The word “conversation” is on a lot of lips today. In many cases, though—as when one is invited to “have a conversation” about some facet of identity politics—the underlying meaning is more along the lines of, “Listen, and then accept our radical narrative without question.”
Far from representing an exchange of ideas, such doublespeak has contributed to communication breakdown.
Nineteenth-century America, by comparison, also was an era preoccupied with conversation. It was a period unique in many respects: a high point in Western civilization when the printing press spread education to frontier schoolrooms and politicians were orators who imitated the rhetoric of Cicero and Patrick Henry. The King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare could be found in every home, where a favorite pastime for families and friends was to sit around the fire entertaining one another with discussions and stories….