Conversational level sinks to the least refined participant present

Evidence

Private relations between people seem modelled on the industrial bottleneck. In even the smallest community the level is determined by the most subaltern of its members. Anyone who, in conversation, talks over the head of even one person, is tactless. For the sake of humanity talk is restricted to the most obvious, dullest and tritest matters, if just one inhuman face is present. Now that the world has made men speechless, not to be on speaking terms is to be in the right. The wordless need only stick immovably to their interests and their natures to get their way. It is enough that the other, vainly seeking contact, falls into a pleading or soliciting tone, for him to be at a disadvantage. Since the bottleneck knows of no court of appeal higher than that of fact, while thought and speech necessarily point to one, intelligence becomes naivety, and blockheads seize on this as irrefutable fact. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 191

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Adorno’s account of how the ‘industrial bottleneck’ drags all discourse down to the most subaltern member inverts the usual assumption that refined company elevates conversation; the claim that intelligence becomes naivety against the fact-bound blockhead is dense and inverts common wisdom.
• XREF: Echoes the ‘tact’ critique of conformist sociability and connects to Adorno’s later aphorisms on the liquidation of the subjective by objective spirit; also parallels Bourdieu’s distinction-taste dynamics inverted. — connects to: Sociable conversation loses its character when it pursues objective truth — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2253; Sociable conversation’s topics are interchangeable means, never fixed purposes — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 381; Nonverbal communication can convey a message more clearly than speech — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 95

Broader Connections

• Sociable conversation loses its character when it pursues objective truth #expands (0.85) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2253
• Sociable conversation’s topics are interchangeable means, never fixed purposes #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 381
• Nonverbal communication can convey a message more clearly than speech #complicates (0.72) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 95