Mason's Meditations

If you're looking for something to chew over, some thoughtful seeds for mental cultivation, bookmark this page for Jeff Mason's fortnightly meditations. To think in or take away...

Number Six: The Art of Conversation

A stock complaint of the last two or three centuries concerns the death of conversation. This does not mean that no one talks anymore. Indeed people talk a lot, and when not talking they listen to other people talk. Talking is not the same as conversation. It is easy to talk to someone without entering into a genuine relationship with him or her. Two people can talk at one another and use conversation just to vent their feelings. They wait their turn to vent, and don't really listen to what the other is saying, and why should they, since the other person is doing the same thing they are?

People speak to each another for many reasons, and they do many things with the words they speak. Straightforward communication of information is one of the primary uses of speech. Others are to give commands or make requests. Language is useful in these kinds of speaking. Think of communication in commercial settings where words are spoken and money changes hands.

When people don't need to use language to accomplish practical ends, then conversation is possible, as well as idle chat and gossip. What is the difference, and why is conversation an art? Conversation is a true dialogue that is open to its own horizons and not congested by dogma. It is a shared exploration of questions and theories. Idle chat and gossip fill the same non-otherwise-engaged time that conversation fills, but it is merely a way of killing or spending time with someone, and not doing something special in talking together that the art of conversation brings about. Whereas conversations develop over time, chat and gossip become repetitious and ultimately boring. Conversation is an art because it takes practice and skill to elicit thought from talk, to share freely the gifts of language to move thoughts and emotions in the education of our lives.

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Mason's Meditations will next be updated on February 16th 2001

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Previous Meditations

5. Having, Doing, Being (15th January 2001)
4. The Good of Things (1st January 2001)
3. Is Happiness Overrated? (15th December 2000)
2. The Fiction of Forevermore (1st December 2000)
1. The Art of Living (15th November 2000)