conversation is an engine

Someone may be home.

Some time ago there was an anthropologist who lived for a long while with a North American tribe. It was a small group of about fifty people. The hunter-gatherers have typically lived in groups of twenty to forty. Agricultural group units are much larger . Now, from time to time that tribe met like this in a circle. They just talked and talked and talked, apparently to no purpose. They made no decisions. There was no leader. And everybody could participate. There may have been wise men or wise women who were listened to a bit more–the older ones–but everybody could talk. The meeting went on, until it finally seemed to stop for no reason at all and the group dispersed. Yet after that, everybody seemed to know what to do, because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in smaller groups and do something or decide things.”

—Bohm, On Dialogue (p. 19)

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Image Credit: 2headedsnake, jeremie decalf