Conversation: A History of a Declining ArtEssayist Stephen Miller pursues a lifelong interest in conversation by taking an historical and philosophical view of the subject. He chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its current endangered state in America. As Harry G. Frankfurt brought wide attention to the art of bullshit in his recent bestselling On Bullshit, so Miller now brings the art of conversation into the light, revealing why good conversation matters and why it is in decline. Miller explores the conversation about conversation among such great writers as Cicero, Montaigne, Swift, Defoe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Virginia Woolf. He focuses on the world of British coffeehouses and clubs in “The Age of Conversation” and examines how this era ended. Turning his attention to the United States, the author traces a prolonged decline in the theory and practice of conversation from Benjamin Franklin through Hemingway to Dick Cheney. He cites our technology (iPods, cell phones, and video games) and our insistence on unguarded forthrightness as well as our fear of being judgmental as powerful forces that are likely to diminish the art of conversation. |
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Page xiii
... Intellectual stim- ulation , to most , means hearing themselves deliver lectures on matters they have already figured out to their own satis- faction . " In a recent cartoon in the New Yorker a wife says to her husband : " I converse ...
... Intellectual stim- ulation , to most , means hearing themselves deliver lectures on matters they have already figured out to their own satis- faction . " In a recent cartoon in the New Yorker a wife says to her husband : " I converse ...
Page 1
... intellectually deadening . Yet few people , he says , are worthy opponents . One man " counts every word and be- lieves they are as weighty as reasons .... Another is armed with pure insults .... Lastly , there is the man who cannot see ...
... intellectually deadening . Yet few people , he says , are worthy opponents . One man " counts every word and be- lieves they are as weighty as reasons .... Another is armed with pure insults .... Lastly , there is the man who cannot see ...
Page 2
... intellectuals whose conversation was bad for my mind : Marxists , existentialists , postmodernists . A Marxist colleague at the National Enquirer , where I worked for several months in the mid - 1960s , never stopped ranting about the ...
... intellectuals whose conversation was bad for my mind : Marxists , existentialists , postmodernists . A Marxist colleague at the National Enquirer , where I worked for several months in the mid - 1960s , never stopped ranting about the ...
Page 13
... intellectual conversation as " solid conversation . " Like Montaigne , he liked solid conversation in which he often " talked for victory , " but he also praised light conversation , where no one is " eager of victory . " He said he ...
... intellectual conversation as " solid conversation . " Like Montaigne , he liked solid conversation in which he often " talked for victory , " but he also praised light conversation , where no one is " eager of victory . " He said he ...
Page 14
... intellectual adventure . It is with conversation as with gambling ; its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing , but in wagering . " An interview is not a conversation . Two decades ago , I interviewed Sir Isaiah Berlin . I ...
... intellectual adventure . It is with conversation as with gambling ; its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing , but in wagering . " An interview is not a conversation . Two decades ago , I interviewed Sir Isaiah Berlin . I ...
Contents
29 | |
EighteenthCentury Britain | 79 |
A Conversational Triumph Lady | 119 |
Raillery to Reverie | 150 |
From Benjamin | 194 |
From | 242 |
NINE The Ways We Dont Converse Now | 264 |
TEN The End of Conversation? | 291 |
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Common terms and phrases
According Addison admired agree American anger appeared argues asked attacked attended avoid became become Boswell Britain called century cities civil clubs Coffee coffeehouses common continually conversationalist conversible world critic culture describes dinner discussion easy effect eighteenth-century England English enjoyed essay feel Franklin friends give guests human Hume ideas implies important Instant Messaging interest Italy Johnson Lady Mary leading learned less letter listen live London look mainly manners means meet mind natural never one's opinion party passions person play pleasures poem polite popular praised questions raillery reason refers remark salon sation says seems sense social society Socrates solitude sounds speaks Spectator sublime suffering Swift talk thing thought tion told turn versation wants women Woolf writers wrote young