Comments on: Big Oil takes lessons from the left, loses hilariously http://understory.ran.org/2009/01/28/big-oil-takes-lessons-from-the-left-loses-hilariously/ The Understory is the official blog of Rainforest Action Network. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:59:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Mark http://understory.ran.org/2009/01/28/big-oil-takes-lessons-from-the-left-loses-hilariously/comment-page-1/#comment-294912 Mark Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:19:14 +0000 http://understory.ran.org/?p=2158#comment-294912 Annie, your story is great and I like your interpretation: that Big Oil is trying to do grassroots organizing, and that they failed miserably in this case, "losing hilariously." Us against them, environmentalists and industry, winner and loser is certainly a part of this story. But I have a slightly different interpretation of the final result: Environmentalist advocates and an industry advocate both tried grassroots organizing, and instead of resulting in a winner and a loser (like a formal debate), it resulted in... a dialogue: "a surprisingly good, long conversation." Check out these resources at the Mediators Foundation for some good ideas related to this interpretation and how to turn debates into dialogues: "6 Forms of Discourse," "The Fifteen Obstacles to Dialogue," "The Debate/Dialogue Chart," "Moving Beyond Debate: Start a Dialogue": http://www.mediatorsfoundation.org/resources.html We can't always have dialogues, but when we do, they can be very productive! Annie, your story is great and I like your interpretation: that Big Oil is trying to do grassroots organizing, and that they failed miserably in this case, “losing hilariously.” Us against them, environmentalists and industry, winner and loser is certainly a part of this story.

But I have a slightly different interpretation of the final result: Environmentalist advocates and an industry advocate both tried grassroots organizing, and instead of resulting in a winner and a loser (like a formal debate), it resulted in… a dialogue: “a surprisingly good, long conversation.”

Check out these resources at the Mediators Foundation for some good ideas related to this interpretation and how to turn debates into dialogues: “6 Forms of Discourse,” “The Fifteen Obstacles to Dialogue,” “The Debate/Dialogue Chart,” “Moving Beyond Debate: Start a Dialogue”:

http://www.mediatorsfoundation.org/resources.html

We can’t always have dialogues, but when we do, they can be very productive!

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