Outside Reading

In Speaking into the air by John Durham Peters he talks about reciprocal communication as being necessary in our lives or else things would be grossly unfair. In conversations with others we are either absent, thinking of other things and concerned with our own agenda, or we are present and demanding a response. In this play between absence and demand there must be somewhere else dialogue can lie in a way where both parties are speaking and hearing. Peters says, “If no question could be left unanswered and every question was posed with the demand for a response, what boredom and tyranny would result...Reciprocity, crucial as it is, needs other principles: hospitality, gift giving, forgiveness, and love. To live among others is necessarily to incur obligations; to be mortal is to be incapable of paying them all back". super long quote i know!! but I enjoy how Peters suggests reciprocal communication should occur. With the principles of forgiveness and love. What a great concept to consider.

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