Full Circle Associates

Dan over at Gay Patriot - Of Comments and Civility, II* talks about his desire for civil blog conversations, hearkening back to our loosely coupled ongoing conversations themed "us/them."

Hot on the heels was a great quote from David Weinberger::

"We are not going to settle our arguments. There's enough room on the Web to permit that. You argue for a bit, maybe you learn a little or maybe the argument hardens your position so that you become a little stupider, and then you move on to something else. That's why the 'conversation' meme is so powerful: Conversations are explorations, not title fights."

We had one of our us/them calls today. It had been a while since this loose group of people interested in how we generatively work with us/them dynamics. This was the group that inspired Bill Anderson and I to propose a panel at SXSW.

One of the questions that emerged was why do we keep having these calls? What is the value we are derriving? For me it is great to have a circle of friends I can raise issues with, knowing that no matter how much we disagree, we are going to stay with it and keep ourselves from going ballistic. That's comforting. It is also to be with people with different opinions on things like us/them and civility.

Having a community to think with is a gift.

Tags: usthem, civility,