Conversation: A History of a Declining ArtYale University Press, 1 d’oct. 2008 - 368 pàgines Essayist Stephen Miller pursues a lifelong interest in conversation by taking an historical and philosophical view of the subject. He chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its current endangered state in America. As Harry G. Frankfurt brought wide attention to the art of bullshit in his recent bestselling On Bullshit, so Miller now brings the art of conversation into the light, revealing why good conversation matters and why it is in decline. Miller explores the conversation about conversation among such great writers as Cicero, Montaigne, Swift, Defoe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Virginia Woolf. He focuses on the world of British coffeehouses and clubs in “The Age of Conversation” and examines how this era ended. Turning his attention to the United States, the author traces a prolonged decline in the theory and practice of conversation from Benjamin Franklin through Hemingway to Dick Cheney. He cites our technology (iPods, cell phones, and video games) and our insistence on unguarded forthrightness as well as our fear of being judgmental as powerful forces that are likely to diminish the art of conversation. |
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Resultats 1 - 5 de 73.
Pàgina
... minds whenthey converse withoutthemutual aweof equal condition [emphasis mine]. I foundthespirit and vigourof liberty every moment sinkingin me, andaservile fear of displeasing, stealing by degreesupon allmybehaviour.” WhenIwasthe ...
... minds whenthey converse withoutthemutual aweof equal condition [emphasis mine]. I foundthespirit and vigourof liberty every moment sinkingin me, andaservile fear of displeasing, stealing by degreesupon allmybehaviour.” WhenIwasthe ...
Pàgina
... mind, andthegay contention for paradoxical positions [may] rectify theopinions.” Echoing what Swift and Johnson say about the benefits of conversation, Samuel Taylor Coleridge saysthat conversation helped himcontrolhis dark passions ...
... mind, andthegay contention for paradoxical positions [may] rectify theopinions.” Echoing what Swift and Johnson say about the benefits of conversation, Samuel Taylor Coleridge saysthat conversation helped himcontrolhis dark passions ...
Pàgina 1
... mind is conversation . I find the practice of it the most delightful activity in our lives . " According to Montaigne , " studying books has a languid feeble motion , whereas conversation provides teaching and ex- ercise all at once ...
... mind is conversation . I find the practice of it the most delightful activity in our lives . " According to Montaigne , " studying books has a languid feeble motion , whereas conversation provides teaching and ex- ercise all at once ...
Pàgina 2
... mind . " Just as our mind is strengthened with vigorous and well - ordered minds , so it is impossible to over- state how much it loses and deteriorates by the continuous commerce and contact we have with mean or ailing ones . " I have ...
... mind . " Just as our mind is strengthened with vigorous and well - ordered minds , so it is impossible to over- state how much it loses and deteriorates by the continuous commerce and contact we have with mean or ailing ones . " I have ...
Pàgina 5
... Mind at what passeth in Dis- course . " According to Swift , " Whosoever labours under any of these Possessions , is as unfit for Conversation as a Mad - man in Bedlam . " Conversation , Swift also says , suffers from a decline in ...
... Mind at what passeth in Dis- course . " According to Swift , " Whosoever labours under any of these Possessions , is as unfit for Conversation as a Mad - man in Bedlam . " Conversation , Swift also says , suffers from a decline in ...
Continguts
29 | |
EighteenthCentury Britain | 79 |
A Conversational Triumph Lady | 119 |
Raillery to Reverie | 150 |
From Benjamin | 194 |
From | 242 |
NINE The Ways We Dont Converse Now | 264 |
TEN The End of Conversation? | 291 |
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