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

With the nationwide and worldwide increases in the elderly population, the practices of care seem quintessential. “It's estimated that 22 million households are involved in some aspect of elder care, and that number is going to double in the next 20 years” (Cox, 2002, p. F1). Caregiving for the elderly is becoming and will continue to be a central concern for the American population. Currently the focus of attention accompanying this shift in the population is centered on the need for concrete things such as housing and medical care. There has not been much attention paid to the needed shift in our communication practices with this trend. With this change comes a need for a greater focus of attention on caring and the communication practices that enable caring.

The changes in the family, the changes in the roles of men and women, and the increasingly aging world population demand that we take notice and make changes in our ability and willingness to care for the other. We live in a time that is calling each of us, especially those who have not traditionally filled caregiving roles, to provide more care for our children, the elderly, and our communities. We live in an historical moment that is calling us to responsibility, calling us to action, calling us to care. These changes have brought attention to the need for care and also revealed that in many cases we are communicatively unequipped to enact the caring that this moment demands.

Even though the need for care is more evident than ever, the necessity of care for human existence is eclipsed by the manifestations of postmodernity. As alluded to earlier, the crisis of care is exacerbated by the dominant tenets of the contemporary postmodern situation and the values and ethics it endorses. We live in a time with no guiding narratives to inform our daily practices. We live in a time of virtue confusion and contention, when we cannot agree with our neighbors on public, let alone private, virtues. We live in an emotivistic time in which we look to ourselves for the meaning of right and wrong. This postmodern moment is marked by extreme individualism, a time in which we have