Thought polarizes. Bohm Dialogue heals. Updated with free advice

(8 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

[Updated with Free Advice section at end of essay.]

What are we going to do about those stubborn Republicans who just won’t see the facts?  They just won’t listen to reason.  Luckily there is another way to affect matters which requires less convincing and more listening and self-awareness.  The listening means learning where people are coming from.  The self-awareness means discovering that our own thought is part of the problem.  Thought is flawed in a fundamental way, and it cannot solve the problems it created.  That’s right, anyone with a firm belief that their thoughts are reliable and correct is contributing to the disharmony of our era.

The good news is, we can do better.  Herein I discuss the views of David Bohm on the nature of thought, outline the principles of a Bohm Dialog, and add some of my personal experience of the kinds of habitual thought/feeling impulses which give rise to alienation, prejudice, and even war.

[If the length is daunting, please consider reading the next paragraph and from My Experience in Bohm Dialogue to the end.]

A while back I participated for a couple of years in a “dialog group,” in which we structured our conversations around the principles developed by physicist David Bohm and refined by others.  We participants were too closely aligned in world-view to tax the possibilities of this form of dialog for bringing people together around policy; nonetheless, I experienced firsthand both the kinds of frustrations inherent in group discussion and the nature of my internal reactions which block productive exchange of real information to the end of reaching consensus.  The principles of our group created an environment in which I was made acutely aware of my impulses to speak, my motivations when speaking, my impulses not to speak, and my difficulty in accepting the free expression of views at odds with my own.

Why is effective dialog desperately needed?  Here’s how Michelle Goldberg opens her book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism:

This book was born in a Brooklyn coffee shop during the summer of 2004.  I was talking to my soon-to-be-agent . . . when the conversation veered towards the parallel culture–an amalgam of extreme nationalism and apocalyptic religion–that seemed to be ascendant in much of America.  Again and again while reporting for Salon, I’d had the sense that liberals and conservatives no longer merely had divergent values–they occupied different realities, with contradictory facts, histories and epistemologies.

I accept this view and further believe that this polarity has the U.S. in very real danger of seeing widespread violent internal conflict in the near future.  It is my impression that both sides of this divide feel increasingly willing to defend ideas they hold as sacred with whatever means necessary.  To offer two examples, many conservatives feel on a mission to rescue the US from the godless path forged by humanists, while liberals feel basic rights of the individual are under attack.  One need not look far to find ultimate-sounding proclamations by average citizens on either side.  These angry, accusing, unyielding expressions often include a willingness to kill and be killed for the cherished cause.

Now, I do not imagine Al Sharpton and Rush Limbaugh walking out of a Bohm Dialog group holding hands and smiling for reporters.  I’m not thinking of people whose social standing springs directly from the role they play in creating, defining, and manipulating division.  I’m considering the masses of well-meaning people who are buffeted about by forces they scarcely understand.  People whose thought may have entrained with that of one or another ideology but whose deeper concerns are with living in a decent society which offers safety, peace, freedom, and prosperity.  I believe that, given the tools, most Americans are able and willing to talk and listen for the greater good and future of our country.  Here is a modest discussion of one tool, the Bohm Dialogue.

The Problem of Thought

David Bohm–quantum physicist, philosopher, collaborator with Einstein, defier of McCarthyism–became close friends with Indian philospher Jiddu Krishnamurti.  Krishnamurti’s philosophical ideas meshed interestingly with Bohm’s notions in quantum physics.  Bohm also worked with neuroscientist Karl Pribram in developing a holonomic model of the brain.  Bohm came to see flawed thought as central to the modern problems of humanity.  He saw an increasing imbalance of not only humans and nature, but also among peoples and within individuals.

[emphases mine]

What is the source of all this trouble? I’m saying that the source is basically in thought.

snip

…the general tacit assumption in thought is that it’s just telling you the way things are and that it’s not doing anything – that ‘you’ are inside there, deciding what to do with the info. But you don’t decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us.

Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally. This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn’t know it is doing something and then it struggles against what it is doing. It doesn’t want to know that it is doing it. And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is what I call “sustained incoherence”.

In Thought as a System, Bohm says

[emphases mine]

What I mean by “thought” is the whole thing – thought, felt, the body, the whole society sharing thoughts – it’s all one process. It is essential for me not to break that up, because it’s all one process; somebody else’s thoughts becomes my thoughts, and vice versa. Therefore it would be wrong and misleading to break it up into my thoughts, your thoughts, my feelings, these feelings, those feelings…

snip

…thought is a system. That system not only includes thoughts, “felts” and feelings, but it includes the state of the body; it includes the whole of society – as thought is passing back and forth between people in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.

snip

Now, I say that this system has a fault in it – a “systematic fault”. It is not a fault here, there or here, but it is a fault that is all throughout the system. Can you picture that? It is everywhere and nowhere. You may say “I see a problem here, so I will bring my thoughts to bear on this problem”. But “my” thought is part of the system. It has the same fault as the fault I’m trying to look at, or a similar fault.

Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it doesn’t notice that it’s creating them, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates.

The Solution in Bohm Dialogue

The Bohm Dialogue is his proposed solution to the problem outlined above.

[emphases mine]

Bohm Dialogue or Bohmian Dialogue is a form of free association conducted in groups, with no predefined purpose in mind besides mutual understanding and exploration of human thought. It aims to allow participants to examine their preconceptions, prejudices and patterns of thought…snip…

Participants “suspend” their thoughts, motives, impulses and judgments – exploring and attempting to “think together” collectively.

snip

[quoting Bohm]  when one person says something, the other person does not, in general, respond with exactly the same meaning as that seen by the first person. Rather, the meanings are only similar and not identical. Thus, when the 2nd person replies, the 1st person sees a Difference between what he meant to say and what the other person understood. On considering this difference, he may then be able to see something new, which is relevant both to his own views and to those of the other person. And so it can go back and forth, with the continual emergence of a new content that is common to both participants.

His specific ideas have been modified, often by specialists in organizational development, to the following form, as outlined in Wikipedia:

[emphases mine]

any method of conversation that claims to be based on the “principles of dialogue as established by David Bohm” can be considered to be a form of Bohm Dialogue. Those principles of “Bohm Dialogue” are:

   1. The group agrees that no group-level decisions will be made in the conversation. “…In the dialogue group we are not going to decide what to do about anything. This is crucial. Otherwise we are not free. We must have an empty space where we are not obliged to anything, nor to come to any conclusions, nor to say anything or not say anything. It’s open and free” (Bohm, “On Dialogue”, p.18-19.)”

   2. Each individual agrees to suspend judgement in the conversation. (Specifically, if the individual hears an idea he doesn’t like, he does not attack that idea.) “…people in any group will bring to it assumptions, and as the group continues meeting, those assumptions will come up. What is called for is to suspend those assumptions, so that you neither carry them out nor suppress them. You don’t believe them, nor do you disbelieve them; you don’t judge them as good or bad…(Bohm, “On Dialogue”, p. 22.)”

   3. As these individuals “suspend judgement” they also simultaneously are as honest and transparent as possible. (Specifically, if the individual has a “good idea” that he might otherwise hold back from the group because it is too controversial, he will share that idea in this conversation.)

   4. Individuals in the conversation try to build on other individuals’ ideas in the conversation. (The group often comes up with ideas that are far beyond what any of the individuals thought possible before the conversation began.)

Usually, the goal of the various incarnations of “Bohm Dialogue” is to get the whole-group to have a better understanding of itself. In other words, Bohm Dialogue is used to inform all of the participants about the current state of the group they are in.

My Experience in Bohm Dialogue

In dialogue group, a participant does not blurt out thoughts immediately as they come into mind.  One person speaks freely and honestly while the other participants listen.  As one listens to the ideas of others, a strong compulsion to speak often arises.  An “important” thought “needs” to be expressed.  Allowing a gap between thought and expression allows the participant to become acutely aware of the compulsions and motivations involved in both choosing to speak and choosing to remain silent.

One thing my wife and I discovered early on in our participation was the difficulty in listening to others name reality without offering our corrections.  I came to see much of the speaking as a battle for reality.  The simplest, most unimportant, statement of a view at odds with my own could create the strongest responses in me.  I would first need to choose to keep my mouth shut.  Then I would begin formulating my reply.  Soon I would find myself squirming in the chair.  Often feelings of anger, desperation, or even despair would arise.

I said to my wife once, “Someone calling the wall by the wrong color would make me willing to declare war.”  With practice one can learn to experience these feelings and impulses without translating them into action.  By experiencing without reacting, a person can begin to see clearly that the unexamined impulse to react is an habitual and compulsive forward drive–arising variously from emotions of fear, anger, insecurity, or even existential panic–rather than from the carefully considered thought we imagined.  And one begins to see the likelihood that the impulsive reaction would create only more battling for reality and further polarization.  When one labors under the illusion that their very existence is determined by thoughts and words, the survival instinct can propel forceful and desperate action based on the silliest of disagreements.

