The following is a guest post from Rosie Walford, a participant on the 2011 Dishaa event in Pune, India, sharing her experience from Day 1 of the course. Stay posted for further updates each day.
We were a bunch of strangers from very mixed backgrounds and we were still being very polite on our first morning. We were given a few ‘conventions‘ that Common Purpose has evolved to guide fruitful discussion – and then were plopped into exercise number one.
And what a first exercise that was. From a fat envelope we were dealt a pile of cards carrying polarized statements on issues of all sorts – ‘The disabilities commissioner must be disabled themselves’ or ‘Prisoners who take drugs should be forced to go cold turkey’ or ‘competition is the best mechanism for a functional society’. On any statement where members of our group disagreed, our job was to discuss and then reach consensus – or not.
In seconds I found myself in vigorous debate. I started out with only vague leanings on some of these subjects, yet soon found myself being a strong advocate, expressing clear views. I was going head to head against a mild English stranger and a soft spoken Indian. Was it ok to be in conflict like this? it was edgy and – because the conventions made debate safe – it was fun.
The passion in our little group was huge. We heard each other out completely, following the conventions which told us to ‘hear views we may not normally wish to hear – and be willing to learn something from them’ and ‘when views are articulated bluntly or clumsily to suspend instant judgment and enter into constructive discussion on them’. In one case a piece of information I didn’t know changed my mind; on another question, a powerful story from the Bangalore slums totally shifted my position. It was strangely liberating to be disagreeing vocally with strangers, and to hold or shift my ground knowing any outcome was fine.
By the end of half an hour like this, we’d had an invigorating intellectual workout and stretched our perspectives. But way more importantly, six strangers knew a great deal about one anothers’ values, life experiences and temperament under challenge. We could tackle any question together now and have a full blooded rich discussion to get to an answer that we didn’t have before.
Let’s hope the rest of our day is that powerful.
