Dialogue and designing our future: Conversation as culture creating and consciousness evolving

Abstract

In this chapter, first, we begin with an exploration of the meaning of dialogue. Then, we examine the relationship of conversation to culture creating and consciousness evolving within society. Dialogue is introduced as a form of conversation that enables our species to connect within and across cultures, forming and sustaining communities through intersubjectivity and cultural creativity. The importance of dialogue to transcending existing social systems and existing levels of consciousness is explored, and the need for genuine discourse that is also relational is presented. The chapter will examine why dialogue is important as well as how dialogue may be used to create a collective evolutionary consciousness essential to designing our own future. © 2008 Springer-Verlag US.