ABSTRACT
Face-to-face communal discussion confronts the personal truths with that of a diversity of communal others, each on his or her own trajectory through life. Such communication offers a direct way for grasping the dialectical logic of truth through contradiction, since it confronts people in the most inescapable way possible with in between situation. Socrates and Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Marx were passionately involved in the troubles of their times, all in pursuit of a truth quest. The mandala, for Herman, like one's own integral worlds, offers a model for communal activation leading to political and economic transformation without overt power plays, since it works continually to challenge the lure of power and privilege with love for the beauty of the path with a heart. It involves the build up of a direct democracy, the crafting of a restorative big picture, the development of a discursive community, and ultimately group individuation, resulting overall in pursuit of a truth quest.
