a good conversation Precisely because it is a time in which communication is the magic word, a good conversation is less than ever natural. To a large extent, a true conversation seems to become less important now that communication from person to person increasingly occurs through email, sms messages or on facebook. The mass media dominate our lives and flood us with an excess supply of information. The content of conversations mainly consists of what we heard through these channels, and ever less of what we have to tell each other personally. In the end, it is more important to be knowledgeable and informed. He who is not, can no longer participate in conversations, so to speak, and therefore rather is silent.
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lso the quality of our personal conversations says a lot about our conversational confusion that keeps our ‘global community’ in its grasp. Every individual must have a clear opinion about everything, preferably substantiated by quite a number of arguments and defended with the necessary decisiveness. After student riots had broken out at Columbia University in New York City, the philosopher Jacob Needleman, author of Lost Christianity and a teacher at this institution, was interviewed on the stairs of the university by a number of journalists asking for his opinion. ‘I don’t know,’ Needleman answered very quietly. When they were not satisfied by this seemingly evasive answer, he repeated his words, because they were true: he did not know what to think of it. When, after some pressure, he still didn’t choose sides, the astonished reporters gasped: ‘This means that you do not have an opinion?’ Needleman had the sensation that this was worse than committing a serious crime. Obviously, this conversation never made it into the media, because it is really unusual not to talk extensively to journalists. Our world of information threatens to become so polarised that people are almost forced to agree with this person and to disagree with someone else. In this way, we slide back to extreme convictions for the sake of clarity. Doubt and hesitation are detrimental to public opinion. A strong point of view is demanded about the most diverse subjects. We have to be able to justify or substantiate our own opinion with 44 pentagram 1/2011
striking examples. It is logical that a conversation then often degenerates into a discussion, a debate, or rather a controversy, and that people lose themselves in verbal one-upmanship In this way, we are no longer far from replacing the truth by being right. There was an old discussion technique in pre-Christian Greece, used by the sophists, who even exploited it for money. The first prize of this sparring match was the recognition of being right, usually confirmed because the winner had the last word. Therefore, to whom should we better turn in our attempt to describe what we mean by a good conversation, than to the Greek philosopher Socrates, father of the Socratic dialogue, which earned him the hostility of the sophists? Socrates was not a master of superficial conversation about the weather or persuasion to his personal conviction, but what he did was to take away all certainties of his conversation partner. By continuously asking new and ever-deeper probing questions, he tried to bring his partner into a state of utter not-knowing. In this way, all self-assured babble was ended. In this context, Socrates exemplified this himself, because he neither knew nor made a pretence of knowing, thus to a certain extent always seeming to be wiser than the others. Karen Armstrong was justified in referring to the Socratic discussion technique in her latest bestseller The Case for God. According to her, this technique taught her that a dispute about the great ques-
