On the New Books shelves at my friendly local public library
I found and have enjoyed reading the 2024 book by Eric Weiner titled Ben &
Me: In search of a founder’s formula for a long and useful life. Chapter 11 is
titled Social Ben, and beginning on page 85 he discusses the art of conversation
in some detail:
“…The Age of Enlightenment was also the Age of Conversation.
These gabfests took place in the coffeehouses of London and the salons of
Paris, in the learned company of the Royal Society, and in the rough-and-tumble
dockyards of Glasgow, where Adam Smith developed many of his economic theories.
A good conversationalist doesn’t necessarily make a good
public speaker. Awkward and faltering, Benjamin Franklin was not a gifted
public speaker, and he knew it. In larger groups or among strangers, he hardly
uttered a word.
But Franklin was a superb conversationalist. On this point,
everyone agreed. Chatting with Ben ‘was always a feast with me,’ recalled James
Madison, who was young enough to be Franklin’s grandson. ‘I never passed half
an hour in his company without some observation or anecdote worth remembering.’
No frivolous anecdotes, either. Franklin’s stories and jokes were intended not
only to entertain but to illuminate.
While still in his twenties, Franklin wrote a brief essay
about the art of conversation. I’ve read it and reread it and every time I
marvel at how relevant and contemporary it feels. Franklin was writing at a
time before telegraphs and telephones, Facetime and Zoom, Slack and Snapchat.
Yet his observations about the art of conversation are just as applicable as
when he wrote them nearly three hundred years ago – a reminder that despite our
many technological advances, conversation still amounts to one person talking
to another, hoping to connect.
Most people believe they excel in conversation, he said, but
they deceive themselves (just as today most people claim to be above-average
drivers, a statistical impossibility). In conversation, people tend to go to
extremes, either focusing exclusively (and annoyingly) on themselves or
mercilessly probing their hapless conversant for some dirt. Some people wrangle
and dispute incessantly; ‘thus every trifle becomes a serious business.’ Some
people dwell on one topic too long, while others ‘leap from one thing to
another with so much rapidity … that what they say is a mere chaos of noise and
nonsense.’
The biggest mistake people make, Franklin thought, was ‘talking
overmuch, and robbing others of their share of the discourse.’ I love that
phrase, talking overmuch, and plan to use it the next time I find myself
straining to get a word in with an overtalker. A good conversationalist is a
good listener. ‘Observe, the precept is hear much, not speak much,’
he declared from behind his Poor Richard mask. The mask was no act, though. Franklin
was genuinely interested in people, and that’s not something that can be faked,
not even by the Old Conjurer. No matter how busy, he always had time to talk,
recalled a medical student who knew Franklin during his stay in France. ‘Whenever
one found him, he was available … he always had an hour to devote to you.’
Franklin knew Westerners had no monopoly on good
conversation hygiene. He expressed admiration for the ‘profound silence’
observed by Native Americans when someone else was speaking. Compare that, he
said, to the raucous British House of Commons or the so-called polite company
of Europe, ‘where if you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you
are cut off in the middle of it.’
A good conversationalist doesn’t simply master a bundle of
clever techniques. He possesses a generosity of spirit, a genuine willingness
to better, not best, the person at the other end of the table. This demands a ‘readiness
to overlook or excuse their foibles,’ Franklin said. Overlooking is different
from not seeing. You see and hear your interlocutor’s flaws, but choose to move
past them, for now, so the conversation is freed to elevate both of you.
Being a good conversationalist doesn’t mean swallowing your
opinions and beliefs. Franklin had many but never used them as a cudgel. They arrived
Bubble-Wrapped. If asked what he thought about a subject, Franklin typically
replied by asking a question or raising a doubt, engaging his interlocutor
rather than alienating him. You could surmise where he stood, but he never
allowed opinions, even strong ones, to come between people. Preserving a
friendship was more important than scoring points, a useful truth that
argumentative people fail to grasp. ‘They get victory sometimes,’ he said, ‘but
they never get goodwill, which would be of more use to them.’ For Ben, the
relationship was always more important than the problem.”
Eric Weiner didn’t specifically mention the title of that
essay or where it appeared (even in his Notes at the back of the book). It is
On Conversation, and was printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette on October 15,
1730. You can find the full text in a web page at the National Archives, Founders
Online titled On Conversation 15 October 1730. Ben’s use of Capitalization, italics,
and spelling differs from ours. After a Latin quote he begins:
“To please in Conversation
is an Art which all People believe they understand and practise, tho’ most are
ignorant or deficient in it. The Bounds and Manner of this Paper will not allow
a regular and methodical Discourse on the Subject, and therefore I must beg
Leave to throw my Thoughts together as they rise.
The two grand Requisites in the Art of Pleasing, are Complaisance
and Good Nature. Complaisance is a seeming preference of others to
our selves; and Good Nature a Readiness to overlook or excuse their
Foibles, and do them all the Services we can. These two Principles must gain us
their good Opinion, and make them fond of us for their own Sake, and then all
we do or say will appear to be the best Advantage, and be well accepted. Learning,
Wit, and fine Parts, with these, shine in full Lustre,
become wonderfully agreeable and command Affection, but without them,
only seem an Assuming over others, and occasion Envy and Disgust. The common
Mistake is, that People think to please by setting themselves to View, and
shewing their own Perfections, whereas the easier and more effectual Way lies
quite contrary. Would you win the Hearts of others, you must not seem to vie
with, but admire them: Give them every Opportunity of displaying their own
Qualifications, and when you have indulg’d their Vanity, they will praise you
too in Turn, and prefer you above others, in order to secure to themselves the
Pleasure your Commendation gives.
But above all, we should mark out those Things which cause
Dislike, and avoid them with great Care. The most common amongst these is, talking
overmuch, and robbing others of their Share of the Discourse. This is not
only Incivility but Injustice, for every one has a natural Right to speak in turn,
and to hinder it is an Usurpation of common Liberty, which never fails to
excite Resentment. Beside, great Talkers usually leap from one thing to another
with so much rapidity, and so ill a Connection, that what they say is a mere
Chaos of Noise and Nonsense; tho’ did they speak like Angels they still would be
disagreeable. It is very pleasant when two of these People meet the Vexation
they both feel is visible in their Looks and Gestures; you shall see them gape
and stare, and interrupt one another at every Turn, and watch with the utmost
Impatience for a Cough or a pause, when they may croud a Word in edgeways;
neither hears nor cares what the other says; but both talk on at any Rate, and
never fail to part highly disgusted with each other. I knew two Ladies gifted
this Way, who by Accident travelled in a Boat twenty Miles together, in which
short Journey they were both so extreamly tired of one another, that they could
never after mention each others Name with any Temper, or be brought in Company
together, but retained a mutual Aversion which could never be worn out.”
When I read the phrase “mere Chaos of Noise and Nonsense” I
instantly thought of numerous statements made by Donald Trump in conversations!
A portrait of Franklin by Joseph Siffrein Duplessis came
from here at Wikimedia Commons.
