John Darkin: Conversation and the theory of relativity

Opinion

Professor Ron Carter, of the University of Nottingham, a guru of spoken English, has mixed views on the outcome of a survey of British people's communication skills.

The art of small talk - spoken, by text or by email - is, he says, clearly thriving. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot less "big talk".

What he means is that we are failing to engage the milkman or the lady in the dairy at 7am in conversation about the moral justification of building a high concrete wall in East Jerusalem, or whether the new Pope should have been a woman.

Of course, he is right to be concerned. At the crack of dawn my brain should be primed and ready to face the rigours of intellectual cut and thrust.

Even while suffering the consequences of reckless self-abuse from the night before, I should be mentally prepared to toss around ideological banter with my bus driver on whether Einstein was really a clever sod or just a silly old man who liked mowing his lawn.

By grunting my request for a $3 ticket and receiving a grunt in reply, both the driver and I have failed to better ourselves.

By our reticence we have wasted an opportunity for our minds to meet on a higher plane and to exchange ideas which, had they been expressed, would have left us each with two ideas and the day already showing an information profit. Don't let's worry about the bus running late.

Professor Carter explains that "big talk" means discussing our ideas and having them challenged so that we may refine them, extend them or elaborate our first thoughts.

He argues there are serious long-term consequences to losing the art of conversation. We risk becoming inflexible and stereotyped in our thinking.

Samuel Johnson said: "When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather." New Zealanders have not been exempt from this generality.

According to Carter, though, modern small talk has shifted in emphasis from the weather to last night's telly, and we're good at it. If this is true, the goings-on in TV soaps and reality shows occupy our thinking more than the latest atrocities in Sudan or Iraq. As a society we have television in common, and the drama and romance it provides sits comfortably outside our own lives and doesn't threaten us.

We can deal with make-believe and it's easy to provide an opinion about it, knowing what we say will not be held against us and will, in all probability, not be listened to anyway.

Likewise, we readily engage in trivial gossip about celebrities whose images form some unworldly backdrop to our ordinary lives.

Professor Carter suggests that when we mingle with our friends and colleagues we are not engaging in enough big-issue conversations. Why? Are we afraid that giving our opinion may reflect badly on us? Will people whisper behind our backs that we are a clever clogs and too serious to be fun company?

It's hard to know where a big-issue talk might start. "Now look here, driver. I've been meaning to ask your opinion on what differences there would be in the world had Einstein been a watchmaker rather than a mathematical physicist?"

"Good one, interesting passenger. Perhaps this bus would always run on time."

Small talk has a place in relationships. It helps to break the ice with strangers and enables us to touch base with acquaintances.

But Professor Carter is right to raise the issue. Think how much more we could achieve if we were all practised at analytical thought and articulate expression. If the words used up on trivia were used instead to inquire, discover and share wisdom, the problems besetting the world may be fewer.

But the reality lies in dealing with the challenges present in everyday life. Surviving the nitty-gritty of home, family, work and friends hardly leaves time to contemplate our navels, let alone find the words to bring out the inner philosopher.

In the meantime we are happy to gossip and small-talk soaps which, as Einstein might have said, are relative to our lives. But we could try giving big talk a go.

* John Darkin is a Gisborne writer.