More and more, I am starting to differentiate between talk and conversation, although in everyday usage, I use the words interchangeably.
I also write less about talking and more about conversing. So much so, as I edit my blook, I am replacing talk and talking with converse and conversing where appropriate.
Samuel Johnson made a similar distinction in the 18th century.
We had talk enough, but no conversation; there was nothing discussed.
So what is the difference? David Weinberger suggested a difference in the Cluetrain Manifesto:
To have a conversation, you have to be comfortable being human - acknowledging you don't have all the answers, being eager to learn from someone else and to build new ideas together.
You can only have a conversation if you're not afraid of being wrong.
Otherwise, you're not conversing, you're just declaiming, speechifying, or reading what's on the PowerPoints.
To converse, you have to be willing to be wrong in front of another person.
Conversations occur between equals.
The time your boss's boss asked you at a meeting about your project's deadline was not a conversation.
The time you sat with your boss for an hour in the Polynesian-themed bar while on a business trip and you really talked, got past the corporate bullshit, told each other the truth about the dangers ahead, and ended up talking about your kids - that maybe was a conversation.
And in my blook, I distinguish between what I call real conversation and conversation in an everyday sense – in other words talking.
In drawing this distinction, I have realized just how few real conversations we have; in fact, I’d venture to say that some people go their whole lives having talk enough but no conversation.
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Knowledge Letter: Issue: 270 (Subscribe)
Tags: conversation (186) | David Weinberger (14) | Samuel Johnson (2) | talking (5) | The Cluetrain Manifesto (4)
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