Gradiations

Spent a little time over at 1000Plays reading this morning.  It is derivative of another conversation over at Keith's, but that is neither here nor there (there:  Attribution:  Now get over it). 

It got me thinking about the way we communicate and the atomization of conversation.  What really got me thinking is this statement:

In 2014, a group of junior and senior college women talk about the rigors of a phone call. One describes it as "the absolute worst...I instantly become this awkward person. On the phone - I have to have little scripts in front of me." For a second woman, a call is stressful because it needs "a reason...so I have to plan what I'm going to say so it doesn't sound awkward." A third also needs to prepare with notes: "It all goes too fast on the phone. I can't imagine the person's face. I can't keep up. You have to be listening and responding in real time...You have to be listening to the emotion in a person's voice." This is exhausting and, whenever possible, something to avoid.

I am thinking that this is the end point of the changes to communication over the past 40 years.  Now, I am by no means positing that communication was excellent before then, but it was more natural and less defined.  There were still huge gaps in understanding, there were still faux pas and awkwardness, but it was on a level where two way communication could be accomplished.

I think that modern communication has become stilted. Especially in the conversations such as this one, held in what was quaintly known as cyberspace.  I am not certain that this can be called a "conversation".  Even in the most generous terms it barely meets the simple requirements of that much misused description.  I don't suppose for a minute that what I do here is a conversation.  It is simply a monologue.  I have some folks who send their own monologues back and we ssllllooowwwllllyyy come to a change in our thinking (maybe).  Real conversations aren't like that.  The speed that the young woman complained about when talking on the phone is only a part of it.

I want to agree with he in some sense.  The phone is a second best place to have real discussions.  Real discussions take place in bars and kitchens and living rooms.  They sure as fuck don't take place in boardrooms.  They probably don't take place in classrooms.

I think what the young lady making the quote is beginning to understand is that what is attempted by anything less than a face to face, beer in hand conversation is a concerted effort to proselytize ones worldview and plan.  I am guilty of this, I am certain that anyone else is the same. Consider for a moment the phrase in red above.  This is simply defending a set of preconceptions, how that person thinks things should go.  I think that her little notes to herself are her legal briefs to convince others and herself.

One of the most difficult thing that a human can do is to communicate freely and in a bi-directional manner.  What we tend to do here, if one wants to call it a conversation is it is a very slow one.  The speed of the conversation itself is a bar to real communication as it allows us time to have our ideas congeal and to convince ourselves that we are capable of having everything thought though and to harden the defenses of an imperfect thought.