A dialogue close to my heart
Factory farming, animal suffering and agricultural practices that harm the environment shape my daily life, privately and at work. The Catalyst Lab presented me with the opportunity to open a dialogue space and expand my view on how others perceive the problem around these issues through a generative dialogue – a challenging and fascinating endeavour.
Dialogue walk
There are many formats to foster constructive dialogue. A generative dialogue is a specific methodology that consists of developing active listening and an open mind to move beyond the conventional debate and into constructive discussions
People from all walks of life with different backgrounds, contrasting perspectives and individual value systems come together around a specific topic, share their ideas and listen intently to others doing the same. Usually, this kind of space allows for the ideas to reflect and build on each other – which means that you get to experience completely new perspectives around something that you might have thought to be closely familiar with.
It can be an enormously valuable exercise because it makes people reflect on the validity of their positions and it takes them out of the ideological bubbles they might have built over time. It also teaches a lot about the degree to which one should be open to listen to and learn from others with a differing view.
For me personally, this particular exercise was arguably challenging. I’ve been working on animal rights and on animal welfare topics for a few years now and I care deeply about the plight of animals that is fundamentally interwoven with our current food system. Around 20 participants were present and ready to dive deep into my topic of interest through a virtual space during the second module of the Catalyst Lab.
I started by sharing facts. I wanted the experience to be rooted in scientific evidence and not tainted by my personal emotions or experiences around the topic. I talked about the reality of factory farming, the cognitive and physical capacities of animals to experience suffering and pain and about the destructive impact that the food system has on natural ecosystems around the world.
The dialogue was structured along the guidelines of the 1-2-4-All method. After my initial input, participants were given 10 minutes for a journaling exercise to gather their thoughts around a handful of questions I had prepared. This part was closely followed by a dialogue in pairs.
It was challenging for both of my partners and me because there were facets of the topic where we held wildly differing views – my first dialogue partner saw no problem in personally slaughtering animals he had raised himself while I argued the moral perspective on a sentient being’s inherent right to life without unnecessary suffering. Nevertheless, we both noticed how many of the ideas we shared resonated with the other person and how below our visible disagreements, much of our thought was actually rooted in the same foundation of values (in our case the need for an increase in sustainability, animal welfare measures and proximity to natural processes).
Two additional people converted our face-to-face conversation to a small dialogue circle. New ideas filled the virtual room, disagreements were identified and once again similarities became glaringly obvious even between seemingly contradictory points of view.
After these smaller group discussions had ended, the participants were invited to share the essence of their conversations in the larger circle with everyone present. This was when many inspiring stories surfaced. One participant shared about their upbringing in a rural African village and about their unique connection to farmed animals, arable land and food. Another person shared about how converting to a vegan diet finally helped them to align their actions to their values. Others shared about their struggle to find a way to implement a truly sustainable diet into their hectic daily lives.
It was wonderful to observe, to listen and to take in all of these insights that a short 90-minute dialogue had generated. Later that week, quite a few of the participants actually reached out to let me know how impactful they had found this exercise and how they had continued to delve into thought around these issues of animal rights and sustainable diets.
Nhat Hanh once coined the phrase: «In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change». I would argue that this spirit of humility and willingness to learn was more than present with our group. And for that, I am grateful.
Further literature on the topic:
Blogppst by Silvano Lieger, Catalyst Lab 2
Silvano Lieger, 30, is the Managing Director of Sentience Politics, a nonpartisan political organization focusing on progressive animal politics in Switzerland. Their projects include the federal ballot Initiative to Abolish Factory Farming in Switzerland and the Initiative on Fundamental Rights for Primates in the canton of Basel-City. Silvano is also a member of the Global Shapers Community and focuses his work as a Catalyst on the SDGs 2 and 12.