Rules for a Conversation

Note: Here conversation means any serious exchange of ideas between two or more persons.

Nothing in any manner has any reference to any person whosoever.

As I am interested in ethics also, by observing what usually happens in conversations at various fora from a chat between a few friends or acquaintances to a large organized meeting to various WhatsApp groups, I have tried to form and compile a number of rules that may help a productive and mutually beneficial conversation to pleasantly take place.

The following rules may serve in lieu of an ethics of a conversation.

1. If someone considers a person not a free agent, there is no point in talking to and arguing with him. That’s the first prerequisite of any conversation.
2. Not every comment is an invitation to debate. Even if it appears so, sometimes let it go unanswered, unrefuted. The heavens is not going to fall.
3. An argument or evidence is not a challenge to your ego or to your philosophy or ideology. In the first place, take it as an opportunity to learn something different, something new, and enrich your intellectual self. And in the second place, if you may seek to counter it, do so purely with a view as if you intend to present a different perspective on the issue.
4. Behaving in a modest way, address the argument and in an impersonal manner, and never the person. Never.
5. Never ever use any negative adjective for the person but a positive one and that only when needed most. Keep the conversation argument-cantered.
6. Be patient. The battle of ideas is not going to be fought and decided here during the course of this conversation and at this moment.
7. Asking someone go read that book or that article is no argument. Whatever you have learned from that book or that article, cite it as an argument.
8. The way Karl Popper put it: Consider you may be wrong and the other one may be right, and vice versa. And most important of all, you may both be wrong. [See Karl Popper’s The Myth of the Framework]
9. It’s arguments that keep you and your philosophy or ideology alive. Never is the case other way around. Yes, bias and chauvinism have their own followers and advocates. Make your choice!
10. It’s arguments that serve the Truth, through your intellect and commitment. Be a transparent intermediary. Try to earn not a bad name for the Truth you stand for.
11. A conversation or a debate is not at all a preaching or proselytizing forum. Participate in it as one eager to learn and expand your perspectives, not as one eager to reform and convert others.
12. Present your views and arguments in a sceptical way, and not in a dogmatic fashion.
13. Never be sarcastic and overbearing. Be a pleasant conversationalist enlivening the environment with your candor.
14. A conversation or a debate is not a game where you lose or win. So, winning an argument should not be the aim.
15. Try to “Follow the argument wherever it leads.” Socrates