We are a talkative people.  In this era of mass communication, human beings have never talked more: “social media,” cell phones, texting, email—it is increasingly difficult, almost impossible, to spend much time without communicating to someone or other.

However, in the midst of this avalanche of loquacity, a paradox is afoot: the more talkative we have become, the less conversable we have become.

We talk and we talk and we talk—but we do not converse.

It has long been noted (but not noted enough) that conversation is an art.  Sadly, though, it is a lost art.

There is doubtless a sense in which it can be said that every generation falls in love with itself.  But our generation is obsessed with itself.

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

I think that it is this self-importance that has sounded the death knell for the art of conversation. 

Like any art, the art of conversation requires practice.  And like any art, mastery of the art of conversation entails the perfection of virtues that are peculiar to it. 

One of these virtues—recognized by the ancients as one of the four cardinal human excellences—is the virtue of temperance.  “Temperance” is what we today are more inclined to call “self-control” or “self-discipline.”  The temperate person has mastered his desires by bringing them under the governance of reason.

Temperance is a virtue in exceedingly short supply today.  This can be seen most readily in our exchanges with others. 

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

Of course, a virtuous conversationalist isn’t just a good listener.  There are other excellences—civility, articulateness, generosity, equanimity, hospitality, etc.—that he needs to possess. But unless he listens to what his partner in conversation has to say, conversation is impossible.

Conversation is a civilizing activity.  In conversation, two personalities meet in an act of mutual self-disclosure.  Moreover, each personality invites the other to unveil itself.  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. 

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

Perhaps it is high time that we had a conversation about the (lost) art of conversation.

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.