conversation

  1. It is an argument that fixes its attention on the forms of human conversation, and postulates that how we are obliged to conduct such conversations will have the strongest possible influence on what ideas we can conveniently express. And what ideas are convenient to express inevitably become the important content of a culture.
    Neil Postman
  2. … the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation.
    Neil Postman
  3. But ventriloquism, dancing and mime do not play well on radio, just as sustained, complex talk does not play well on television.
    Neil Postman
  4. Think, for example, of how words “community” and “conversation” are now employed by those who use the Internet. I have the impression that “community” is now used to mean, simply, people with similar interests, a considerable change from an older meaning: A community is made up if people which may not have similar interests but who must negotiate and resolve their differences for the sake of social harmony… As to “conversation”, two (or more) people typing messages to each other are engaged in activity quite different from what is usually called a conversation.
    Neil Postman