SOME VITAL CONDITIONS FOR COOPERATION
according to the experience of Pedagogy of Conviviality at Trópis
Version 2, revised in December 2003, of material presented at the Meeting of All Saints , in
São Vicente, 11/01/2003. LINK AT THE END OF THE TEXT TO THE GENERAL REPORT OF THE MEETING AND OTHER MATERIALS
Until today, there has been no shortage of good ideas to face all the world’s problems – technical, political, religious ideas, etc. If the problems continue to exist, it is because they resist based on attitudes that traditionally exist in each person.
At this moment, the whole world is waking up to cooperation, networking, etc. – and we believe that this is the path. At the same time, we know that cooperation is not viable… except between people who have decided to educate themselves to cooperate.
A lot could be said about this necessary self-education, but what we are looking for is the little: that little that is really essential! In this sense, we share some points, all observed in the practice of Convivial Pedagogy that has been developed at Trópis since 1993.
(1) Intelligent confidence: without a fundamental attitude of confidence, it is better not to start!
Of course, trust needs to be careful, but in turn this care needs to be restrained and strongly self-critical (distrusting oneself and one’s own distrust).
(2) Minimalism: regulations, formalities, interventions, conditions, requirements must be maintained at the minimum indispensable level.
(3) Care in communication: absolute respect and delicacy in interpersonal communication. Permanent search to understand the other’s position. Never speak (out loud or mentally) before the other person has finished speaking. Permanent self-criticism regarding the proportion between speaking and listening.
(4) Punctuality: shows that I recognize that the other person, and their time, are as important as me and my time. Furthermore: it is a form of love (have you ever seen someone who is in love being late?)
(5) Word: it is the counterpart of trust, the cement without which any enterprise collapses. What has been combined together can only be uncombined together. Anyone who is not sure that they will be willing to make every effort to fulfill what they have said, it is better not to say:
word without value, society without future !
(6) Pluralism: it is not necessary to agree on everything to collaborate. Unshakable acceptance (or tolerance) for the diversity of paths, visions, ways of being: the only thing that can (and has to) be excluded is the attitude of exclusion or imposition. (Note: the attitude, not the person: the exclusion of a person or institution is an extreme resource, only when that person or institution, itself, firmly adheres to the attitudes of exclusion or imposition).
(7) Patience in decisions: lasting decisions are not made with votes where a defeated party remains, but rather through the laborious construction of consensus solutions that include all positions to some extent; To achieve this, all participants must also have the maturity to accept a certain measure of loss in their positions, and not place demands beyond the minimum indispensable.
(8) Practical modesty: never acting or speaking as if you already have enough answers – whether based on experience, a PhD , Divine Revelation or whatever: this would be a form of attitude (see 4). Reality is always greater than anyone’s knowledge, and constantly requires the construction of new answers; and when you cooperate, this construction needs to be joint. That the people involved feel a personal relationship with the built system is more important than the efficiency of the system in abstract terms.