Uladzimir Matskevich: The art of controversy: from the simple dialogue to the structured one

Dialogue, Negotiations, Talking, Communication - all these words are used every day, and their constant use blurs the meaning and the significance. And when the words lose their meaning, the people lose its freedom, begins chaos and outrage.

Since the beginning of the year I have been involved in continuous controversy around Strategy, being implemented by a group of public organizations and civil society leaders. Into the controversy have been involved different forces and groups, such as politicians, bloggers, analysts of the regime and the EU officials. The controversy in its entirety isn’t visible to a general public, journalists get only its scraps, often associated with some newsworthy reasons or the fragments arranged by media themselves; that’s when they give the word to a particular speaker while organizing discussions on the air or in newspapers. But this all are only scraps or fragments. It seems to be that no one sees the controversy as a whole. To see it in full, one needs a diagram or a map of a public discussion. That’s difficult. Replications in the public debates rarely follow one another. Sometimes between the thesis of one party and his opponents’ response, months pass. That’s when viewers and readers have already forgotten the thesis itself and can’t understand, where the answer came from.

We are implementing Strategy which already has acquired different names: Strategy-2012, Strategy “We are One People”. But let me remind the original text, proposed for the public discussion; I want to pay attention to the subtitle in this original text of Strategy-2012: From a dialogue among democratic forces to a dialogue with the regime.

It is from the dialogue within the democratic forces to another dialogue - another, which we call the negotiations. Negotiations between the democratic forces, who must agree between themselves to gain consolidation, in order to counter the opponent a single consolidated negotiating position. And not just a joint position, but a strong one. The power of position determines the unity of democratic forces. "In unity is our strength" - this sounds trivially. So trivially that no one takes it seriously. Is it really possible to seriously discuss a triviality? But there was and there is still no unity at all! Why? For what reason? Yes, because "there is no cost as expensive as disregard of trivialities."

It is trivial to take an umbrella while going out during the rain. It must be taken, there is nothing to discuss. It would be silly to discuss it, stamping in the hallway before going out, and it would be silly also to discuss it later while getting wet under the rain. There are things to do, not to discuss. And these things are stated not to be discussed, but to be done. Then, how should be treated those people who discuss the things that should simply be performed? I think they just evade the performing, looking for a plausible excuse.

Democratic forces in Belarus, including tiny and weak political opposition and a little wider civil society circle, NEED THE UNITY OF POSITION. This is not a hypothesis, not a problem thesis. This is a triviality. No one would deny this truism, no one would undertake to refute it. But the unity of the opposition, alas, still exists in the modality of necessity and possibility, but not in reality. The unity must be - everybody agrees with that. There is no unity - everybody agrees with that, too. An astonishing unanimity!

 Why then there is nothing everybody would agree with? 

The problem is that the unity is achieved only through communication, i.e. through a dialogue. But a dialogue itself isn’t there. There are a lot of monologic utterances; that’s when everybody is speaking and no one is listening. To hear one another, we need to agree to a dialogue - that’s when one is speaking, the other is responding. And responding exactly to what has said the first one, not pronouncing another monologue about something else.

To conduct a dialogue, a simple communicative competence is needed. This is a one more triviality. But everyone would call to mind many occasions in his life when the dialogue was not possible, would remember a lot of people whom they say about: "But he is impossible to talk with!" What to do! There are people who can talk, and there are others who fundamentally can not.

So what one should be able to?

The culture has accumulated a lot of knowledge about human communication, about the dialogue. And the knowledge is the power! This aphorism has pronounced Francis Bacon. He had also described those idols that prevent people to communicate and to conduct a dialogue. These are Idols of the tribe, Idols of the cave, Idols of the market-place, Idols of the theatre.

If to apply the doctrine of these Idols, or the false knowledge, to the members of our several months’ controversy, it would be a compliment for the latters. Those errors or intentional interference of communication that are now in vogue, have more primitive character than Bacon's Idols. Bacon described, what prevented the scientific knowledge. With regard to the controversy, the same Idols may be treated in a different perspective.

