An exercise in gauche humour, which owes a thing or two to Deborah Tannen. I
would note:
a) that the below is mostly not explicitly gendered (except near the end), and
b) that the position it describes is nevertheless almost immediately
identifiable as both male and antifeminist, if not outright misogynistic.
Which must tell you something. I shall also pre-empt any suggestion that I'm
trying to squirm out of taking responsibility for the misogyny in the piece
by 'fessing up, straight away, that I've often felt exactly like this.
Dom
//
Listening means constantly interrupting, the surest sign that you're taking
seriously what the other person's saying; just as silently nodding along
indicates inattention, a mind elsewhere.
A conversation is not your monologue plus my acting all supportive (I don't
mean not really being supportive; I mean that for some reason it's not
considered sufficient to be it, you have to act it or it doesn't exist.
Whereas for me, the more I hafta act it the less it exists.)
A conversation is a sequence of interruptions, changes of subject, swift
advances and retractions, chopping up space. The cleverest interrupt
themselves, pre-emptively. Not all sentences are worth finishing.
To have the closest and most alert attention you can pay someone stigmatized
as rudeness is cause for despair. The agenda there must be against
cleverness, against alertness. It's obvious why. Not everybody is as clever
as everybody else. It suits some people very much to stigmatize cleverness.
Without their cleverness, clever people can't operate. They're at a loss; at
others' mercy. It's like being abroad and not knowing the language. Like I
say, this suits the not so clever ones very much. Who can blame them? No
doubt it's nicer to have people at your mercy than to be made to feel
inferior by them.
Despair's the word. It's insinuated that quick-wittedness is an extension of
machismo; as if. Did you ever see a he-man that quick with his words?
Quick-wittedness is a defense against machismo. But they'd rather have our
feet in their concrete.
Distaste for the emotional as slow-setting sludge: well, there may be
something there. But if you've ever been called in to wallow along with
someone who's no interest in getting over themselves, not ever, you'll
understand the impatience.
|