Conversation Lessons, Doing Nothing, Churchill, Carnivores

 Paying for Conversation Lessons

Three Peasants Seated Together,
Cornelis Pietersz. Bega (1631/2-1664) 
Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

Kate Wills, writing in The Times has a small problem to solve. She can’t remember how to have a conversation.

  “It’s not surprising that conversation and debate have become the latest boutique luxuries to be curated and marketed to millennials. A US poll found that 65 per cent of young people don’t feel confident having face to face interactions…

At work functions I’m the person hovering by the buffet table mindlessly scrolling Instagram until I spot someone I know. And when a group conversation gets boring, I have to fight the urge to refresh my emails for that Pavlovian ping… It’s no wonder we’ve forgotten how to converse – the average person checks their phone every 12 minutes.”

Apparently there are now individuals who teach the art of conversation to organisations. So, in the same article we had:

Richard Reid, a psychotherapist and leadership coach, has led such sessions with people from Google, Morgan Stanley and the Ministry of Defence outlining the benefits of open- ended questions and active listening techniques.

The Art of Idling

Reverie, 

Marcus C. Stone (1840-1921)

Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

… I wasn’t exactly offline in Croatia at the weekend, checking emails, posting to Instagram. But I stumbled upon a helpful reminder to unplug. I noticed the people we passed weren’t tapping at phones or on laptops. They were just … sitting.

It’s called fjaka, loosely translated as the art of doing nothing. Some describe it as meditation, others as a lethargy, but it’s part of the culture on the Dalmatian coast – their version of the siesta without going to sleep.

… I spoke to Bruno, who guides hikers in Paklenica National Park.

“I like to sit here, for half an hour, an hour, and just look,” he said, gesturing to the canyon below. “That’s fjaka.”

I can’t remember the last time I sat for even ten minutes without my fingers itching for my phone, without feeling guilty that I should be doing something.

It’s a cultural thing, I suppose. The idea of time-wasting is aligned with sinfulness – the devil makes work for idle hands…But modern society has made us anxious and agitated, flight-or fight mode always on.

… I gave it a shot, sitting overlooking the sea, trying to channel my inner Huck Finn. The balmy breeze helped slowly settle into a stupor. Still, I felt self-conscious and had to stop myself reaching for my phone. But eventually my eyes began to glaze over. For a brief, blissful moment, my mind was blank. Will I be able to replicate this in a busy London Starbucks? I think I might attract some strange looks.

But maybe I’ll take myself to a park and sit with my back against a tree, or find a spot by a duck pond. And when I berate myself for wasting time, I’ll remind myself that that’s an achievement in itself.

(Siobhan Norton, The i, 2019)

You can’t sit still for ten minutes? Do you not: have a conversation with a friend face to face, read a book, listen to a story on the radio or enjoy an audio-book, concentrate on a piece of music or take a walk in the countryside or on holiday? Do you have to be doing something with your phone all the time? Modern society has not made you anxious and agitated. You have made yourself anxious and agitated with your constant checking of emails, posting to Instagram, tapping at phones or on laptops. Insanity is the new normal.

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare…

People

Winston Churchill, 

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942)

Photo Credit: National Portrait Gallery London
[CC BY-NC-ND]

So the best historical accounts support the claim that Churchill was indispensable to victory (in the Second World War), that his behaviour at this critical moment saved European liberty and democracy… Which is why with some trepidation, I add this. When Churchill’s modern critics, such as The Green Party MSP Ross Greer say he was a white supremacist they are right.

Churchill justified British imperialism as being for the good of the “primitive” and “subject races.” … And he was also a supporter of eugenics supporting the segregation of “feeble- minded” people and showing an interest in the possibility of sterilisation lest the breeding of “unfit” people pose “a very terrible danger to the race.”

… To insist that for Churchill to be a great man he must never have thought or done anything bad is to insist that the world is divided into good and bad people and you can only be one or the other… Yet Lord Shaftesbury supported the factory acts while opposing the great reform bill, Asquith was a great liberal who opposed votes for women and Christabel Pankhurst had a soft spot for Mussolini.”

(Daniel Finkelstein, The Times, 2019)

                                                The critical spirit at work!


Carnivores

On a night out with female friends the waiter went around our table taking orders in turn: the vegan curry; the veggy quiche; the pork sausages. Wait – what? Sausages? Actual, not fake sausages?

“Are you,” I asked my friend, with a spicy mix of judgement and admiration, “still doing that?” The sausage-orderer mumbled something about trying to get her fill of processed meat before it became illegal. We all stared as she tucked in. It was like she was a time-traveller from the 1970s lighting up from a packet of Player’s cigarettes. The scene was disgustingly, thrillingly, illicit…

 (Helen Rumbelow, The Times, 2019)

My, my, Helen aren’t some of you Londoners so very easily shocked?