Idols of the tribe. Politicians (we are talking about the Belarusian opposition politicians) consider the politics their tribal affiliation. Sergey Kalyakin, who has been chairman of the Belarusian Communist Party Fair world already for nearly two decades, believes himself definitely to be a politician, recognizes as such Anatoly Lebedko, who has been heading the United Civil Party of Belarus for nearly a decade, recognize as politicians the former presidential candidates. And they all consider the politics to be only their path. They treat jealously anyone else who suddenly declares himself in the political arena. They do not reflect on what this other person says or does, they just dismiss him, assuming he is not a politician, but a stranger, a man not of their kind. What to talk about with a man "without the family and the tribe”? So the last year they treated Uladzimir Niaklajeu: "He is not a politician", as well as his campaign "Say the Truth!": "This is not a political party, but a social movement!" Today Niaklajeu has already become a politician, he has received a "registration in tribe", and now he is infected with this "idol of the tribe".

Messrs. politicians, it is very simple, to get rid of the confusion induced by the Idols of the tribe: stop thinking that you were born politicians and will remain them, whatever you do and say. You are politicians only so far as you behave like politicians. But anyone else who behaves like a politician, is a politician as well. And if someone else can speak on behalf of greater number of people than you, then he is more politician than you are. Messrs. Bukhvostov, Levkovich, etc., who you are willing to recognize as politicians, are not, because there are no people behind them. As Stanislau Shushkevich with Alaksandr Kazulin - former politicians - have now become just rhetors. But some leaders of the NGOs have much more political weight than all the members of The six all together.

Idols of the cave. Describing this kind of errors, Bacon appealed to the metaphor of Plato: a person in relation to the real world is like a one who stands with his back to an entrance of a cave and do not see what is outside the cave. But people, animals and things, moving along the entrance to the cave, are casting shadows on its wall. The caveman sees these shadows on the wall and, basing on the shadows’ images, judges what is outside. But shadows and things that cast shadows are very different from each other. Our politicians, and not only them, judge the world basing on the shadows’ images. Take me, for instance, I cast shadows also: one time - a shadow of a methodologist that observers in the cave do not identify at all, a shadow of an analyst, as I am usually being presented by journalists, a shadow of a philosopher. Those whom I have once offended react somehow to these shadows. But they react and argue with an abstract political scientist, not with me. There is no difference, whether a thing has been voted by Valery Karbalevich, whether by Uladzimir Matskevich - both are politicians. But Karbalevich is one thing, and he is talking as a lonely political scientist, even though a very clever one. As for me, I’m not a political scientist at all, though I’m talking often in a political science’ (rather, theoretical) language. An international consortium of Belarusian and European NGOs “EUROBELARUS” stands behind me. And it engages hundreds of people, active and efficiently working. The "EUROBELARUS" in its turn, carries out its work through National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, which engages many times more people. Politicians that do not adequately react to me, to my shadow, offend all these people, and then these politicians wonder why the NGOs do not take their opinion into consideration.

One can get rid of the Idols of the cave, - it is necessary simply to face the world, the reality. Treat people as such and not as shadows. Positions, professional categories, ranks and statuses are all shadows. Even presidents can turn out to be fools, not to mention party leaders. Looking at people, you will see many interesting things which can not be seen in the shadows cast by these people. Sometimes a word of a journalist, poet, philosopher may outweigh all your statements, declarations, manifests.

Idols of the market-place. Here's how it is described by Bacon: "People get together by speech. Words are arranged according to the comprehension of the crowd. Therefore, bad and awkward arrangement of words surprisingly precipitates the mind". Comprehension of the crowd in a square (regardless of the concept of "Ploshcha” (The Square); this is just an appeal to the medieval and ancient towns’ squares), or in a market can not be a criterion of the truth of your words and correctness of actions. So many times I had to deal with these "idols"! I come to a politician, a decision maker able to affect the fate of the country, and I’m making him an offer. I’m making the offer him personally - and he’s telling me that the people will not understand this, that it’s impossible to explain it to tractor factory workers. But I have not come to the people; I’ve come to a specific individual. And what I’m saying is intended for the ears, the mind and comprehension of the individual, and not for the people. It’s about it that is talking Bacon with the words, "surprisingly precipitates the mind". A politician is somehow living by someone else's mind. Would it be real strange mind, but the fact is that it’s an imaginary one. By exposing the criterion of "what think and understand the tractor factory workers", politicians no longer think with their heads, don’t use their brains, while forgetting when did they last time talk to the tractor factory workers! These Idols the most often are faced with the social scientists. They bring to politicians their studies’ results; that is what "factory workers and other social groups" actually think, and politicians reject their studies as inaccurate and flawed. On the grounds of the statement that yesterday a politician “has heard by his own ears what people were talking about in the subway...".

