This Is Our Story

This is Our Story

Humanity United in Action,
Driven By Love and Compassion,
Informed by Science and Reason.

Value for Saturday of Week 46 in the season of Assessing

Negotiations and Other Interactions

Camille Pissaro, Lovers Seated at the Foot of a Willow Tree (1901)

The title of this topic comes from Paul Simon’s song “Train in the Distance“, wherein Simon writes “negotiations and love songs are often mistaken for one and the same.” The idealized version of marriage is continual bliss but the truth, in a relationship between sincere parties, is an ongoing series of negotiations and a search for harmony. Negotiation is part of every relationship.

The best human interactions are based on equality and mutual respect. In a relationship of people of unequal power, the more powerful party must accord the less powerful party equality if the interaction is to be ethical. In other words, our commitment is first, not to take advantage of others and second, to support each other and together create a better life than any of the parties could have alone.

Real

True Narratives

Technical and Analytical Readings

Most studies of negotiations emphasize ways to achieve or leverage power and obtain more power.

Others describe methods for mutually satisfying negotiations in business and diplomacy.

Some people are experts in mediating other people's conflicts.

Consider the negotiations in which people look beyond power to more mutually satisfying and sustainable solutions.

Photographs

Documentary and Educational Films

Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

The lyrics to Paul Simon’s song, “Train in the Distance”, include the observation: “Negotiations and love songs / Are often mistaken for one and the same”. Or, as they say, can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

With its close interplay between two disparate voices, the violin-piano sonata form naturally conveys a sense of intimacy and interchange. Of necessity, the two voices engage in a back-and-forth musical dialogue, each player in turn taking and ceding the foreground. While this occurs in other chamber forms as well, it is most easily heard here.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano (list of recordings):

Robert Schumann’s three violin sonatas:

Other violin sonatas:

Many chamber works by Bohuslav Martinů display a character of interaction that evokes this subject of human interaction as negotiation:

Mauricio Kagel’s piano trios are dark, often brooding works, evoking troubled interactions between and among the players.

Other compositions:

Albums:

Music: songs and other short pieces

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

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