Source: Law & Liberty
by Wilfred M McClay
“It is not a coincidence that the emptiness and aridity of so much of our era’s cultural and intellectual life comes at a moment when the arts and practices of conversation have become all but extinct. To be sure, people have not stopped talking to one another, even if they now often mistake an exchange of text messages, sent and received hunched over a tiny screen, as ‘talking,’ and seem to prefer restaurants in which attempts at conversation end up like the discourse of platoon sergeants, shouted over the dining room’s racket. But a copious volume of words being exchanged does not translate into that thing called conversation. Particularly in an era in which openness and candor, even between friends, can prove to be dangerous in the long run.” (08/15/25)