A Circular Argument

Well, not exactly an argument. Far from it actually.

Last night I arranged the group's chairs in a circle and read a passage from William Isaacs on "The Art of Listening Together". What he was saying was that instead of listening as individuals with our own perspective, trying to appreciate someone else's perspective, we should listen with the awareness of the whole. He then mentioned a principle of early Christian communities, koinonia, which means "impersonal fellowship". Impersonal because this kind of fellowship does not depend on knowing very much about each other.

What I am finding so interesting about Isaacs' approach is the unsentimentality. We might imagine a kind of warm, squidgy togetherness that ought to be nice, but more probably would make your skin crawl. That kind of fellowship is created often by the exchange of mutual confidences, like hostages. I know your secret, so I better give you one of mine. But koinonia is not therapy, but the fellowship of a shared purpose - in this case philosophy.

It was a very interesting experience. When someone said something, I didn't feel obliged to make a remark like, "yes, very good" or "thank you". Why? Because I was no longer there to provide affirmation. It was possible to let what people said be said without having to give it my seal of approval. It was more respectful.

Another good thing was that I didn't have to have the answer. One of the students asked a particularly tricky question. I had a go at answering it, but it was clear that the student wasn't happy. She kept talking. I found it was easy to interrupt her and ask whether anyone else could help. Two people then spoke, and each gave brilliant and relevant answers that re-focused the student's attention on the weekly practice as a solution to her issue. It felt as if we were making use of the intelligence of everyone.

Maybe the metaphor of a hologram is a good way to approach this. A sheet of holographic film will produce a 3D image when a laser is shone through it. The odd thing is that if the sheet is cut in two, each half will produce not half an image, but the entire image. In fact, no matter how small you cut the film, the entire image can be produced from each tiny fragment. The only drawback is that a small piece will make a more blurred and faint image.

This is what knowledge is like - any individual has it all, but together with others the image gets progressively sharper and brighter. I think that the tutor's job, then, is not to be the sole source of knowledge, but to arrange the group such that knowledge can come from anywhere.