Language and sustainable dialog are possibly the most important component of community. Everything thing from education to problem solving are tied to this topic. Unfortunatly, information is minimal and some of it uses academic speak. The following URL has lots of information on sustainability. To get to the index just leave off the last part "dialog.htm". The following article is probably a serious work, but i found it funny. Sustainable dialog written in confobulation <grin>. http://www.uia.org/uiadocs/dialog.htm ---- Sustainable Dialogue and Sustainable Community Taking account of criticism of sustainable development as an unrealistic stable state, the paper explores the pattern of dialogue processes necessary to the coherence and evolution of a complex social system characterized by opposing views. This perspective recognizes the need to sustain the dialogue between radically different viewpoints as a guarantee of a level of diversity vital to unforeseeable responses to complex crises of the future. It is argued that the dynamic and evolving pattern of such dialogue needs first to be understood and given richer form in meeting-sized groups if the recommendations of such groups for wider society are to be of any longer-term relevance. Inability to sustain dialogue in widely representative conferences then becomes an early indicator of the inadequacy of the understanding required for any sustainable approach to development. Reference is also made to computer graphic devices to manage the imagery through which the necessarily complex patterns of dialogue can be understood and sustained, notably during electronic conferences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A. INTRODUCTION This paper arises from the observation that the many efforts at dialogue, notably in international conferences, tend to get trapped in meanderings, repetitive patterns and over- simplifications, from which it is difficult to establish any conceptual distance. Worthy attempts at formulating new agendas and visions are too often characterized by lengthy recapitulations of old ideas which, to the extent that they are valuable, would be better taken as read. It is regrettable that so many key conferences give priority to affirmations, testimonials and the education of other participants -- whom it is assumed are either ignorant of the issues or have not been able to do any preparatory "homework". Do participants have so little confidence in their preoccupations and commitments that such reaffirmation is necessary? The issue of why previous dialogues following this pattern have failed to ensure sufficiently significant breakthroughs is not addressed. Rather the need to address this issue is carefully denied, usually implicitly. Such forms of dialogue are then "sustainable" only in that they can continue to be repeated in different settings precisely because they do not establish any basis for real change. In this sense a "con-ference" tends to be the bringing together of "one-shot" statements by key figures on the "conference circuit". Especially at the intergovernmental level, they are not expected to engender any new framework. The same statements are repeated in other settings. Whilst this has the important consequence of giving wider legitimacy to valuable insights, it does not help in taking concrete steps to act effectively on such insights. In particular the time-consuming effort to achieve consensus, and to express that consensus in affirmative declarations and pledges, has tended to litter international documentation with unfulfilled good intentions -- somewhat analogous to the production of New Year resolutions or to the "vapourware" characteristic of over-optimistic computer software houses. As instant communities, such conferences are a demonstration of the inability to engender sustainability. The pattern of dialogue is only sustainable for a matter of days as the increasing exhaustion and impatience of participants quickly demonstrate. It is not surprising therefore that such dialogue is unable to provide the conceptual basis for sustainable communities of a longer duration. Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda are memorials to this approach. There will be others. Deploring impotence is not enough. Assumption In what follows it is assumed that a sustainable community is primarily characterized, at its most fundamental level, by a sustainable dialogue. The nature of sustainable dialogue remains to be understood, even if its essence, like that of peace, may be that which "passeth all understanding". Such dialogue could suggest a way of understanding what is meant by "communities of discourse". The ability to dialogue collectively is in this sense a necessary precursor of any collective ability to "commune" and to cooperate -- whether at the local or the global level. ---- snip ---- This paper goes on for another 10 pages.
