Relational Dialectics

Theorists for Relational Dialectics?

• Karl Marx

• Leslie Baxter and Mikail Bakhtin

• Martin Buber

Dialectics are…

“dynamic, opposite, tensions”

 Dynamic—always in flux

 Opposite—contradictory, irreconcilable

Marx?

Political Philosophy

 Thesis (status quo) + Antithesis (revolt/revolution)=

Synthesis (new state of being)

Baxter and Bahktin?

• “Relational dialectics: The dynamic and unceasing

struggle between discourses about interpersonal

relationships.”

 Unlike Marx, B&B believe that you manage these

tensions not solve or resolve them.

Discourse

Steams of talk that cohere around a given object of meaning

Constitutive Approach

The belief that communication creates, sustains, and

alters relationships and the social world; social construction

Utterance Chain

Discourses spoken across a relationship, including words spoken before and those yet to come.

Monologue

Dominant talk that silences competing voices

Dialogue

Multiple voices; talk where unity and difference play with and against

one another

Discursive struggles

Two or more discourses compete for dominance over meaning

Three types of relational dialectics

1. Integration/Separation

2. Stability/Change

3. Expression/Nonexpression

Internal and External Forms

Each dialectic has two types of dialectic expression:

 Internal—between members of the relationship

 External—between the relationship and others

Integration/Separation

Dialectic is the simultaneous need to be together and the need not to be together!

Internal:

 Connectedness/Autonomy—Members of the relationship feel

both the need to be with each other and have their own space

External:

 Inclusion/Seclusion—The relationship feels both the need to be

with others—family and friends and the need to be alone and

away from others

Stability/Change

Dialectic is the simultaneous need to have the relational function in predicable ways (maintain the status quo) and have the relationship change and try new things!!

Internal:

 Certainty/Uncertainty—Members of the relationship feel the

need to do familiar routines and try something different with

each other

External:

 Conventionality/Uniqueness—The relationship feel the need to

present themselves to others according to accepted social

norms and to be different from those norms

Expression/Nonexpression

Expression/Nonexpression dialectic is the simultaneous need to be

open and share thoughts and the need to keep things to yourself!

Internal:

 Openness/Closedness—Members of the relationship feel the

need to both openly share and disclose with each other and the

need to keep some thoughts private and to themselves

External:

 Revelation/Concealment--The relationship feels the need to

share details of their relationship and experience with others and

the need to hide some aspects of the relationship from others

Dominant

central, prominent, power to define

Marginalized

peripheral, lacking power to define meaning

Separation

voicing different discourses at different times

Interplay

voicing different discourses at the same time

Spiralizing Inversion

moving spontaneously between tensions

Segmentation

planned and scheduled movement between the two

tensions

Negating

Mentioning a marginalized discourse in order to

dismiss it as unimportant

Countering

Replace an expected discourse with an alternative

discourse

Entertaining

Recognizing that every discourse has alternatives

Transforming

Combining two or more discourses, changing

them into something new

Aesthetic Moment

A fleeting sense of unity through profound respect for disparate voices in dialogue

Buber?

Dialogic Ethics, I-It, I-Thou, narrow ridge

I-It relationship

We treat the other person as a thing to be used; created by

monologue

I-Thou relationship

We regard the other person as the very one we are;

created by dialog

Narrow Ridge

A metaphor of I-Thou living in the dialogic tension between

ethical relativism and rigid absolutism