The Communicative Relationship Between Dialogue and Care By Mari ...

turned inward to ourselves leaving us disconnected from our neighbors. This postmodern moment is marked by skepticism that has led to routine cynicism that in turn has led to existential mistrust. These conditions of postmodernity prevent us from realizing the importance of care to human interaction and existence. Emotivism and skepticism have left us without the communicative background to answer the call of care. Existential mistrust has left us unconnected and at a loss as to how to engage the changes this moment demands. With no ground to stand on, even those who recognize the demands to care have trouble trusting the communicative relationship with the other.

Dialogue as the labor of care is a possible communicative ethic offered as a guiding background for our foreground actions to meet the demands and questions of this postmodern historical moment.

Dialogue as the Labor of Care:
Exploring the Conceptual Map

Dialogue as the labor of care comes to life in the following chapters. After situating the conversation in communication and exploring the communicative habits of the heart, dialogue and caring, our work establishes a possible communicative ethic responsive to the devaluation of caring. To this point, the connection between dialogue and caring has not been fully developed. Furthermore, although noted as important, the labor component of dialogue and caring has not been explored in theoretical work. Through the philosophical foundations of Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt, this work examines the interplay of dialogue, labor, and care. Victor Hugo's epic story Les Misérables serves as a way to perceive the power of inviting dialogue into the caring relationship and as an exemplar of the unity of contraries that is life—joy and suffering, blessing and burden.

This chapter introduced the current status of a communicative problem that devalues care in our society and sets the stage to argue for a communicative ethic that is an active interplay between dialogue, labor, and care. Chapter 1, “Dialogue: Communicative Implications,” briefly