On today’s inaugural episode of the Wisdom Calling podcast, I introduce the “Death of Dialogue,” arguing for a return to a more conscientious, more virtuous communicative framework within both popular and Christian circles. As I mentioned on the podcast, I offer the following three distinctions in accompaniment.
1) Debate is not Dialogue. Debate is not bad, and debate is not wrong. In fact, I would argue that debate is necessary and healthy in a democratic society. I am one who enjoyed Charlie Kirk’s college campus debates. I know not everyone will agree with me, but the courage to set up a table, open the microphone, and invite anyone to “prove me wrong,” is not just gutsy, it’s a historic pillar, an enduring necessity in a free market of ideas. But public debate is not the same as dialogue. In a debate, the goal is to prove your position. And often, you’re not really trying to convince your counter-debater, but the crowds. Likewise, debaters don’t take the stage with a readiness to listen, understand, and be convinced; they go to a debate to prove their point. Debate is good and necessary in a free market of ideas. But debate is not dialogue.
2) Diplomacy is not Dialogue. Dialogue requires level ground–two willing parties at least on some level seeing themselves as coequals, attending an issue together without physical, emotional, or political pressure. But diplomacy is a very structured conversation, built on the force of law and power, often requiring pressure. Diplomacy is good and necessary for nations, especially when conversations have escalated to serious consequence, as they do in wartime. In April of this year, Iranian president Pezeshkian went public arguing that if progress was to be made in diplomatic efforts between the US and Iran, the two countries needed to approach “dialogue” from “a shared understanding”—which required that the US relieve its military pressure. Pezeshkian wanted dialogue, but the White House knew better. What was needed was not dialogue but diplomacy.[1] Diplomacy involves legal framework, the strategic leveraging of power, and sometimes political or military pressure. But that’s not dialogue. Dialogue assumes a common footing—a free exchange of ideas, aimed at understanding and solidarity, without pressure, coercion, or force.
3) Dissociation is not Dialogue. Dissociation happens when someone is so emotionally charged—whether by immediate or past circumstances—that he assumes for himself a different identity, a different personality, a different position, or a different reality altogether. It’s Parzival’s line in Ready Player One based on Ernest Cline’s 2014 book: “People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be.” Parzival’s online world promised to liberate people from the restraints of the real world. As is often the case, perhaps science fiction has become science fact on this matter. In the 2010s, there was much discussion around what was then labeled “Online Dissociative Disorder” in which someone would take to online worlds—blogs, social media, gaming, etc.—to become almost a completely different person, or maybe to say things online that he would never say in person. In this way, the online personality was a false projection of the real self. But after a while, you have to ask the question: which is the real self—the inner man who comes out when he feels freedom to do so or the outer man who shells himself in when he feels that society demands it? Either way, when we become a different person in conversation, what we’re having is not real dialogue. What we’re having is a hypocritical, subhuman exchange of ideas. Authenticity is required for dialogue, so surreptitious facades with emotional exchanges or online dissociated interactions in disembodied realities… these are not dialogues.
Listen to or watch the entire episode here: YOUTUBE; APPLE; SPOTIFY.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-us-trump-2026/card/iran-s-president-urges-shared-understanding-for-dialogue-with-the-u-s–Ui2nCW6UXQXcKuzWDr9A.
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