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Conversation: A History of a Declining Art May 24 7:30 Barns and Noble
Posted by: Rod Koozmin ()
Date: May 23, 2006 09:20AM

Stephen Miller A History of a Declining Art May 24 7:30 Barns and Noble

I had been thinking about conversation in society and it's specific decline for some time. When I ran recently as a candidate for the RA board I worried that I would get too much conversation. Would I, I wondered be up and knowledgeable enough on local stuff?

The reality of campaigning was far from this I found out. Actually few people said much of anything on a one to one basis. A few people, when I tried to give them my campaign literature in front of stores, went off in a huff explaining that they had already voted and for somebody else. They left before I could ask them why they had been led to vote for another candidate. What was it about my campaign that they could not support me I was left to wonder?

Even those who announced that they had already voted and had voted for me didn't say much for the most part. Of course it can be understood that I did not want to discourage them in the least.

Most people grabed a brochure along with there shopping bags and hurrying off. Some didn't even want to do that.

So I read with interest Reston resident Stephen Miller's new book, Conversation, a History of a Declining Art.

Steve relates many hindrances to conversation which he admits is difficult to achieve. Some Democrats he says will not speak with a Republican and some Republicans will not speak with a Democrat. Possably I wonder this is the problem in Richmond? People today are just preoccupied with various media. TV, Radio, IPod, Email, Voice mail etc.

Being a Seventeenth Century English Literature scholar you might worry that he is living in the past and he dose indeed seem to venerate Seventeenth century Englishmen, but he admits email has it's place.

He relates that occasionally everyone is going to meet someone that holds such an unreasonable view that the only thing to do is to say it's time for me to leave or bury your head in a notebook if on a plane as he says he did on one occasion when sitting next to a rapture espousing Christian.

He holds Fundamentalist Christians as different then radical Moslems in that they do not want to destroy the conversible world but always want to refer to the Bible. The Bible seems to me to be a thesis in it's simplest terms of an attempt by God to have conversation with first with Adam, then Abram, then Moses, then prophets then finally comes in the flesh and for the most part is a recollection of accounts of conversations with people that disagree with him.

I've noticed men are for the most part less likely to be conversational, though there have been a a lot of women that I would too like to have conversations with. I only recently went into a "Sports Bar" where conversation is drowned out by 30 televisions all on at the same time. Some men it seems to me only superficially talk to others especially other men. They first accepted their mother and grudgingly accepted their wives. Some don't even talk to them. Then I've noticed some people who are profound public speakers but on a one to one basis are difficult to have a conversation with it's as if they loose the one tallent for the other.

Miller notes that Americans on the whole are not very interested in conversation unless it can be used as a basis to influence someone to buy something. This was said back in the 1840s by a prominent writter then and perhaps has not changed much.

I think though there is a need to connect for people. Not achieving conversation in real life many people watch people in TVland in friendly conversation. Starbucks is a place where having a cup of coffee elbow to elbow you might engage in conversation. Perhaps that is the basis for the phenomenal success of this chain.

At any rate it seems to me Miller has hit on an important topic and I shall continue to read through his book hoping for a good conversation.- Rod

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Re: Conversation: A History of a Declining Art May 24 7:30 Barns and Noble
Posted by: ferfux ()
Date: January 05, 2007 12:44PM

maybe you should put dwn the book and start a random conversation with a stranger at Barnes and Noble?

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Re: Conversation: A History of a Declining Art May 24 7:30 Barns and Noble
Posted by: TheMeeper ()
Date: February 06, 2007 09:39PM

A History of a Declining Art @Barns and Noble

The thought that a serious discussion of "Declining Arts" would happen at a Barnes & Noble is laughable.

What's next? The "Declining Cuisine", sponsored by Blimpie's?

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Re: Conversation: A History of a Declining Art May 24 7:30 Barns and Noble
Posted by: ferfux ()
Date: April 14, 2007 05:04PM

The declining art of conversation over snacks at STARBUCKS

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