The art of conversation is one I take seriously, and strive to improve. It was with pleasure that I saw an article in the Economist (Dec 23, 2006) that discusses the “enduring rules” for rewarding verbal exchanges:
- the desire to understand the ideas and opinions of others, where the purpose of speaking is not so much to get a point across as to find out what others think about it, with mutual expressed respect among all speakers equally.
- sincere good manners (gallantry, integrity, not playing devil’s advocate for its own sake, obligingness)
- charm (flattery, cheerfulness, respectful silence, no airs)
- humor (playful teasing, joking, epigrams, rhetorical flourishes of subtle wit)
It is too hard to find Americans who value conversation, especially outside of New York City. Charles Dickens complained in the early 19th century that Americans “love of trade” was what narrowed their interests and reduced their desire to share information - lest it reduce their competitiveness. In NYC, there’s a playfulness, tremendous wit and a wide ranging frame of shared reference due to the prolific cultural exposure in that town.
But here in Silicon Valley, I see that technology — even tools for communication — distract people from focusing on each other, and so further threaten the quality of conversation. Even music, as Orwell is quoted as saying, “prevents the conversation from becoming serious or even coherent.”
People complain about email, mostly, I think because of the quality of the content, and how much it demonstrates the weaknesses of human interaction in the absence of real conversational rules. Unlike IM, email makes it difficult for the participants of a thread to explore each other’s interpretations of what’s being said. The throwing of ideas AT each other is what email does to human interaction, as characterized by the common sign-on of IMO (in my opinion) and sign-off of “My $0.02″.
There’s more value in understanding what the other is saying than pushing one’s own agenda, but until the art of conversation is treated as a currency of knowledge exchange and human networking, all we’ll have is a lot of pennies thrown at each other.
