from Conversation: a History of a Declining Art

"Swift lists two common faults in conversation that are difficult to remedy: talking about one’s own profession … and ‘impatience to interrupt others, and the Uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves.’ There are also those who suffer from ‘the Itch of Dispute and Contradiction, [and the] telling of Lies.’ And there are people "who are troubled with the Disease called the Wandering of the Thoughts that they are never present in Mind at what passeth in Discourse.’ According to Swift, ‘Whosoever labours under any of these possessions, is as unfit for Conversation as a Mad-man in Bedlam.’"

"‘Good conversation,’ [Swift] says, ‘is not to be expected in much company, because few listen, and there is continual interruption.’"

"Swift has a simple recommendation for improving conversation: include women. He praises the conversation at the court of Charles I: ‘the Methods then used for raising and cultivating Conversation, were altogether different from ours’ because ‘both Sexes … met to pass the Evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable Subjects were occasionally started.’"

"‘When [Esther Johnson] saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse she commonly gave when her friends asked the reason, was that it prevented noise and saved time.’"

"Swift says that if we lack the ‘useful Pleasure’ of conversation, ‘we are forced to take up either poor Amusements of Dress and Visiting, or the more pernicious ones of Play [gambling], Drink and Vicious Amours.’"

"The New York Times reports that Finland, a country where ‘silence is a sign of wisdom and good manners,’ and where people rarely have conversations during meals, has one of the world’s highest rates of suicide, depression, and alcoholism."

"Yet if conversation suffers from a lack of politeness, it also suffers from an excess of politeness…to question someone’s views is to risk being labeled judgmental or rude or arrogant (or worse)…instead of conversation we have confession…and conversation will languish because of suffocating politeness."