Conversation

Talking with Rach on the old email the other day about conversation. We were chatting a while back in Sheffield and I was just conveying the basics of how we perform conversation and she was saying even at that point that she knew what I was saying (smart girl that one;-) ) but she emailed the other day about agreement in conversation and how she was having difficult with the difference between agreement and disagreement in the context of both argument and debate. It is a difficult one to explore, particularly when you don't have a transcript of anyone one conversation, so I was just thinking about making an answer to the question that she had raised in the course of her email.
I can imagine people having difficultty with debate, particularly if the personal relationship is not particularly evloved or strong. The point my friend raised is that if conversation works on agreement, yet when we debate we always disagree, how can we still have a conversation? My response was to make clear that boundary between mundance conversatio nin everyday life, and specific, debate orientated discussion. The trick, simply, is to not let the two inter-twine. Just because, say, two people share radically different politics, does not mean to say they can't be friends outside in the ordinary world. The phrase 'agree to disagree' would be a particualrly salient one here, I think. Just think how hard daily life would be if we couldn't speak to the people we disagreed with on some level, your choice of conversation would be dramatically lowered! It's an extreme example, but does, I hope, illustrate well the point I am trying to make.
There are, don't get me wrong, certain things upon which, if two people do not agree, can break a friendship before its begun; or worse, if it has. But for the great majority of life, it is nice to know that humanity can put aside its differences for the most part, and live with some degree of harmony (I just can't bring myself to say peace given the current state of the world).
rik