Is dialogue simply a conversation?
The word „dialogue” is often repeated on our website. It does not refer to an ordinary conversation, and it is not meant to convince anyone.
On the one hand, a dialogue is nothing more than a real conversation. But a real dialogue is when you do not only convey messages, but also receive them. As part of a real dialogue, we get to know the other person’s world and begin to understand it better. It is a moment when the person who is talking to us is genuinely interested in understanding our perspective. Our everyday conversations rarely develop according to that scenario. Sometimes, but not too often, such exchanges are possible with people who are close to us.
Most of us only pretend to be engaged in a conversation - in fact, everyone focuses on what they are saying or what they want to say in a given moment. The words of a person who is talking to us fall into a void, and we make out only those that we can relate to in our message or ones that can be easily refuted. Such a „conversation” is just another opportunity to express oneself, not a real exchange that may lead to a better understanding of another person.
This is what a real conversation should entail:
it should engage both sides - it should not be a monologue from any of them;
it ought to rely more on listening than speaking;
it should help us learn something about others and ourselves;
it should build a sense of bond between the people.
The dialogues we hold are such real conversations. They bring together strangers with different, often divergent views. We talk about contentious topics. The purpose of dialogues is not to persuade someone to change their mind. The point is to understand each other and learn to talk to each other despite our differences. The participants often say that they did not believe that such a conversation was still possible in Poland.
