A friend told me the other day of a dinner to which he and his wife had been invited along with several other couples, all of whom were very well-educated people and folks with whom he looked forward to interesting conversation.
After dinner, however, the guests were ushered to the host's home theater where they sat and watched a movie for a couple of hours. By the time the movie concluded it was time to leave for home.
My friend mentioned how disappointing it was to be in the company of well-informed, intelligent people and have so little time to talk with, and learn from, them.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it certainly seems that meaningful conversation is becoming a fading habit, an increasingly rare form of social interaction. It almost seems like a social impropriety to invite people to gather simply for the purpose of discussion. Instead, it seems that often when people come together they spend the time watching television or a movie, or playing a game, or, worst of all, staring at their phones, but they don't have much meaningful interaction. If they do talk it's often very light and "safe". It's rarely about anything that matters.
A hostess who invites people to her home for an evening of intelligent conversation nowadays might expect a lot of demurrals from prospective guests who prefer that any conversation incline toward superficial, frivolous, or gossipy fluff.
Why is that?
Perhaps one reason is because fewer people today read good books. I once had a teaching colleague who boasted that he hadn't read a book since he graduated from college over forty years earlier. I don't think he was atypical. People often neither have the inclination nor make the time to read and, when they do, what they read is often the equivalent of junk food.
If people don't read good books, books that invite the reader to think, they certainly limit the range of what they have to talk about, which suggests another reason why people might tend to avoid meaningful conversation.
The most important topics are sometimes those we feel least informed about. We may be conversant on pop culture, sports, or neighborhood goings on, but on issues of national moment - politics, social issues, religious matters - all we have, perhaps, are feelings, and exchanging feelings, as opposed to exchanging ideas, doesn't take us far or teach us much.
So maybe some people are as reluctant to be drawn into conversation on significant matters as non-swimmers are to be drawn out into deep water. They feel much more secure wading in the shallows and they resent someone coaxing them out of their comfort zone.
It's too bad. Meaningful conversation enriches our lives. It's a good way to learn, to expand our world, and to achieve a kind of intellectual cross-pollination. It'd be a tragedy if we lose altogether the ability to talk to each other about things that really matter.