Let's Talk: Embeddedness, Majority-Minority Relations, Principled Pluralism, and the Importance of Dialogue

Humans tend to be embedded in their prior communally-based understanding, by means of which they interpret the world. Postformal reasoning, promoted by dialogue with others, strives for a metasystemic understanding that incorporates the wisdom of multiple systems of thought. Intellectual majority-minority relations can inhibit postformal thought and dialogue by inclining majorities not to listen to minorities and inclining minorities to doubt themselves and their potential contributions. Principled pluralism is a political framework that promotes the contributions of minority communities. These assertions are explored with relation to psychologists and therapists within the Christian community and within the current field of psychology as a whole.