“A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance,”

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience.

The word dialogue is rooted etymologically in the Greek language.  Dialogos means that the word or words (logos) move between (dia) people as they converse. If those conversing are doing so in good faith, the truth of the matter is negotiated and refined. Ultimately, a dialogue is a verbal engagement that helps to articulate what is real in the context of the subject at hand. One speaker brings a perspective, the other brings another point of view, and ideally the mixing of said words brings each individual closer to the truth, and potentially each other.

Dialogue is important in virtually every sphere of life, but it becomes especially crucial to those who are in the business of conversations—people like me. With the clients I engage with as a counsellor, the ancient process of the word-going-between becomes our bread and butter. It is these real, and often very vulnerable, dialogues that drive us closer to the truth in the context of a healthy therapeutic relationship.

When we move closer to the truth because of dialogue, it could be said that we are moving towards a consensus—an agreement on what is, in fact, true. It is collaborative, something that is co-created by honest, interested parties. John Stuart Mill maintained in On Liberty that we could measure the overall health and well-being of humanity by looking at the number of uncontested truths that are held in esteem by all, undoubtedly with some exceptions. Assuming the best, such consensus could only be attained as the fruit of countless truth-refining dialogues.

Real dialogue is a rare commodity these days. In a time of increasing polarization, the value of words—and the truth that is crystallized as they move between people—cannot be understated.

This becomes essentially true in a materialistic culture where we increasingly rely on the scientific process to orient ourselves to our reality. We should champion whatever dialogue is necessary among those who hold positions of scientific expertise so we can build a true consensus on certain subjects, especially in an age where policy is more and more derived from information coming from the mouths of scientific authorities.

A breakdown in dialogue does and will contribute to the growing sense of political polarization, just as it creates chasms of value between individuals. We can choose, when we disagree on an issue, to address the disagreement and draw nearer to the truth, and hopefully one another. If not, we will avoid it and inevitably find ourselves moving into echo chambers.

John Stuart Mill made the claim that humble dialogue is important for all of us because it gives us the space to watch our opinions—or some component of them—live or die according to how they line up with reality, with truth. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us all to bravely stand and speak out, inviting others into open dialogue regardless of our positions and their relative popularity. Otherwise, we will all find ourselves alienated from each other and the word of truth that goes between us—the logos, or the reality that exists apart from each of our perspectives, the ultimate unifying truth.

And understand that the stakes are very high indeed: we would be remiss to believe that such a truth will—by the unyielding nature of its fidelity—rise to the top or be brought to the light in the Biblical sense. This is fallacious, dangerous thinking, one we engage with as a comfort when we feel smothered in lies. Mill continues to expand upon the importance of dialogue by addressing the real temptation of this mode of thinking:

“But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes… It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake.”

A small mercy is that there is a relentless component to truth: it is itself reality and therefore ever-present and awaiting discovery. Even when it is put down and buried, either by some conceit of the majority, a cultural upheaval, or an imposition of tyranny, truth—the logos—can find its way back into the hearts and minds—and consequently the dialogues—of men and women. I would suggest that it is better that we seek it now, between ourselves, than to kick the truth further down the unfolding road of history; or worse, perhaps we will find ourselves burying it, obscuring it in the past.

Should we fail at this, we will continue to build compartmentalized worlds in our personal corners of existence, our own little Babels built with the bricks of our self-aggrandizing fictions. And at this point in history, we won’t need the god of the Israelites to scatter us and confuse our language—that’s something we are perfectly capable of doing ourselves.