But some speaking and listening do not induce fights about reality.  My wife and I both observed that a certain manner of speaking could have a profound effect on the listening.  The group might be droning along about ideas.  I might find myself reacting with boredom or anger or a mental critique.  Then a participant would begin speaking from the heart, offering a specific example of the universal experience of being human.  This created an open and present listening in everyone.  The response would be immediate and universal.  I can’t define the nature of this manner of speaking precisely, but I can say that it is experiential, honest, non-defensive, non-insistent, and un-manipulative.  The speaker’s age, gender, life-experience, and even response to events might be wholly other than my own.  These details would have no effect on my empathetic feeling and identification with the speaker’s experience.

A big challenge to practicing this method is the human aversion to uncertainty.  Most of us put a lot of energy into avoiding being in a place of not knowing.  Successful application of Bohm Dialogue requires the ability to state one’s thoughts and feelings more as an offering to the group than as dogmatic truth.  The sterile circular “logic” of “I am right.  I am right,” must be interrupted or pushed into the background enough to allow open listening to alternate views.  Finally, and most challenging, one is asked to allow seemingly rock hard thoughts to soften and adjust as new ideas and experiences are expressed.

Another challenge related to tolerating uncertainty is that the process of Bohm Dialogue leads to unexpected results.  The delusional “reality” of our flawed thinking prevents us from logically understanding the ways in which participating changes our thoughts and the thoughts of others.  We typically see only a couple of ways to reach agreement with someone–ways involving either one person changing completely or both people changing a little.  The Dialogue leads to a third way which is understood less than experienced.  We may never fully realize the extent to which our thought was flawed or the precise way in which we have been changed, but we are likely to feel more attuned to our neighbors and less in conflict with their thought patterns, even while underlying differences remain.

But It Doesn’t Mean Anything

(whimsical Sound of Music reference)

How can these notions help heal our fragile polarized nation?  Ideally, I imagine well-meaning groups of “liberals” and “conservatives” sitting together weekly for at least a couple of hours and discussing these matters.  It’s been done on matters such as abortion, with promising results.  But I also feel that understanding these principles and, even better, spending some time practicing them in a group can lead to improved communication in a unilateral way.

I’ve been in the dialog group when guests came for one night.  Occasionally the guest would be lacking in introspection, unfamiliar with non-judgmental listening, or in some other way deficient in the skills demanded by the method.  It could be frustrating to listen to them react with argument or express views in a global rather than personal manner.  After the rest of us had become practiced, such behavior stuck out like a sore thumb.  But also, after we were practiced, this behavior did not upset the balance of the group.  Argument was not met with argument, thence with side-taking, and finally with useless polarized babble.  Rather, the person experienced a new response, who can say to what effect.

Taking this a step further, one person devoted to true communication and creation of community, aware of the principles of dialog underlying the Bohm groups, can be more skillful in engaging in interaction with a neighbor.   Appropriate listening and self-aware speaking can lead to something other than hardened disagreement or agreement.  This “something other” transcends thought to feel like the connection and community every human craves.

Free Advice

Commenter rb137 wrote in response to this essay on dkos:

I recently had a conversation (in a group of people) about global warming — some Republicans with Limbaugh-like viewpoints, and others that disagreed. I won’t go into details, but it was really difficult. An afternoon conversation that was typically friendly between neighbors became one where noone was listening to anyone else and all were accusing the other of having made up their minds and ignoring evidence.

That was the conversation that I was thinking about when I responded to your diary. I was thinking, “How would this have helped?” In this particular case, it wouldn’t have helped. Not that time.

Here is my response:

Here is how applying awareness gained from Bohm’s principles could definitely help that situation.  The first and most important behavior is to stop the train of thought for a moment.  Step back from the conversation, notice your breathing and your emotion level, again I say stop the argumentative train of thought in your own mind for a moment, then listen to the group for a while, knowing that you aren’t going to say anything for a while.  You might even remember other aspects of your neighbors that you like, or notice in what way they are angry or withdrawn, or whatever.  An any case, wait until someone says something you feel you might be able to convince him about, then start by asking in an non-argumentative way, for him to explain why he feels that way.  You might say as I saw Obama do, “That’s interesting.  Why do you feel that way?”  Listen to his answer and respond to it without arguing it down.  The emotional energy of a group can change very quickly just by entraining with one calm, connected individual.

You can decide that you’re not going to try to convince them of anything this particular evening and just think of it as a chance for you to align your sense of them more closely with what they are really saying from their pov, so you can be speaking to them more pertinently when you do next speak about your point of view.

You could say, “Okay, okay, let’s do this.  You talk to me about your ideas for a minute and I’ll listen as well as I can.  Then I’ll tell you what I think, and you can agree to listen to me.  How’s that?”

The main thing is to shift the energy, to almost anything, and you can get where you want better from the place away from the place of blind arguing.

Interrupt your thought process, step back, and begin to listen to the group.