by James | Jun 24, 2012 | Exploration I
Why use dialogue between members?
Dialogue is not an open conversation it is a formal discussion between groups or individuals with the intention to teach, learn or evaluate what is being suggested. In many schools, students would memorize notable dialogues that perfectly explained or clearly identified a particular subject. The reason for using them in the community is to keep alive the idea of clear logical reasoning and debate, this also prepares the student to use logical steps to draw conclusions from facts.
The other idea is to give a method of individual teaching create a framework to allow disagreements between members in a civil manner.
[note: I wrote and read a lot more later on dialogue and dialectic methods so I know this isn’t exactly a clear description of why we should use them, or even what dialogues truly are, it’s true that dialectic and dialogues feed the minds ability to debate and reason arguments, the noting of fallacies, etc. are all good reasons to have at least a broad understanding of the discipline, but I wrote more on the subject later.]
by James | Jun 22, 2012 | Exploration I
On the previous post 99 I have had a few extra thoughts
There are times in extreme situations when this [following the laws of the host country] may cause a conflict of interest, take for example, a woman who was beheaded for practising witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, this followed the laws of the nation, and as such quite rightly caused international condemnation. How can one blithely say “follow the host countries rules without question”.
Similarly, what to do if a community member is called out as being a witch or sentenced in such a way? Or if a corrupt government or Nazi like dictatorship demands the community to obey oppressive, unethical rules.
In fact it may not even need to be that extreme what if a person arrives at the door begging for sanctuary because they are to be married against their will, or a minor who is experiencing abuse, an outspoken reporter who has been found to spread information about his corrupt government.
It would be simple to say; this is unlikely, this probably won’t occur but that would shy away from the simple question.
I am writing Exploration II which covers more of these moral ambiguities and questions of conflicts of state corruption vs. community ethics. Suffice to say I realise this is a complex issue and Exploration I is only intended as an initial foray into the concept of the community. It was never designed to cover every detail.
