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2 - Gender, discourse and non-essentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2013

By
Barbara Fultner
Edited by
Jude Browne
Jude Browne
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

Marianne: I know why Peter and Katarina go through hell. They don’t speak the same language. They have to translate everything into a common language.

Johan: I think it’s simpler than that.

Marianne: You and I understand each other. We speak the same language; that’s why we click.

Johan: I think it’s the money.

Scenes from a Marriage, Ingmar Bergman (1973; Criterion Collection)

If dialogue, as classically conceived in the hermeneutic tradition, is to serve any purpose at all and is to be genuine dialogue, then it should lead to some sort of consensus or, at minimum, mutual understanding. If dialogue is to produce consensus, its starting point is, presumably, a lack thereof or a divergence of points of view. This idea is exemplified in Gadamer’s notion of a ‘fusion of horizons’. Yet theories of discourse invariably explain the very possibility of dialogue with reference to a pre-existing background consensus or shared pre-understanding. This generates an apparent paradox: dialogue is possible only against a background of understanding, but necessary only against a background of difference. Thus, it presupposes both consensus and difference. The appearance of paradox is defused only partially by pointing out that the pre-existing agreement simply does not include that about which agreement is to be reached. There must be some minimal partial overlap in the interlocutors’ commitments. The less overlap, the less intelligible the other will be and the more arduous the process of dialogue.

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Chapter
Information
Dialogue, Politics and Gender , pp. 52 - 80
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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