During the first semester of my second year, I chose the book “Dialogue – The Art of Thinking Together.”. Overall, this book did not help me learn much about dialogue. It is great, only if the reader is a newcomer to dialogue. My whole experience reading the book was basically re-learning the concept of dialogue. Here in this reflective text, I will thus highlight good points from the book.

2. WE ARE MISSING DEFENSIVENESS IN DIALOGUE?

There are two types of defensiveness in a discussion: productive defensiveness and unproductive defensiveness (Isaacs 1999, 51 – 52). Productive defensiveness focuses more on dialectics and skillful conversation. In the opposite, unproductive defensiveness tends to lead the conversation to a debate with controlled discussions rather than progression. To simplify this, defensiveness in dialogue is needed to co-build common understanding, it requires the attendants to balance between listening, suspending and most importantly, having constructiveness-oriented mindset.

What I have seen from most of Averi’s pajas is that we are more and more likely to avoid an active defensiveness due to the fear that it could break the values of a dialogue. For me, I understand this well as I used to think the same. I brought this matter to my team at a Paja on 17.11.2025. It is necessary for everyone to be aware of this as I believe that avoiding defensiveness can potentially weaken a certain dialogue as collective opinions are unable to be met.

Nevertheless, let’s change the perspective a little bit. We all know that being defensive is wrong. Yet, we are defensive daily although we don’t want to. Why is that? I searched for a very interesting article posted on Calm.com website about “When we feel attacked, we get defensive — but that’s only part of the story. Understand what’s beneath defensiveness, how it impacts relationships, and 9 ways to soften.” and it explained quite well the reason behind this kind of reaction:

The people in my team didn’t always grow up in a memorable childhood. Some of us experienced negative impacts from the culture, family, etc. so much that the scare of being looked down on became an instinct. When an environment seems to be like the one they were in, it is totally understandable for their false reaction, regardless of the original intention.

For me, I also must ask myself an important question: how can I measure the impact of my defensiveness? I want to challenge myself because if I act defensively for a consecutive time, It might ruin my image and also change the way how people perceive me, either as a teammate or an outsider. If defensiveness grows out of experiences like these, the goal cannot be to remove it completely, because that would mean asking people to erase their history. What matters is whether the reaction takes over the conversation. Productive defensiveness begins when a person notices the reaction, names it, and keeps listening anyway. Unproductive defensiveness begins when the reaction does the talking and the discussion becomes a contest over who is right. In this sense, suspending is not about staying silent or hiding disagreement. It is pausing long enough to ask what exactly I feel threatened by. Sometimes it is the idea itself, but often it is the tone, the timing, or the fear of being judged. Once that is clear, I can answer the actual point instead of the feeling behind it.

For Averi, the solution is therefore less about a rule such as “don’t be defensive” and more about creating safety. If members know a different opinion will not be read as an attack, they have less need to protect themselves. Defensiveness is not the enemy of dialogue. It is a signal that something important to someone is at stake, and listening to that signal may be the fastest way to build the common understanding I mentioned at the start.

3. CONVERSATIONAL VIOLENCE

Introduced at page 346 of the book and later explained at page 351 (Isaacs, 1999), “These people believed their own points of view. They were also quite certain of their perspectives, advocating them strongly. Each one had a partid, abstract take on what happened that they tended to believe was; the whole story. And they inflicted a kind of conversational violence on one another in the interest of “getting at the truth,” thai: mirrored the combative tactics on both sides.” In general, deliberation in a dialogue is a must for anyone regardless of opinion since not only is productive result unguaranteed but also, the relationship could be in jeopardy.

This idea links me to two real-life examples. On a YouTube video showcasing the visit of the infamous conservative activist Charlie Kirk to University of Tennessee, posted on December 2025, he debated against the students with good conversational skills. Instead of trying to cut their words, he preferred to let them introduce their points, then clearly explaining his perspectives with respect. Meanwhile, another conservative activist Andrew Tate during a talk show with well-known porn star Bonnie Blue, he showed the audience a firm and aggressive conversation against the visitor. He didn’t use dialogue tools to meet productivity but merely attempted to dominate the conversation. If you make a simple comparison between them, the lack of understanding, facilitation and deliberation could not lead to a good dialogue.

What struck me about Isaacs’ phrase is that this kind of violence usually isn’t physical, and it often doesn’t even look hostile. It comes wrapped in good intentions. If I’m convinced I have the truth, cutting someone off or talking over them can feel justified, like I’m doing everyone a favor by getting to the point faster. But I’m actually closing down the one process that might get us to the truth. Each person only sees part of the picture, so when I silence someone, I lose the piece they were holding.

That’s why the skills Isaacs suggests seem so important to me. Listening without resistance, treating the other person as someone who might actually teach me something, holding back my certainties instead of defending them, and saying what I really think are what make a conversation a dialogue and not a fight. Suspending is the hardest one for me to imagine doing well. It means keeping my opinion loose enough to set it next to someone else’s without dropping it completely.

Looking at the two examples this way, I think the difference between them is about method, not opinion. You can agree or disagree with Kirk’s politics and still notice that letting the students finish before he answered kept the conversation going. Even when they disagreed, the students were treated as people worth listening to, and anyone watching could follow both lines of reasoning. Tate treated the conversation like ground to capture. A raised voice and constant pressure might look strong on camera, but they give the other person no space to think, so nothing new comes out of it. Viewers remember who dominated, not what anyone learned. That’s the “combative tactic” Isaacs warns about, because it ends up copying the very conflict it says it wants to resolve.

The part I cared about the most is what happens to the relationship afterward. Even if a heated argument produces a “winner,” the other person rarely leaves convinced. As usual, they leave defensive, and the next conversation starts from a worse place. In a family, a friendship or a workplace, that damage can last much longer than the argument itself. A dialogue that protects relationships, even without agreement, leaves room to understand each other later.

Thinking about all this, I can see how easily I could get into the same habit, especially on topics I feel strongly about. Being certain feels like strength, but it can also be a blind spot. What I’m taking from Isaacs is a simple question to ask myself before I speak: am I trying to understand, or am I trying to win? Dialogue only works when both people walk away with something they didn’t have before, and that takes patience, curiosity, and a willingness to hear just a part of the story I haven’t seen yet.

REFERENCES

Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue – The Art of Thinking Together. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group.

Charlie Kirk. 2025. Charlie Kirk VS the Wokies at University of Tennessee. Video. Released on 03.09.2025. Read on 16.12.2025. https://youtu.be/lef9n9LrhNE?si=Pbt91yyqDdJXgKZA

Rob Moore. 2025. Andrew Tate vs Bonnie Blue Goes WILD! [FULL VIDEO]. Video. Released on 24.06.2025. Read on 17.12.2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lom1D8raoA4

Calm Editorial Team. N.d. Struggling with defensiveness? 9 ways to let down your guard. Calm Blog. Read on 20.9.2026. https://www.calm.com/blog/defensiveness