the smedley log - suburban scrawl

Art of Conversation Faltering

A snippet from a Philadelphia Inquirer column by Stephen Miller correlating the rancor in Congressinal debate with the lack of civil debate in American culture as a whole:

Alas, in America today many people enjoy being impolite. They think it is a sign of integrity to express oneself vehemently. Moreover, angry authors, angry columnists, and angry talk-show hosts usually do well in the marketplace. The climate for conversation is not good, so good conversationalists – people who listen attentively and disagree politely – may become an endangered species.

I know people who rightly point out that civility in a principled debate is not a virtue unto itself, but the lack thereof can get in the way of discovering when someone else might actually have a worthwhile point.

Click here for the full text of Stephen Miller’s column.

I find it much easier to listen and talk someone seriously when they talk in pleasant tones. I tune out big mouths cause I get overwhelmed. I don’t understand why people like listening to rants rather than discusssions.

I’m a bit of a moron recently – I meant to reply to this earlier…

As I drift into my golden years , I become more & more disenheartened (I HOPE that’s a word) by the “Murphy Brown-ization” of the world. I know she’s not the 1st by far and had/still have mad love (as in – very, she was kind of my hero for me-the-doormat) for it as a show, but it seems a mythology exists around the brilliant but abrasive genius – making that personality the hero/antihero of much of our entertainment.

And I’ve come to realize that not only do I not want to be the one who has to work with a “Murphy”, but that I don’t want to even BE a “Murphy” – it doesn’t seem to be effective and the “Murphy” never seems to ever be happy, just sometimes gratified by a “win”.

It may also feed into me being pretty mousy disposition-wise as a personality flaw too, me adapting to prefer my natural, organic disposition. I’m sure my nut-casery could get some poor psych student a darned good paper or 2.