The Rules of Banter Proper

The Rules of Banter Proper: 

--Attend.

--Read some to most of the materials the group chooses for the topic so that the discussion is understood to be a human/cultural/philosophical one and not your own personal battleground or soapbox within the confines of pure opinion. 

--Keep in mind that the group doesn’t strive to be a spiritual venture aimed at bringing us all to the same ethics, life goals, mindset, consciousness.  It is an intellectual, social, and emotional venture aimed more at pushing at your own edges, than striving to push on the edges of the others in the room.  Please be respectful that we aren’t necessarily all going for the same things in life.  In fact, I know for certain that I am not going for what some of you are going for, and vice versa.  Let us expand as humans to understand the rampant prevalence of trying to get others to be just like us.  Let this be one of the coolest parts of our group process—a forum where we are blurring our own edges instead of taking out the wide permanent marker and reinstating the lines around our borders, and drawing lines on each other without even asking.

--Yet let us not get into the sappy pattern of patting each other on the back and not dismantling arguments.  Please let the banter be ripping!  There is a fine line difference here that will be our greatest challenge as a group.  We need to be able to speak in an unedited, raw, bantering sort of manner—that’s the point.  Yet, we need to keep in mind that we are arguing and dismantling arguments, cultural thought patterns, and not each other.  Please attempt to listen to new angles, but also please attempt not to be forever broadcasting your particular angle to the group as if it is anything more than your personal construct of what makes sense to you.  Feel free to share that you are pissed if you are, or feeling dismantled and raw, but try ever hard not to take it personally, as others try not to make it personal.

--So please argue a new point, a new thought, but don’t argue incessantly the same point from the same angle, attempting to badger others into your angle.  Present your argument, your thoughts, and then toss it out to the group to respond to.  Then respond to them with new material, not simply repeating what you already said.  A bit of generosity, good manners, and curiosity for that outside of ourselves should take us all a long way on this one.

--We also have to take care that one or two people don’t dominate the group because they like talking, get fired up regularly, and end up making everyone else listen to them well past politeness’ time frame.  We’ve all been there at the farmer’s market, dinner parties, phonecalls, etc. & it sucks to stand before someone who doesn’t even take a breath.  To avoid this I suggest we attempt conversation style debate first, but if this fails on a particular topic, anyone in the group can ring the bell, which will indicate we switch gears and have it out Oxford debate style:  Two sides.  We’ll split the group down the middle & each side will polarize for the sake of polarizing not because you agree with the issue or not.  Two teams.  Then we alternate with one person from each team speaking for 2 minutes at which time no one else can talk unless the speaker gestures (to the one flagging a hand) that they can insert a one or two line comment or argument.  If the speaker doesn’t indicate you can talk, however, then you can’t.   Then we vote/discuss at the end of all the speakers as to which side presented the best argument, not based on which side you believe in more necessarily, but which side was the most emotionally or intellectually heavy-swinging and thorough.  All the more reason to come prepared with reading from an array of angles.

 --Lastly, the topic should be chosen by the group if possible, with each person picking an excerpt or reading and pooling these so that all have a chance to contribute and read the array of varying angles on a subject.  We can also alternate between group members as to who wants to simply choose a topic, and the readings, if this is easier.  Not to be the same person from meeting to meeting.  My bent, and weakness, is my fervor for the scholarly and my skepticism for almost everything else.  Having someone else contribute materials will be key to representing other voices that are not so academic.  However, I think if we can each time make an attempt at including scholarly works, historical works, creative works, modern works like journalism, new age works, tribal works, blogs, films, paintings, religious texts, etc. this will cover the topic comprehensively and feed everyone’s particular pleasures.  For instance taking all of our reading from the 19^th century will be very limiting, or reading all works from French philosophers, or all works from post-2000 by Americans, or all animal rights activists.  Let us strive for readings that cross time, eras, cultures, genres, and beliefs, so that our own minds can ultimately do the same.

--One more lastly, we’ll have to sort out how to keep the group ripping smart, yet humble and generous...and to do this may take refinement of the members that ultimately make up the regular banter circle.  We'll figure that out in due time.