Conversation is underappreciated.
When you think about collegiate learning environments, you instantly imagine the lecture hall or the seminar room. That seems like the place where learning is supposed to happen. A professor pontificates or asks “discussion questions.” (“Discussion questions” is all too often an inaccurate term; most “discussion questions” do not lead to “discussion.”) Students absorb information. Maybe they read some books too.
But, that image of learning leaves out conversation, the underappreciated art of the rambling, wide-ranging, topic-jumping foray into the life of the mind.
In 1890, William James’ two volume Principles of Psychology was one of the earliest textbooks in the relatively new field. It was, not surprising given the era and the author, a much more opinionated book than the pabulum which now appropriates the sobriquet “textbook.” Over time, James’ volumes faded from use as the field of psychology advanced.
James’ comments on the nature of conversation, however, deserve to be forever inscribed on the halls of the Academy.
When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of its allusions and the rapidity of its transitions. Before one of them is half through a sentence the other knows his meaning and replies. Such genial play with such massive materials, such an easy flashing of light over far perspectives, such careless indifference to the dust and apparatus that ordinarily surround the subject and seem to pertain to its essence, make these conversations seem true feasts for gods to a listener who is educated enough to follow them at all. His mental lungs breathe more deeply, in an atmosphere more broad and vast than is their wont. On the other hand, the excessive explicitness and short-windedness of an ordinary man are as wonderful as they are tedious to the man of genius. But we need not go as far as the ways of genius. Ordinary social intercourse will do. There the charm of conversation is in direct proportion to the possibility of abridgment and elision, and in inverse ratio to the need of explicit statement. With old friends a word stands for a whole story or set of opinions. With new-comers everything must be gone over in detail. Some persons have a real mania for completeness, they must express every step. They are the most intolerable of companions, and although their mental energy may in its way be great, they always strike us as weak and second-rate. In short, the essence of plebeianism, that which separates vulgarity from aristocracy, is perhaps less a defect than an excess, the constant need to animadvert upon matters which for the aristocratic temperament do not exist.
I first read that passage decades ago and it made a huge impression on me. Then I forgot where I read it. I have spent quite a bit of time over the last two decades trying to find that passage. I knew it was somewhere in James, and I thought it was in the Principles of Psychology, but since I had not read James’ work, I obviously read it in some other book. I didn’t know where to find it in James and reading two volumes of William James on Psychology never appealed to me enough to make it worth reading the whole thing looking for that passage. Then, for a paper I just agreed to write, I pulled Jacques Barzun’s The House of Intellect off the shelf to reread it, and much to my shock, there, in chapter 3, was the passage. Amusingly, I had no notation next to the passage indicating that I thought it was of particular interest; apparently when reading the book last time, I had no idea that this passage would form such a lasting impression. One of the many serendipitous joys of a reading life. (By the way, the passage is in volume two at the end of chapter 22, “Reasoning”.)
James is absolutely correct that the best conversations are described thus: “Such genial play with such massive materials, such an easy flashing of light over far perspectives, such careless indifference to the dust and apparatus that ordinarily surround the subject and seem to pertain to its essence, make these conversations seem true feasts for gods to a listener who is educated enough to follow them at all.” That is a perfect conversation. Start with a topic and then just let the conversation flash light over far perspectives, totally indifferent to where the conversation started or where it might be heading. One can learn a lot in a conversation like that. A whole lot.
This is also why my reading groups have a feature which always surprises first time participants. We read a book and then get together for two hours to discuss it. Sooner or later, usually sooner, someone will say something about the book which will spontaneously generate a discussion about a topic other than the book itself. That inevitably leads to another topic which is not exactly the book. Eventually a student who has never seen this happen before will get nervous and apologize that the discussion is not about the book. I laugh and note that the conversation is most certainly about the book because the conversation arose from the book and generating interesting conversations is exactly what a good book does. Or as James would put it, a good conversation about a book shows a “careless indifference to the dust and apparatus that ordinarily surround the subject and seem to pertain to its essence.” If the book was great and the conversation was great, why would anyone complain? Does anyone really believe that if we put a two-hour conversation about a Great Book in a straightjacket, we will enjoy the conversation more, learn more, or do anything more than scratch the surface of book? Great Books can generate multitudes of Great Conversations. Let them breathe the fresh air of unrestricted conversation.
The passage from James also points to another feature of a great conversation, one upon which there is a set of people who curiously frown. Interruptions. In a great conversation, “Before one of them is half through a sentence the other knows his meaning and replies.” It is indeed a massive relief in a conversation never to have to actually complete the articulation of a thought before your conversation partner commences the next thought. In such a conversation, one never has to spend time thinking of what to say. One thought flows into the next immediately as new themes are introduced and flashes of insight occur. Subjects change direction on a dime as topic A morphs into topic B without anyone noticing the change. There is something magical about the moment when someone suddenly wonders how the current topic came up when the starting topic seems so far away.
Practice the art of Great Conversation, full of half-formed thoughts, partially expressed, full of interruptions leading on tangents which turn into new subjects with even more half-formed thoughts and occasions for assorted references to all those things in your and your conversation partners’ cabinets of intellectual curiosities.
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