About Conversation

Fascinating comment from na recently about experiments with the format of a philosophy group. Read it here.

na recommends a book by William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (Amazon link included). It sounds really good, I think I'm going to get a copy and read it. Coincidentally, my sister just gave me a book she's very excited about by Theodore Zeldin, Conversation: How Talk Can Change Your Life. I read it yesterday.

Zeldin is a historian and philosopher, but the book is a very easy read, based on six lectures he did for Radio 4. He is a bit of a conversation zealot, and takes the view that the 21st Century needs to develop a new way of conversing that is distinct from the modes of authoritarian and male-dominated society. I know that will raise hackles with some people, but he does cite many interesting comments about, for example, how stilted conversations used to be between men and women. We may presume that when Jane Austen said, "Imbecility in females is a great enhancer of their personal charms", that she was speaking from experience - men simply didn't want to listen to an intelligent woman in her time. (I also enjoyed Ava Gardner's remark about Clark Gable, "the sort of man that if you said, 'Hello, Clark, how are you?', he'd be kinda stuck for an answer.") Speaking for myself - as a man - I must say that about 60% of my most interesting conversations (including, thus far, on this blog) seem to take place with women. The thought of living in a world where men and women do not converse is awful to me. So I suppose that I would agree with Zeldin that an equal relationship of the sexes is desirable for philosophic life.

But anyway, his main point is not about the history, but about the opportunity for what we might do today:

The kind of conversation I'm interested in is one which you start with a willingness to emerge a slightly different person. It is always an experiment, whose results are never guaranteed. It involves risk. It's an adventure in which we agree to cook the world together and make it taste less bitter.

The book started off many thoughts for me, although I didn't quite know where to go with them. Maybe one way is to look at Zeldin's project called The Oxford Muse. As part of this, he's pioneered something called "Conversation Dinners" - details here.

But there are many points of view on this. Personally I have some unanswered questions about the uses of hierarchy. For example, when I went to 3rd level education, I specifically chose the place that I thought had people in it that knew more than I did. At that point in my life I wanted to be taught things. My own students today seem to still enjoy that I play the role of the teacher for them. How can we have structure without stifling free thought? I would be fascinated to hear what you all think.