The openness to be willing to look at other people’s good and strong sides, their possibilities, their surpluses or exaggeration, as well as any lacunas and distortions of these good and strong qualities, can also be termed a form of love. Love of one’s fellow people can then be conceived of as accepting others as they are, seeing their good characteristics, having compassion for their weaker sides and intending to assist them and make their life pleasurable. Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century Italian philosopher and theologian sanctified in 1323, stated in this respect:
the plurality and consequently the inequality among things provides the occasion for the performance of good acts. Charity is the more perfect when we love things different from ourselves. (Long, 2005, p. 60)
In that, we find ourselves in the middle of the domain of ethics and morality, and possibly even that of theology. As it is, charity is one of the three most important Christian principal virtues, according to the same Thomas Aquinas possibly the most important one.
The fact that we find ourselves in the domain of ethics and theology is really not so surprising. In Chapter 3 we discussed the relationship of ethics to customs and traditions.
This ethical side of dialogue manifests itself also in the work of Paolo Freire, one of the so-called liberation theologians (Freire, 1970, in Dixon, 1998) and Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher (Buber, 1957, 1966). Concerning the ethical sides of dialogue, charity is only the beginning. Other virtues play an important role in a successful dialogue as well.
Dialogue is also a matter of faith or belief, to be more precise the belief in the human ability to create and re-create our own world (Freire, 1970, in Dixon, 1998). This belief also refers to our assumptions: the belief that appropriate assumptions enable us to found a reality that we can inhabit and understand, a reality that manifests itself to us as if of its own accord (Heidegger, 1991; James, 1890/1950), a reality that we can share with others. Such a belief resounds for example also in Anselm of Canterbury’s saying: ‘I believe in order that I understand’ (see Chapter 3). When all parties believe in such a way in common assumptions and the reality resulting from them, we have accomplished something: a seemingly solid reality in which we can comfortably live. As long as that is not the case, there remains work to be done. This reality is for that matter not the kind of reality that effortlessly encompasses the whole universe, but an irregularly formed space in which we live, which surrounds us and our relevant others, with a certain view on the past and projections to the future (Merleau-Ponty, 1945).
Then there is hope, namely that our project, the dialogue, will succeed; that there will be a solution that works for everyone. This entails the idea that the group and its individual members are smart enough to create their own solutions. This idea is actually well founded.
First, it is a fact of experience that a conducive reality is definitely possible. After all, the previous reality served us for years too. Second, it can be defended that such assumptions always have, deep down, a positive goal. For example, an assumption’s goal or function can be that we get somewhere, without getting in trouble. Moreover, our own assumptions have guided us through most of our life, and the same applies to the assumptions of other people. Consequently, we cannot exclude beforehand the fact that these positive goals can be united in a win–win solution, which in the end enriches all parties involved.
As stated before, the required openness, admitting the other person and letting go of a part of our assumptions and behavioral repertoire, are now and then painful and threatening.
Moreover, dialogue demands that we willingly and knowingly enter a situation we do not fully control and of which we don’t know the outcomes in advance. All of this asks for considerable courage.
To call out our own and others’ assumptions, with their similarities and differences, without deterring or hurting anybody, demands a high degree of carefulness. This careful- ness involves both inquiry, asking questions without the other feeling observed, attacked or completely misunderstood, and advocacy, explaining our own ideas to invite the other to comment on these ideas and to point out possible lacunas, exaggerations and distortions in them (Dixon, 1998, p. 30). This is indeed a matter of great carefulness, in which the stem ‘care’ is telling. The term ‘caution’ applies here too, also in the sense of circum- spection, looking for possible risks and pitfalls, which may be inherent in the possible sensitivities of the other person. This carefulness and caution together can be described as prudence.
Another threat to dialogue consists of overstressing one or more virtues at the cost of the others. Such overstressing would endanger the whole ethical fabric (Berlin, 1998). For instance, too much carefulness interferes with courage, too much faith becomes fanaticism and interferes with carefulness, and so on. Overstressing one virtue constitutes a lack of moderation or temperance, the sin ofintemperantia. Lack of moderation does not only jeopardize dialogue, but all forms of communication and action.
Lastly, in dialogue we should ensure that nobody is mistreated or cheated out of anything, as this always jeopardizes the end result. Essentially, we are talking here about justice,the right application of the whole ethical system. Justice results in rules about the exchange and division of property, hierarchical position, rights and attention, as well as in rules about the ranking and applicability of rules themselves (see also Storrs Hall, 2000). Socrates even called justice the only true virtue (Williams, 1985). An important point here is that the ethical system should be equally applied to everyone involved. As a result, no person or group of people should be preferentially or unfairly treated.
Perhaps not all readers have realized this, but what has been written in this section until now comprises a description of the seven principal Christian virtues, namely belief, hope, love, courage, prudence, moderation and justice. Does that mean that dialogue is a purely Christian affair? Absolutely not. To start with, these virtues are not exclusively Christian.
Christianity shares these virtues for example with Islam and Judaism, while Paul derived the latter four – courage, prudence, moderation, justice – from Plato. Moreover, there are more virtues involved, such as sincerity and humility.
Still, the full applicability of the seven principal Christian virtues remains striking.
Probably this applicability comes about because dialogue focuses on an area where ethics can be pre-eminently administered, namely circumstances in which the interaction of people is not structured and regulated in fixed ways. This lack of fixed structure and regulation is for example present when people do not know each other, have opposing interests and do not interact from an existing division of roles. Such situations are more prone to unrestrained aggression and conflicts. The principal Christian – or Islamic, or Jewish, or Greek – virtues can then be considered as a set of guidelines that have proven able to prevent and contain such conflicts. These virtues have proved themselves in this respect: they did the trick. Put differently, these virtues are reinforced by their outcomes: less manslaughter and greater wealth. As a result, these virtues simply make up a good recipe for what in game theory is called a ‘non-zero-sum’ outcome, an outcome of a game that provides gains to all participants (Wright, 2001). Another important point is that all participants in principle know these guidelines: they ring a bell because they have been a normal part of the participants’ education.
Another good feature of dialogue is that it is a pre-eminent instrument for getting to know other assumptions, and for learning to appreciate these assumptions. That is why dialogue is also such an important tool in intercultural communication. Furthermore, Isaiah Berlin states – and I agree with him – that there is only a limited number of these assumptions or guidelines, without committing himself to a specific number. Learning to know assumptions is thus a matter of taking the position of the other party. The nature of these assumptions and acting on these assumptions are, according to Berlin (1998), part of the essence of what it means to be a human being.