Whatever happened to dialogue?

It occurs to me, as I read about podcasts, that we have become a culture of talkers. (And yes, I realise the irony of laying this out in a Blog.) Or of passive receivers of information - television having conditioned us in the rightness of this. What we are not is interactive.

Compare podcasts to their ancestral forbear: the ham radio. Like podcasts, the ham radio allowed indvidual control over a mass medium. It allowed the little guy to get his voice into the world. But the true enthusiast wasn't looking to broadcast, he or she was looking to connect. The thrill (I assume) came from knowing that someone thousands of miles away shared your interest in radio and could hear your voice. You, sitting alone in your bedroom in Wisconsin, could talk to Florida. On a clear day, you swear you'd could hear Chinese voices just below the surface of the static.

With that kind of connection commonplace - as we IM our friends in California from an internet cafe in Sapa, Vietnam - we have forgotten what it's like to discuss an issue. The art of verbal jiu jitsu is no longer valued. There is no give or take, there is merely the polite pause in speaking to allow the other person to speak. We simply do not listen.

I suppose it's most clear in the political realm. I have a lot of friends from across the spectrum, but it is getting harder and harder to have the discussion. We have all become hardened in our positions, as if ceding that the other person has a point weakens us. Really, it is our inability to accept that another viewpoint has merit that is the weakness.

I think that the appetite for dialogue has been degraded that we don't even accept to hear it in others. "Talk shows" no longer allow for dialogue, political debates the same: it's all just speeches. I was on a flight before the election with a friend who has different political views than I do. We were debating back and forth - a really enjoyable discussion - when someone said, "Hey, we'll be back in Washington in an hour, can you hold it until then?" (It must be said that there were no obscenities, vitriol or volume at play here.)

Ok, I've said my piece. No I can go back to ignoring everyone else.