Falling into a good conversation is one of life's great joys. When a chance meeting conspires with an inviting atmosphere, we can find ourselves caught up in the back-and-forth of conversation. In retrospect we may acknowledge that we have gained insight from the encounter as well as a deeper love for the other person.
It's not the ambience alone that makes conversation rich. We often gain insight when, with someone we trust, we face up to life's hard edges, think our way around the difficulty, and learn from the other's approach.
Yet this rich experience of dialogue is often lost in modern consumer society. When the values of efficiency and production are as dominant as they are today, dialogue can be seen as no more than the trading of opinions. But that doesn't do it justice.
A recent book by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams explores the experience of dialogue. Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction is primarily a book of literary criticism, a study of Dostoevsky's major novels. It has received fine, appreciative reviews in Eureka Street and other literary magazines. But my interest here is less in Williams' reading of Dostoevsky than in his view of the meaning and function of dialogue in human life.
For Williams, dialogue is more than a fulfilment to which we aspire, although it is certainly that. It is far more, too, than a moment or even a series of moments in a person's life. Williams sees human identity as fundamentally dialogical. Through the exchange of dialogue we become ourselves. In dialogue, insights emerge that shape our lives in a way that is new not only for the hearer but also for the speaker.
So a view of dialogue that sees it simply as a means of revealing something previously hidden from the hearer, yet known to the speaker, does not do it full justice.
Central to dialogue is the response of the other, of recognition or failure to recognise. When someone mishears a statement I make, I have the oportunity to express my understanding in new words. At that moment, I can make clear what I have not said and may also be led to articulate dimensions of which I was previously unaware.
With this dynamic in mind, Williams says: 'dialogue and interaction bring to light, not to say bring into being, hidden dimensions in a speaker. To engage in this venture is to accept at