'The present
century, in proclaiming the advent of a new age of communication and
information, and inventing recording machines to give talk immortality, forgot
to deal with the great problem of talk, which is how to find someone to listen.
For more and more people, merely to talk, mainly about oneself, as birds sing
from tree-tops, is not enough. Humanity’s pride in being able to communicate
better than any other creature is belied by most talk being greeted with
silence or incomprehension. The frustrations of sex are nothing compared to the
frigidity of listeners.'
Zeldin, Theodore,
1995. An intimate history of humanity.
London: Minverva, p. 422
