Circumstances dictate what ‘dialogue’ means

Words can have multiple meanings, depending on the times and occasion. The mutations are often social and political, so much that, like Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, they lose the original meaning by blending into new “word” species. With time, therefore, people create excuses for changing the meaning in order to serve social or political ends. These words include tyrant, man, democracy, and most important “dialogue” which has metamorphosed into condoning illegalities.

Ideally, “dialogue” implies discussions on assorted topics and to refine thoughts. Among the best known dialogues is the one in which Plato the Athenian presented his teacher, Socrates, as a questioning man. Euro opinion makers subsequently decreed Socrates to be the greatest philosopher simply because he admitted his ignorance and made intelligent Athenians look foolish. In the 1990s, there were also heated “dialogues” on the relativism of truth. These included heated “dialogue” on human cognitive and organisation origins during which renowned “scholars” accused each other of intellectual fakeness. And there were “dialogues” on the relativism of touchy postmodern-related issues, giving rise to the language of political correctness.