Idols of the theater. Modern people are used to the pluralism of approaches and theories. So much used that they have already ceased to analyze and to find out which approach is more accurate, more practical and closer to the truth. But among a variety of approaches and theories there is one that is closer to the truth, more practical one, and all the others are further from the truth, and from practice. And most people are guided by theories and approaches which are far from the truth; not to mention practical failure of these theories. But the theories are dearer to people, more dearer than the practice. People are eager to perform repeatedly the same actions as the learned theatrical roles, regardless of the effect and outcome. Their theatrical roles in life are more important for them than the effect of their actions and deeds. Our politicians, as bad actors, perform their solo parts, regardless of the circumstances in which they turn out to be. Regardless of what the other individuals and actors do. At times they sing in chorus. They sing old songs, but as they once learned those, so they don’t know others. Social democrats, liberals, communists and nationalists - all of these are emasculated theatrical characters of our politicians, not the heart of the matter. Does anyone know how did Kalyakin develop the immortal doctrine of Marx-Lenin-Stalin? Can someone show me the contribution of Lebedko in the liberal theory or philosophy? Or may be we have someone from the social democrats, who has developed some social trend? Who among them is the author, not the performer? You can not even consider the quality of performance.

To stop the hypnosis of Idols of the theater is only possible in one way: to step away from dogmatic scenarios and libretto and to learn critical thinking. Critical thinking is not when you criticize someone, or someone criticizes you; that’s when you are critical of one of those abstract theories that you have uncritically assimilated in childhood or in high school. That’s when you are faking your attitudes and views through the empiricist view.

Firstly, the communication has become indirect. The share of phone calls and e-mails is now comparable to or even higher than that of personal contacts. One-two hundred years ago people talked only with familiar people. Strictly speaking, the communication was making people familiar to each other. Today, we are being in constant contact with people whom we’ll never see and will never get personally acquainted with. Members of social networks often have hundreds of friends, media personalities make speeches from TV-sets’ screens, business partners exchange letters and take joint decisions at the cost of thousands and millions, while never having an eye contact. We are not familiar with our stairwell neighbors, but talk to people who live in similar houses thousands of miles away.

Secondly, the communication is losing its social attributes which previously influenced the meaning and clarity of words. For example, authority. When in the previous centuries people could not agree between themselves, they went to the priest. A pope, a rabbi, a priest voted the words that could not be dismissed. For whom the priest is an authority nowadays, in the literal sense of the word? In the first half of the twentieth century the laity did not dare to dispute the opinions of recognized scientists. And after the social stratification, someone had been allowed to say something, and someone hadn’t. But egalitarianism of the French Revolution has done its work. Today, the opinion of anyone is effectively equal to any other’s opinion. There are no anymore even the educational disparities: what could earlier be discussed only by people with special education is now available for discussion of all the people. Communication has been cleared of the social attributes and conventions. This raises a lot of new challenges. That is why the communication problems have been occupying minds of philosophers and thinkers of the twentieth century. It is not only Jürgen Habermas, for whom communication was the main focus of philosophizing. It's not only Martin Buber and Mikhail Bakhtin, for whom the dialogue was the main subject of interest. In this line should be posed hermeneutics, sociolinguistics, and other.

This all is leading to a paradox. On the one hand, complex communication has become commonplace for everyone and everyone is involved in complex communication. On the other hand, communication has become inaccessible to most people as now we need to learn to communicate. To learn the modern communication, which differs greatly from the direct communication between people of the same circle, neighborhood community, same culture and social status.

The Internet has acutely exposed the paradox: having the mass computer literacy of users, most of them are communicatively ignorant. For the individual manifestations of this ignorance, specific words have to be find out; there is a special Internet slang which categories are not transferable in everyday language.

However, if these phenomena on the Internet are already well-known to many, in more traditional communication areas these are not so evident, yet, the problems are the same.

