In a charming review of Stephen Miller’s book Conversation, Russell Baker has many quotable moments. His comments on “our bilious political condition”—including V.P. Cheney’s resort to a “worn-out old relic of slum argot” and the role that the 1300 talk shows in the U.S. plays in public discourse —are insightful and thought-provoking.

But I particularly enjoyed his description of conversation, of its rules, of its delights. I marveled at his use of lists. I loved the description of conversation as “an unrehearsed intellectual adventure.” That is, after all, in large part of why I spend online time at TPMCafe—for the conversation.

And so, a substantial quotation from Baker’s review, published in the May 11, 2006 edition of the New York Review of Books:

Both participants listen attentively to each other; neither tries to promote himself by pleasing the other; both are obviously enjoying an intellectual workout; neither spoils the evening’s peaceable air by making a speech or letting disagreement flare into anger; they do not make tedious attempts to be witty. The observe classic conversational etiquette with a self-discipline that would have pleased Michel de Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, or any of a dozen other old masters of good talk whom Miller cites as authorities.

This etiquette, Miller says, is essential if conversation is to rise to the level of—well, “good conversation.” The etiquette is hard on hotheads, egomaniacs, windbags, clowns, politicians, and zealots. The good conversationalist must never go purple with rage, like people on talk radio; never tell a long-winded story, like Joseph Conrad; and never boast that his views enjoy divine approval, like a former neighbor of mine whose car bumper declared, “God Said It, I Believe It, And That Settles It.”

Underlying this code of good manners is the assumption that good conversation is not a lecture, a performance, a diatribe, a sermon, a negotiation, a cross-examination, a confession, a challenge, a display of learning, an oral history, or a proclamation of personal opinion. And herein lies the great difficulty with the conversation that Miller calls art. While it is easy to explain what it is not, it is nearly impossible to say what it is. 

There is now, courtesy of irishkg, a Users' Help Forum in the Cafe Management section. If you've got a question that's not addressed in the FAQ, try posting it there. If you've got a tip or trick that has made your TPMCafe experience better, please share. Come one, come all!

This is democracy in action!