Crazyfinger

Be There or Be Square

OK folks, only one more week to go for the blog-post contest deadline! (See below post)

I know there are scores of you out there who have already expressed cogent and reasoned thoughts on the art of conversation elsewhere, so what's keeping you mum?  Come on, don't be shy, and don't be afraid to "stick your neck out."  After all this is blogosphere! 

If your blood curdled at a partisan debate, if you shook your head in shuddering disbelief, if you found yourself throwing up your hands at the blatant "one-sided-ness", at the head-in-the-sand attitude, and at the growing discontent about where our conversations are going, then this is your moment!  Step up, put your best foot forward, and be heard! 

What the heck are you hesitating about?  So you think you are a fortunate son, content with "Hail to the Chief," are yuh?   Time to awaken your sleeping 21st century schizoid! 

With apologies to King Crimson, what do you want your epitaph to be?  Haven't you noticed?  The wall on which the prophets wrote is cracking at the seams.  Upon the instruments of death the sunlight brightly gleams.  Are you waiting for every man to be torn apart, with nightmares and dreams, with no one to lay the laurel wreath as the silence drowns the screams? 

Or, are you trapped between the iron gates of fate?  Look around, the seeds of time were sown all around you!  And watered by the deeds of those who know and who are known!  Don't you know, that knowledge is a deadly friend, when no one sets the rules?  Don't you know that the fate of all mankind is in the hands of fools!

Are you going to just sit there?  Is confusion your epitaph?  Will there be anyone to listen, if tomorrow you'll be crying? 

Remember, August 4th is the due date, so keep your eyes on the prize! 

Win a Free Copy of Stephen Miller's "Conversation: A History of a Declining Art"

Some of you probably know the recent Radio Open Source show featuring Pankaj Mishra, Suketu Mehta, and Atanu Dey: “Open Source with Christopher Lydon” (July 19th, 2006) “A Class Profile of India“.   Amardeep Singh's preview post on Sepia Mutiny here.  Atanu Dey's impressions on the show in the aftermath here.  My comment on Atanu's blog here.

OK, so you now have the background.  Like I say in my comment above and most everywhere else I comment, a big problem with the debates and discussions in the Indian blogosphere (just as in much of the blogosphere, not to single out Indian blogs) is the rank polarization that has seeped in.  Polarization of all sorts: right vs. left, capitalist vs. communist, women vs. men, desi vs. NRI, and on and on, over and again just killing the conversation.   The above-mentioned radio show is a good example of how negative and pointless the conversations, even when they involve respected writers and an economist, can regress to.  Blogs, after all, are great tools for conversations but even here we somehow manage to "regress to the mean" again and again.

After listening to the Mishra, Mehta and Dey's conversation radio show, I got to thinking in what way we can improve the way we converse.  As it happened, A. G. Noorani wrote a good review of a very timely new book, "Conversation: A History of a Declining Art" by Stephen Miller.   Amazon link for the book here. 

One thing led to another and I ended up listening to On Point's radio show with the author Stephen Miller, titled "A History of Conversation."   A really, really good show, which spurred me to announce the following.

I am offering a free copy of Stephen Miller's book, one each to three "winning" participants.  What I'd like you to do is:

1. Listen to the two radio shows, i.e., i) the Radio Open Source show that featured Pankaj Mishra, Suketu Mehta, and Atanu Dey, AND ii) the On Point's radio show featuring Stephen Miller.
2. In the light of the two shows you've just heard, write a blog post on what do you think was wrong with the manner in which the Mishra, Mehta and Dey's conversation took place and more important, in what ways one could have improved the conversation.  Obviously I consider Stephen Miller's show to be far superior and that it offers several insights and lessons for us to conduct our conversations better.
3. Either post your blog entry on your own blog, or if you don't have a blog then I am more than happy to post your essay on my blog on your behalf (i.e., with your name as the author). 
4. Send me links to your posts by the end of day August 4th, New York time (i.e., EST).  I will pick three posts that I like and send the author of each post a free copy of the book.  You can have more than one author per post, but please understand that the reward is still only one copy per post.  Please make an effort to give me US mailing address, if you can.   

Sounds like fun?  Interested?  Please email me if you have any questions.  Needless to say, anyone can participate, any number of you can participate, out of which will emerge three winning posts.  Don't worry about the length of the blog post.  Keep it interesting.  When you've listened to both the radio shows, you'll know enough about what makes a good conversation and the purpose of this exercise.  There is no other agenda here.  Let's hear from you all.  Please pass on the word, thanks!

(C) "Profiting from Terrorism"

"the whole set up, with its positioning of “left,” “right” and the “middle” worldviews, appeared doomed from the start...."

(C) "The Better, Faster Road to Development"

In fact peeling this onion shows us what ails our current debates. Simply put, we excel at identifying how bad any proposal is, but we suck at identifying what exactly is wrong; we don’t isolate the good from the bad...