The lost art of conversation

June 30, 2025

Andrew Sloane

Meaningful conversation seems to be a dying art. There are words, yes, and lots of them—more than at any time in human history. But, just as all too often our society’s expanding knowledge comes with the shrinking of wisdom, so too, it seems the more words, the less conversation.

 I’m not talking about the superficial interactions designed either to fill in time at some obligatory social event, or (rarely, if more positively) to explore whether this is someone you could have a real conversation with. There’s no shortage of small talk, but there seems to be precious little conversation.

 Perhaps that’s a response to being overwhelmed by the flood of information streaming from the firehose of social media and information technology. We retreat into sheltered safe zones, the (now cliched) echo chambers of social media. Or we go on the attack, lobbing rhetorical shells across the wastelands of culture into the trenches of our foes, lest they get a hearing and establish a beachhead in our ever-diminishing shared landscapes.

 Perhaps it’s a sign of the alienation of the toxic individualism of late-modern capitalism. We prefer to mediate interaction through our devices—sitting around a table in a café all glued to our screens—rather face the immediacy of another human facing us.

Or perhaps I’m just a disillusioned old man struggling to cope with changing patterns of social interaction. Perhaps.

Be that as it may, I don’t want to attack these questions head-on. Others like Andy Crouch have done that, and more ably than I can.[1] But coming at it aslant might help us see something more clearly, so, indulge me, if you will, in a spot of reminiscing.

Many years ago, like countless others, I made nerdy pilgrimage with my wife and a couple of good friends to a nondescript pub in Oxford. There, in the back room of the Eagle and Child, we had a pint in honour of our literary heroes. The Inklings was a group of friends who met at the pub regularly for conversation, and to share and discuss pieces they were writing. It was a classic ‘iron sharpening iron’ group that helped shape literary greats like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.[2]

While we were sipping our pints under photos of Lewis, Tolkien and friends, we had a very ‘meta’ conversation about conversation and the odd (and painful and delightful) experience of watching ideas emerge like glimmers of gold through the strange alchemy of friendship. In that space and time we participated in and celebrated the art of conversation. 

It prompted me then and now to think about conversation and what it means to be human. 

First, and most obviously, a conversation of that kind both expresses and deepens relationships with others. Occasionally, conversations like that surprise us when we meet someone new, and we who met as strangers part as friends. More often they grow out of relationships with people we trust and who trust us. Not perfect people, but the kind of people who, when they’ve hurt us in the past, or let us down, acknowledge it and do better (and who invite us to do the same)—often in the very conversations that grow out of those relationships.

Less obviously, the probing conversations good friends bring, can help us see new things in ourselves—things we don’t see, and at times would rather not. The best friends, and conversations, help us not only see those things, but open up new and richer possibilities of who we might become, and how we might live. It’s the kind of thing we might pay a therapist to do. Friends do it free of charge: the only price being the expectation that we will honour their wisdom, and pay them enough respect to return the favour. I wonder—with no disrespect to counsellors and psychotherapists—if the loss of the art of conversation, and the rich friendship it forms, is behind the growing need for therapy? Have we, perhaps, outsourced friendship to paid experts? 

Moreover, the way new ideas and possibilities might be generated in conversation with others, tells us something about the nature of being human. We are fundamentally relational and social beings. We are created in and for relationships—with God, sure, but also with other flesh and blood humans, as Genesis 2:18 tells us. Those relationships operate at the broad social level, but they are also interpersonal, expressed in small gatherings of people interacting with each other. 

The best interactions often involve sharing food and drink (which is why conviviality and hospitality are so important), and they always involve meaningful two-way communication—in short, conversation. They generally occur most profoundly in shared time and space. We are, after all, embodied beings. Limited, it is true, by space and time, but also enabled by it.[3] It is when we breathe the same air that our shared breath condenses into new ideas, insights, new possibilities, new questions. 

The nature of embodiment explains not just the benefits of conversation (and how they happen), but also how much we need it, and what we need in order to make meaningful conversation happen. We are finite creatures, with finite capacities, and finite time, and so, we always have more to learn. Others fill gaps in our knowledge and wisdom (and, dare I say, goodness) that must be filled if we’re to navigate the world better, and be better humans. The virtue that’s linked to finitude is humility; and in conversation humility is expressed by listening. Indeed, the key to conversation is not learning how to be a better talker, but listener, and to adopt the humble posture it necessitates. 

Both listening and the humility it requires, are fundamental to the civility that makes good conversation possible, and which is, in turn, fostered by it. Listening empathically, with a view to learning from others is what allows us to discuss difficult ideas, to see another’s point of view and why they think the way they do. Perhaps we may be persuaded that there’s something in what they have to say. Listening enables us to understand arguments, recognise nuance, perceive complexity, learn greater humility. Indeed, it helps us learn more about ourselves and grow as persons. By contrast, listening with a view to storing up conversational ammunition to fire back shuts such opportunities down.

And so, as I think about connection and disconnection, I’m drawn back to that moment in time, that particular place in Oxford, where I experienced rich conversation, and something of the delight of being human. A time and place where I experienced—and, please God, exemplified—the virtues of good conversation, the virtues of finitude, the virtues of good relationship, the virtues of functioning community. A time when I gained a little more of the wisdom of being human. 

As we think about the lost art of conversation, and the shouting and posturing that has replaced it in so much of our public discourse, let’s try listening more and speaking less. Let’s try thinking about what good conversations amongst friends look like, and see what we can do to foster them in our communal lives. We might get shouted down by those deafened by their own eloquence, or drowned out in the multiplying echoes of a new tribalism. But we can make sure we’re not generating the shouts or mindless echoes. And perhaps, by the mercy of God, we might get the chance to spark an actual conversation. 

Rev Dr Andrew Sloane is Dean of Bible and Theology, and Lecturer in Old Testament and Christian Thought, and Director of Postgraduate Studies at Morling College, Sydney.

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