I really love online conversation. I have often maintained that each individual human person is a whole world, and their thoughts, opinions and character can profitably be explored with endless interest and delight. I’m very pleased to have made a number of online friends with whom I can share any level of conversation.

Now, it is sometimes fun to have a debate. There is the excitement of competition, the challenge of matching your wits against a worthy adversary. The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. But in the final analysis, debate is a game. It is more a matter of scoring rhetorical points than seeking any kind of truth or any deep emotional sharing. The very last thing you want to do in a debate is to share what is really on your heart, because that opens you up to attack where you are most vulnerable. If you share your heart with a determined adversary, he will rip it out of your chest and stomp it on the ground. Game over, he wins. In a debate, you are well advised to filter out and ignore any facts presented by your opponent which do not support your narrowly stated position.

It is much more fun to have a conversation. In a conversation, you and your correspondent earnestly seek an understanding of the other’s point of view, highlight points of agreement, and identify points of disagreement. Having identified divergent points of view, a conversation will gnaw away at those differences and seek an understanding. Furthermore, a conversation recognizes that there are multiple levels at which communication can occurs. You may be discussing a set of facts, but your emotional reaction to those facts is sometimes a significant component in the communications. And, since a conversation need not be a competition, it is the most natural thing in the world to acknowledge both the facts that your correspondent is sharing and the emotions that your correspondent is expressing, thus validating your correspondent’s thoughts and feelings.

In the end, it is the sharing that provides the chief delight of conversation. In sharing what is on your heart, you get to know them, and they you. You gain the wonderful rewards which come from exploring the mind and heart of your correspondent, and they, too, receive a similar reward.