While watching George Carlin the other day, I came across this part where he makes fun of the various seemingly pointless conversations we experience in life:
 

 
Why do we engage in such seemingly pointless exchanges? What underpins Carlin’s frustration? Let’s start with a principle.

The Principle of Reciprocity

The principle of reciprocity underpins much of human moral psychology. A simple way of describing it would be: 

• When we give someone something, we tend to expect something back
• When we receive something we tend to feel like giving something back

I won’t go into circumstances under which it doesn’t hold as they are beyond the scope of this enquiry. It will suffice to point out that this principle runs deep within us and is even observed in other primates that share our evolutionary lineage (see “Everyone’s Monkey: Primate Moral Roots” by Peter Verbeek in the Handbook of Moral Development and “Reciprocity: The Foundation Stone of Morality” by Douglas Fry in the same volume).

I think the reason behind Carlin’s rage lies in a prolonged violation of the principle of reciprocity. He felt like he was giving his interlocutor something, his time and attention, but wasn’t getting anything of equal value back. His interlocutor on the other hand, probably felt he was giving something valuable back. What was going on?

The Objects of Conversation

People converse for many different reasons. What’s fascinating is that many times the content of a conversation serves merely to achieve a purpose that may be implicit or even unconscious. For example, someone may converse to distract their minds from a painful recent experience. Another because they’re lonely. Many just to pass the time. In such cases the content is not important - any content that achieves the object would do. When there is alignment in the objects of conversation between the interlocutors, the conversation is pleasing to both, because what gives value to the conversation is shared thus ensuring equal exchange rates. However, when there is misalignment of objects, the exchange rates are not equal and thus conversational transactions indebt the interlocutors at different rates. Hence, Carlin’s frustration.

Hidden Objectives and Art

If conversations aim at something, then there are better and worse ways of getting to it. But you can’t improve your aiming, if you don’t know what you’re aiming at. To make matters worse, if you fail to aim correctly, others will think you’re aiming somewhere else and might get annoyed, lose or gain interest mistakenly. For example, I think a lot of conversations would acquire a completely different dimension if their source and object became transparent. But it is precisely that transparency that we fear. We think: “You won’t keep talking to me if you know that the reasons I am conversing with you is because I am lonely and would enjoy some company!” and in our efforts to make opaque the constitution of our souls we sabotage our chances for real connections and make a travesty of ourselves. We do not give one another what we need because we keep pretending we don’t need it or need something else. We hide our needs. From others; from ourselves. Then we forget them.

Great art is an aesthetic recollection of what we really need; a voice, a sound, an image of our hidden demands; it is the beacon that guides us back and beyond ourselves, and when truly great, towards one another.