Dialogues

September 12, 2013

Our morning meeting today was shared with all of the newcomers. We organized an activity that we like to call Café Polanyi, which is practically a Socrates Café but divided into small groups of four and discuss. I found that my group was really interesting, I was the only pioneer there and I enjoyed it so much. Again, it made me think about the potential that the newcomers have; they come with new and fresh ideas. Some of the questions that struck me the most were: “Does the language we speak affect the kind of ideas that we have?”, “Does love (as a relationship) affect your thinking?”, and “What if fear?”. I liked the dialogue that we had and I think that everyone learned something. Comparing to the Socrates Café that I had with my classmates yesterday, I liked this one much more.

Later during the day we had our meta-dialogue and I think we came up with great ideas. We started out by writing things that had stood out to us during the week. I like how we have been having our dialogues lately. I think that now we are more organized, we understand each other more and I think that we are expressing our ideas better. I also feel that our dialogues have been deeper and that we have been learning more too. We are also making an effort in trying to understand our classmates and at the same time including our ideas and contributing. During these last couple of weeks I have also noticed that now we are relating more and really understanding the role of being pioneers. I think that having a class a year below us has helped us see this. I think that it has also helped us put into perspective many of the things that we did last year and helped us see the meaning of them. Well, I guess what I am trying to say is that we are starting to get to know that great book, as Galileo said, and we are constructing new good habits, as Aristotle says. And most important of all we are starting to realize that “Understanding is fun”, well, at least I am realizing it and it is making me appreciate and like my experience here so much more.

During the dialogue we were wondering whether there is an ideal that tells us is what is right and good and what is not. And from this question, many others came along such as: why is it that if most people know what is correct most of the time, no one puts it into practice?, why is it that values are inherent in all people?, why do we want to be responsible, just, honest, etcetera?. I really enjoyed these questions and even though our dialogue wasn't exactly connecting all of our reading specifically, I think that we were talking about an underlying subject that was in all of our readings this week.