On Methods: How Dialogue will Change the World, Part 1

Statue of Sir John A. MacDonald vandalized, Jan 10, 2013.

I knew my first new post to this blog would have "dialogue" in the title, but my recent struggles to understand and appreciate the Idle No More movement, currently engaged in Canada, galvanized me to broaden this post to discuss "methods" in general.

If I had to pinpoint the one thing that separates myself from almost all my peers currently enrolled in, and graduated from, the Social Justice and Peace Studies (SJPS) program, it would be methods.  In 4 years of study of social justice and peace, rarely if ever did discussions cross the threshold into debating how to actually affect change.  I argued throughout my time in the module, and continue to argue, that this remains one of the greatest failures of the program.  We spent 4 years investigating the superstructure of capitalism, neoliberalism, corporatism, and social injustice, but not once did we discuss the efficiency and ethics of actually doing anything about it.  So in the end, the program pumps out students with an unbridled morality and passion to affect change without the critical thinking, honesty, self-discipline, and understanding to actually wield these gifts effectively.  As a result, they end up perpetrating acts like those in the picture.

I've alluded to the former before, especially in this post: "Vacation"

Rather than reiterate what I've already written, I'd recommend reading from "If what I do is "Serve the Cause," then how do I serve it?" to the end and then come back here.
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Honestly, I deeply desire to love activists' direct-action approaches.  But every time I come close to supporting such an approach to change, I've always found a lack of discipline or, even worse, a complete absence of self-criticism of methodology.

In fact, my self-criticism of my own methods has lead me to more or less abandon conventional direct-action approaches to change, in part for the reasons in my "Vacation" post, but also due to the experiential nature of reality.  If you haven't already, this post is basically a must-read for this blog: Experientialism - "What is the Matrix?"
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Experientialism explains how activists participate in a war for peoples' minds, especially at this juncture when most people remain unaware of just how much of an impact their experiences and thus indoctrinations have on their actions and beliefs.  People are fighting for the minds of our children, and even our own minds.  After all, there's an economic interest in doing so - take mass marketing for example.

In this war, direct-action approaches: like waving signs, blocking traffic, and lighting yourself on fire, all have the potential to raise consciousness, and affect change.  However, some methods are more efficient and ethical  than others.
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Although I may sometimes appear to idolize Socrates, I don't, because in Plato's Republic Socrates recommended that we essentially lie to the masses in order to establish a utopia.  In the context of Ancient Greece: e.g. small agrarian towns and cities, this might have worked, at least temporarily.  But today, this model just isn't feasible.

Rather, I believe the key to a self-actualizing civilization is the truth: the naked honest truth.  We require an education system that aims to make people conscious of the experiential nature of reality: to raise humanity above the war for peoples' minds: to make them conscious of the war itself.  Not to sound cliche, but an indirect goal of mine is to end this war.

And dialogue remains one of the best methods available to investigate and pursue the truth, regardless of whether there actually is one.  I've argued and continue to argue, that dialogue is one of the, if not the best, method of affecting change available, especially when it comes to stimulating conscientization (a critical consciousness for those of you that haven't come across Paulo Friere's works, and those of his interpreters).  
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This wraps up the introduction and premise of the next post.  I wrote an essay for my Introduction to Curriculum class on dialogue and how it can and will change the world.  Rather than summarize it here, I'm going to publish it in it's entirety in the next post.