{"id":432,"date":"2012-04-22T12:35:46","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T16:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=432"},"modified":"2012-04-22T12:35:46","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T16:35:46","slug":"conversation-vs-talkativeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/04\/conversation-vs-talkativeness.html","title":{"rendered":"Conversation vs. Talkativeness"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are a talkative people.\u00a0 In this era of mass communication, human beings have never talked more: \u201csocial media,\u201d cell phones, texting, email\u2014it is increasingly difficult, almost impossible, to spend much time without <\/em>communicating to someone or other.<\/p>\n

However, in the midst of this avalanche of loquacity, a paradox is afoot: the more talkative we have become, the less conversable<\/em> we have become.<\/p>\n

We talk and we talk and we talk\u2014but we do not converse. <\/em><\/p>\n

It has long been noted (but not noted enough) that conversation is an art.\u00a0 <\/em>Sadly, though, it is a lost <\/em>art.<\/p>\n

There is doubtless a sense in which it can be said that every generation falls in love with itself.\u00a0 But our generation is obsessed <\/em>with itself. <\/em><\/p>\n

The rise of \u201cReality Television\u201d has done much to fuel this self-obsession, it is true; yet it is more a function<\/em> of our excessive self-love than its cause.\u00a0 Facebook, twitter, MySpace, Youtube, the blogosphere, etc., have given anyone and everyone platforms for self-expression.\u00a0 In so doing, though, they have inflated our sense of self-importance.<\/p>\n

I think that it is this self-importance that has sounded the death knell for the art of conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like any art, the art of conversation requires practice.\u00a0 <\/em>And like any art, mastery of the art of conversation entails the perfection of virtues <\/em>that are peculiar to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of these virtues\u2014recognized by the ancients as one of the four cardinal human excellences\u2014is the virtue of temperance.\u00a0 <\/em>\u201cTemperance\u201d is what we today are more inclined to call \u201cself-control<\/em>\u201d or \u201cself-discipline<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0The temperate person has mastered his desires by bringing them under the governance of reason.<\/p>\n

Temperance is a virtue in exceedingly short supply today.\u00a0 This can be seen most readily in our exchanges with others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most people ache to be heard.\u00a0 So, they seek out anyone from whom they can gain a hearing.\u00a0 Yet hearing and listening <\/em>are two entirely distinct activities.\u00a0 To hear someone is nothing less than to have one\u2019s ear drums bombarded by noise. The hearer is passive. The listener, on the other hand, engages in an activity.\u00a0 The listener, in contrast to the hearer, is mindful of his interlocutor.\u00a0 To put it another way, the listener is temperate, for he has restrained his desire to speak.<\/p>\n

Of course, a virtuous conversationalist isn\u2019t just <\/em>a good listener.\u00a0 There are other excellences\u2014civility, articulateness, generosity, equanimity, hospitality, etc.\u2014that he needs to possess. But unless he listens to what his partner in conversation has to say, conversation is impossible.<\/p>\n

Conversation is a civilizing activity.\u00a0 In conversation, two personalities meet in an act of mutual self-disclosure.\u00a0 Moreover, each personality invites<\/em> the other to unveil itself.\u00a0 Genuine conversation has no place for the conventional altruism\/selfishness distinction, for the hospitality of fellow conversationalists is motivated as much by a desire to forge their own identities as it is motivated by a desire to advance the interests of one another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sheer talkativeness, in contrast, retards the civilizing mission of conversation. Talkativeness reflects and feeds narcissism.\u00a0 Those who are talkative relish in their own talk\u2014regardless of what they are prone to say.\u00a0 They care not a lick about permitting others the same self-indulgence. \u00a0Sheer talkativeness relates to conversation as rape relates to love making.\u00a0 Sheer talkativeness approximates violence as the exceedingly chatty leave their victims feeling brutalized.\u00a0 While there are only subjects<\/em> in conversation, the person exploited by the chatty is an object: <\/em>the chatty reduces him to nothing more or less than a sounding board or, at best, an echo chamber. Talkativeness reflects and feeds narcissism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is high time that we had a conversation about the (lost) art of conversation.<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are a talkative people.\u00a0 In this era of mass communication, human beings have never talked more: \u201csocial media,\u201d cell phones, texting, email\u2014it is increasingly difficult, almost impossible, to spend much time without communicating to someone or other. 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