Conversation is an art. Like any other art, it demands of its practitioners a sustained commitment to observe certain informal, yet indispensable, conditions. This in turn requires a relatively considerable measure of self-discipline, for the activity of conversation consists of conditions toward which our inclinations do not readily gravitate.

What are These Conditions?
The conditions of conversation are rules of civility, prescriptions for all who venture to engage in it to act honestly and charitably toward one another.

These rules are of a formal character, so they are indifferent to the content of the conversation, and if the conversation involves an exchange between contrary views, it is equally indifferent as to which of the two (or more) views is most plausible or correct. There is a difference between a conversation and a debate.

What is Its Value?
The value of debate, like the value of war, is derivative or extrinsic: both are a means to the end of victory, a goal believed to be superior to and independent of the activities that bring it to fruition. In contrast, the value of conversation is intrinsic to itself: it has no external end for the sake of which it is undertaken and in which it promises to achieve its culmination. It is its own end. While debate is an inherently adversarial activity in that the principle objective of the participants is to exploit their opponents’ weaknesses so as to reap benefits for themselves, conversation is an act of mutual self-sharing through which the alienation of each interlocutor from the other is overcome.

Who Are the Participants?
Actors in a debate are “opponents,” but in a conversation they are neither “opponents” nor “allies.” It is at the risk of cheapening the term that we treat them as “friends,” even if they are friendly with one another. It is probably most accurate to conceive the relationship between the participants in a conversation as one of colleagues.

Given its regular employment within the context of the professions, the term “colleague” has acquired connotations that make its ascription to the persona of conversation helpful. Professional colleagues need not and, more often than not, do not know one another personally, and, more often than not, they are likely to disagree, intensely, over the substantive issues that concern them.

What are Its Goals?
The colleagues of any given field are united, but their bond is “thin,” so to speak, for they are not joined in the pursuit of some substantive satisfaction like “victory,” say, or “pleasure,” or even “Truth.” Rather, they are united only by a shared commitment to conserve and improve their profession. Similarly, the participants in a conversation are united by their shared commitment to the conversation -- the observance of the rules prescribing honesty and charity. Their goal, if conversation can be said to have a goal at all, is to keep the conversation going.

What are Its Requirements?
There is another consideration that no discussion of conversation can afford to omit. The requirements of honesty and charity are inseparable from a willingness to genuinely listen to one’s interlocutor. Americans are a loquacious people. The “information age” has exponentially increased the number of opportunities for communication, opportunities of which Americans have spared no occasion to avail themselves. We are constantly talking to others, whether in person, on our cell phones, or via e-mail and/or instant messaging. Perhaps it is because talking is at such a premium in our society that it is widely and almost invariably assumed that those who are most “talkative” are the best “conversationalists.” Whatever the reasons for this assumption, it is a misconception of the worst sort.

While it is impossible for a person who seldom -- if ever -- speaks more than a few words at any given time to practice, let alone master, the art of conversation, an exceptionally talkative person is likely to have no less difficult a time of doing so. A propensity to talk is necessary for conversation, but it is far from sufficient. Unless we show a willingness to listen to what our partners in conversation have to say, conversation rapidly degenerates into an episode of self-aggrandizement. Those who are incessantly chatty love to hear themselves speak, but their excessive self-love comes at the cost of repelling others.

Why is it a Lost Art?
What I have described is an ideal. Furthermore, it is a moral ideal, for the rules of civility that are essential to conversation require of conversationalists that they exhibit the virtues of truthfulness and good will. Like any other moral ideal toward which we aspire, it is to be expected that we should frequently fall short of this ideal of conversation, and like any of these other ideals, its power to enrich our lives nevertheless remains unaltered.

Given the readiness with which far too many of us lapse from conversation into incivility toward one another, it is understandable that it should appear as though conversation is a lost art. Maybe it is. But I have hope: being lost is not equivalent to being extinct.

A lost art can be retrieved.