Last week, when I was watching 12 Angry Men, I felt that I really resonated with the theme of the film. The theme of the movie was how effective communication leads a juror to convince an entire jury that a boy was innocent although he was clearly guilty. The movie aimed to portray no matter how strict certain people seem in their beliefs, with solid communication skills and understanding, people can effectively convince other people of the opposite side to sway from their opinions. This got me thinking the degree to which perhaps jurors wrongfully commit innocent people due to effective communication which can lead to very negative consequences. This makes me question the degree of power we give to jurors and whether they should be moderators to evaluate the arguments being made inside the jury room.

Further, I believe that the way the juror dealt with conflicting opinions relates to a concept I learned in my dialogue class called LARA which stands for listening, affirming, responding, and adding extra information. The juror remained calm and made sure that he was actively listening to other people, and affirmed their beliefs which was important before he jumped in and responded and added extra information with his own content as it allowed him to establish his credibility and authority with the rest of the jury members before he gave his own beliefs. I believed that his ability to listen to other people, and receive input based on what he was saying was important as it allowed other people’s opinions to feel validated and often what happens when many people are conveying their opinions is that there is peace lost, and it becomes a matter of who can show they have more knowledge than the other. However, the discussion among the juror seemed to represent that of more of a dialogue rather than a debate in that there was the type of “equality” maintained in the conversation where although diverse beliefs were discussed, there was no sense of anyone trying to intentionally overpower each other.

I thought that having dialogues are more challenging than having discussions as it requires people to really actively listen and engage in understanding their perspectives before respond. Too often in debates, one person finishes talking and then the next person says their point without even acknowledging what the other person said because in debates it feels that everybody is just trying to get their point across without taking into consideration other people’s opinion. I believe on a broader level if we want to invoke change, it is important to work together with both sides to find solutions which are more often done in dialogues than in debates since people in dialogues really focus on understanding the person they are speaking with and then responding appropriately. I feel that many times it can be challenging to go from dialogue to debate especially since many times when we feel we have important content to say, we want to get it out instead of missing the opportunity to express our belief, but I value dialogues more because they focus on the end goal which is educating everybody involved about an issue and promote corresponding action.