Exploring Dialogue and Debate
Rachel A. Poliner and Jeffrey Benson
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Dialogue
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Debate
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Dialogue is collaborative: the sides work together.
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Debate is a type of fight: two sides oppose each other to prove each other wrong. |
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Dialogue builds a learning relationship between people. |
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Debate builds a competitive relationship between people. |
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Dialogue encourages the participants to identify questions and goals they could share. |
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Debate encourages each side to articulate its own questions and goals. |
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In a dialogue the goals are finding common ideas and new ideas. |
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In a debate the goal is winning with your own ideas. |
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In a dialogue everyone contributes to solving a problem. |
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In a debate one person and viewpoint wins, the other is dismissed. |
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In a dialogue you believe that many solutions might exist, and that different people have parts of the best solutions. |
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In a debate you believe that there is one solution, that you have it, and other solutions are not considered. |
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In a dialogue you are sensitive to each other’s feelings, hopes, and ideas. |
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In a debate you do not care about the feelings, hopes and ideas of others. |
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In a dialogue you contribute your best ideas to be improved upon. |
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In a debate you contribute your ideas and defend them against challenges. |
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In a dialogue you listen to each other to understand and build agreement. |
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In a debate you listen to each other to find flaws and to disagree. |
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In a dialogue you search for the good parts of other peoples’ ideas. |
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In a debate you search for weaknesses in other peoples’ ideas. |
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In a dialogue you may consider new ideas and even change your mind completely. |
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In a debate you do not admit you are considering new ideas and you must not change your mind, or you lose. |
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Dialogue encourages you to evaluate yourself. |
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Debate encourages you to criticize others. |
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Dialogue promotes open-mindedness, including an openness to being wrong. |
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Debate creates a close-minded attitude, a determination to be right. |
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Dialogue encourages you to see all sides of an issue. |
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Debate encourages you to see only two different sides of an issue. |
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Dialogue invites keeping the topic open even after the discussion formally ends. |
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Debate, by creating a winner and a loser, discourages further discussion. |
Reproduced with permission from Dialogue: Turning Controversy into Community by Rachel A. Poliner and Jeffrey Benson (c) 1997. Published by Educators for Social Responsibility. (800) 370-2515. <www.esrnational.org>
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