Impact Of Social Decline On Conversation
'The Silencing Of The Wise' by Philip Atkinson (2/08/2011)

The wise are those unselfish citizens (the selfish are insane) who have acquired sufficient experience to learn that being dutiful now wins social odium; so as useful conversation demands honesty, the wise deliberately avoid, minimise, or trivialise, their conversation in order to hide their nature and avoid persecution. This must mean that only the selfish, or the inexperienced, will now engage freely in conversation, so making conversation, which is the mind of the community, the realm of novices and lunatics.