The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [27]
Listening, like housework, is observed more in the neglect than the performance.
While no great treaty could have taken effect without arduous hours of ear industry, history’s annals yield largely negative examples. If Henry II and legend are to be believed, four daft knights misconstrued a rhetorical question, “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” for orders to dash off and dash off Thomas à Becket.
Critic Kenneth Tynan built a theory of Tom Stoppard’s plays on one odd remark: “I am a human nothing.” (In fact Stoppard had said: “I am assuming nothing.”) John Mortimer found Kingsley Amis’s revelation “I hit my son with a hammer” almost as suggestive. Alas, no Oedipal tale, it was not novelist Martin, but Amis Sr.’s thumb that was black-and-blue.
These accidents happen because when we listen we iron out confusion with extraordinary, sometimes alarming efficiency, as was demonstrated in a 1967 “alternative psychotherapy” experiment. Subjects—college students—asked questions, receiving yes or no answers from a therapist in another room. Except there was no therapist: The experimenters had decided what responses would be given in advance, pre-preparing random sequences of yes and no. As a consequence, one guinea pig was advised first “no” then “yes” to stick with his girlfriend. However, although
he expressed surprise at the “yes,” responding that he had expected a “no” [he] then looked for the pattern that made this [contradiction] intelligible. Students commented that the answers had a lot of meaning.
Our ability to find patterns of meaning in the most arbitrary data is supreme, as was proved by similar tests, which created “poems” from random lines in an anthology. Does such interpretive creativity destroy the notion of art? Not a bit. These experiments underscore that without interpreters, all meaning, all art, is air. In this sense every artwork is collaborative: a conversation between creator and viewer, writer and reader. (Suggesting that a monkey manacled to a typewriter for long enough could indeed type work attributable to Shakespeare—provided a human being in another room had even longer to explain why Shakespeare had written such tripe.)
And the improvised sense-jazz of conversation is surely the ultimate artistic collaboration. Excuse me if this sounds pseudy, but aren’t you impressed how inventive we are?
➺ Rule five: Signal attention to show you are happy to listen
However, the rewards of listening aren’t always obvious. Once I believed it a chore. Specifically, my first night at college, in the pub, sandwiched between two dry crystallographers for whom I served less as jam than bland conversational glue. I wondered whether, given limitless nods, smiles, and Really?s, I need ever speak again.
But I was being lazy, projecting satisfaction, instead of seeking an incentive to talk. And if attention is disengaged, what of communication? In a tart letter, Jane Austen mocked two women who “spent their whole time in what they called conversation” yet
there was no interchange of opinion and not often any resemblance of subject, for Mrs Thorpe spoke continually of her children, and Mrs Allen of her gowns.
Who enjoys the sensation that someone has lent you his ears, retaining his mind for his own, private use? However, very often this impression is unwarranted, because many who appear distracted are anything but.
HOW TO LISTEN ACTIVELY: A SIGNALER’S GUIDE
Strong listener reactions elicit livelier speech by projecting interest. Physical cues are: Face the speaker, make eye contact, nod, smile, let emotions animate your face.
By way of experiment, fix an expectant gaze on a silent person in a group, as if they are about to say something fascinating. How long until they speak?
Take audible affirmative action too. “Wow!” “Really?” and “You didn’t!” inane if insincere, are powerful used appropriately. “Never interrupt,” a cliché of conversational etiquette, should be ignored. Good interruptions aid the flow. Such as:
LISTENING AS SELF-EXPRESSION AND REPRESSION
Signals