knowing i.e epistemological.

Brian Stanfield's wonderful book of Focused Conversations really highlights
this shift to the client-consultant workplace -which was a new field of
engagement in which to practice conversation making.

Reading Brian's workplace conversation models is like reading the music
scores for Bach's Well-tempered Clavier. Publishing those models really did
change the conversation focus in my view. Of course there is other music to
score and play besides Bach's and there are other conversations to model
besides conversations for knowing [epistemology].

 JWM's NRM monastic  distinctions are really powerful:  Knowing | Being |
Doing are actually phenomenological distinctions for sorting out the
internal and social experiences that open up in conversations and
dialogues.

A conversation "for Being" [ontology]  is an entirely different score and
it creates an entirely different kind of conversational "music" that has a
much wider and deeper expression - like the original Guernica Art From
conversation did or like the Tombstone conversation did. In these
conversations, you get to declare something, you get to take a stand and
say what you value. The questions can reveal personal character, what was
lost, what was gained, who you are being in this moment as a human being.
The conversation can be profoundly existential i.e. ontological. It can
also contain varieties of ontological language like mythological and
religious expression.

There are 2 wonderful "Tombstone Conversations" for being done recently by
Charlie Rose in commemorating the death of
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12297 and Christa Tippitt
Contemplating Mortality
http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/contemplating-mortality/

A conversation for Doing -using JWM's NRM phenomenology is Largely
unexplored in my opinion. John Epps wrote some brilliant and new Other
World in This World conversations in 1996 which I found in the 6th floor
Archives last summer. last summer we tried some over skype. Bruce Hanson
gave a wonderful talk using the other world charts and Hoksai's pictures to
describe an Appreciative Inquiry assignment at Hitachi Company on the
outskirts of Tokyo. He talked about himself as being a navigator on an
otherworld trek.

In my view the Jenkins's book on the 9 disciplines is a clearheaded
translation of the old monastic categories. What remains is to see clearly
the Knowing Being and Doing phenomenology in practice and in roles like the
role of a facilitator and the new roles of pedagogue, story maker, coach,
navigator

So in sum, the point wasn't to jump on Wayne's good thoughts. The point is
to make some new distinctions about conversations that freshen the wind and
hear new music...

Steve





-- 
Steve Harrington
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