Chapter 5 Blog Post

Before reading this chapter, I was a little confused at what separated dialogic communication ethics from some of the of the other forms like contextual. However, I think Buber's definition really helped. He defined dialogue as "a meeting of respectful difference--one's own bias meets that of another text or person, encountering Otherness, not similarity" (82). To me this makes a lot more sense, and I feel like I am more confident with the subject. It also goes against my former notion of dialogue. Maybe I'm the only one, but I always thought dialogue was just any conversation between two people. For example, when we read plays back in high school, didn't the teachers and others refer to all of the conversations as dialogues? But then I guess this is what we meant in class when we talked about dialogic ethics being emergent. So then if dialogue emerges from differences, this is something we engage in on a daily basis living in our postmodern society where we are constantly met with different beliefs, motives, reactions, norms, etc.

I think the example that I found most relevant was the one regarding Madison and Terrell who were working on a class project together. Because they didn't know each other, most of their interactions involved technical dialogue, but once Terrell opened up about his life a little bit, new insights were revealed through the dialogue and the questions that arose between the two. As the text states, "the process of dialogue often begins in monologue and technical dialogue, only to surprise us with its emergence when least expected," (86) and that is exactly what was depicted in the example. I have also experienced this, especially at work. Often times I work with one other person, and so as we are working our conversations will usually center on the task at hand. However, that isn't always the case. I remember one time my coworker asked what I did on Monday. I listed everything that I did, and when he heard that I led a Bible study, dialogue instantly began. His beliefs were different than mine, yet he was interested in hearing what I believed and why. We were able to have a great conversation for 45 minutes, and even though we believed different things it never turned argumentative. I think that was the case because we put content and learning foremost as suggested on page 80. Through the process we were both able to provide insight into our own narratives and learn about what led us to the point of believing what we did at the current time.