Total communicative ignorance creates enormous opportunities for demagogues, manipulations through the media, public events get cyclopean forms. While Goebbels and Stalin could make a fool of the whole nations through the radio, newspapers, and "the most important of all the arts" – the cinema, then at the modern demagogues’ disposal are much more powerful technologies: television and Internet. But public technologies and PR many times reinforce the manipulation and demagogy.

A demagogue of Antiquity and of the eighteenth century could lie to an audience of several hundred people gathered in the square. A demagogue of the XIX^th century lied through the newspapers to a few thousand readers. A demagogue of XX-XXI centuries can lie to millions. Having a strong desire and sufficient motivation, one could refute a demagogue of Antiquity, having spoken to everyone whom the latter lied. In the XIX^th century it was possible to write a rebuttal in the same newspaper or the other, which is read by a similar audience. To refute Goebbels one sholud only gain access to the national radio in Germany, but it was impossible without destroying the whole state machine of the Third Reich. Information warfare in the twentieth century has become an integral part of a war, it’s most important part. After the Second World War, informative preparation to local wars has become as obligatory as the artillery preparation for an infantry attack. Beginning from the end of the previous century, wars have become possible to be won only through gaining control of the information space.

We live in a contradictory country. Belarus is a part of the modern world, and we are familiar with all the vices and virtues of the information age. But we live in an archaic society, a country with almost entirely illiterate population. Illiterate, as Belarusian newspaper readers, television watchers, Internet users do not distinguish between the truth and the falsehood. They can not as they don’t know the means of distinguishing. With no means they are incapable. For this ability came to information consumers of our country, they need to be taught these methods. After studying the means, a person becomes capable.

We need the abilities to distinguish between the truth and the falsehood. To distinguish between the demagogy and the arguments. And to resist the demagoguery and lies.

But where would ordinary people learn such means? Where and from whom to learn?

The hermeneutics is very complicated for people with our native school education, and with higher education as well. The logic is more traditional discipline, but it is also taught not to everybody, but if taught, then only for narrow areas’ use. Mathematicians, lawyers, computer programmers are, as a rule, well prepared logically, but only fir the work in their professional areas. As soon as they have to work within related areas of knowledge and activity, they do not use their professional knowledge, and roll to ordinary philistine attitude. And even if they use professional knowledge, they can’t use it adequately as to apply them to different areas of knowledge.

But there is need also of the conflict resolution knowledge, and much more knowledges. And this is almost nowhere to be taught. Narrow and shallow trainings for merchants, during which they are taught the basics of the objections’ work, provide basic communication skills, primarily in the psychological aspect, but do not solve the problems and do not eliminate illiteracy. And all these capacities are suitable only in direct contact, being face to face.

And modern people have to deal with a structured dialogue, with the social communication in its most contemporary forms.

Structured dialogue - this is exactly what is offered in the Strategy-2012: From a dialogue among democratic forces to a dialogue with the regime. They say that the idea of ​​transition from conventional forms of communication to the structured dialogue belongs to the European Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. I haven’t talked to him for a long time, although 20 years ago, when he was a Minister of Education of Latvia, we have been closely interacting. But the matter is not in a personal contact, as the idea of ​​the structured dialogue has acquired widespread occurence (hm! widespread in the European Commission narrow circles). In any case, both Stefan Fule and Catherine Ashton are already working under this paradigm as well as the Steering Committee Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership. But this paradigm and the structured dialogue approach have been introduced and are being advanced by the Belarusian delegation Civil Society Forum of the EaP, on the ground of a well-developed Cultural policy idea. We’ve been promoting the structured dialogue idea in Belarus also. As an alternative to it there may only be extended regression and degradation, or a civil war in future if maintaining the current regime.

But we have to achieve a structured dialogue. How can we, if we are not willing to conduct a simple dialogue.

To the structured dialogue can only be connected those who can conduct a normal dialogue in a positive way. But you can not conduct a normal dialogue (not to mention a structured one) with someone who constantly evades a dialogue and, forced to join it, is trying to manipulate the interlocutor or simulating a dialogue.

That is what we have today in Belarus, and not only from the regime’s, but also from the selfish opposition politicians’ part, and from representatives and civil society leaders who haven’t still determined their position.

 

Published in the personal blog of Uladzimir Matskevich in the "LiveJournal":

http://worvik.livejournal.com/265331.html

http://worvik.livejournal.com/265527.html