Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Cut the 'conversation' ...

... Declaring war against bluster and rhetoric | Frank Furedi | spiked.

Increasingly, the word conversation is used in an entirely rhetorical fashion and has become disassociated from the intimate act of talking between engaged individuals. In the hands of public figures, ‘conversation’ has become a self-conscious, pre-planned exercise in impression-management. I remember feeling that a very human word had been corrupted when Tony Blair launched New Labour’s ‘Big Conversation’ in November 2003. He said his aim was to initiate the biggest-ever consultation exercise with the electorate. In the real world, however, you launch boats, not conversations.

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