{"id":119834,"date":"2018-01-04T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T14:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=119834"},"modified":"2018-01-05T13:37:54","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T18:37:54","slug":"skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"The Breakdown of Human Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two writers discuss false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and a\u00a0lack of nuance on the Internet.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam Valen Levinson and Morgan<\/span> Parker<\/span> met many years ago\u2014more than five, almost certainly less than eleven\u2014as undergraduates at Columbia University; neither recalls precisely how they met. Now, as published authors, the two often banter and joke and argue and lament from their respective homes in Harlem and Hollywood. These conversations are imperfect, but rigorously in search of some shared understanding (hope?) for the human capacity to love, to care for, to accept, to amend, to create beauty. These are admittedly risky beliefs for a black American woman and an American Jew to hold. These conversations don\u2019t hold all the answers, but they exist and continue to exist, which seems to be better than everyone just giving up on the messy stuff of the world.<\/em>\u00a0Parker\u2019<\/span>s work deals with ideas of multiplicity\u2014of beliefs, of identity, of histories, of possibilities. Valen Levinson\u2019s work, fueled by his propensity to poke other people and beat up on himself, addresses questions of the heart with a reporter\u2019s commitment to facts.\u00a0The following interview, conducted over Skype, is the second recorded conversation between Parker<\/span> and Valen Levinson; the first attempt\u00a0was lost to a dead cell phone.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found the switch to texting, and then the many different evolutions and generations that texting has gone through on different platforms, so tough because it\u2019s taken what you can do with bodies and most of what you can do with faces all the way out of it.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean, you can\u2019t really text well with someone that you don\u2019t know that well. You can relay information, but\u2014<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

And yet the new generation is meeting their spouses and dog walkers and doctors and therapists that way.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

I know. I mean, I feel like it\u2019s a different skill, right? Like, it\u2019s a skill to be able\u2014and I\u2019m saying this as a poet\u2014to communicate your personality and intonation in a text. Most people can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Really, though, I think that it\u2019s impossible to do. It\u2019s impossible to ever\u00a0communicate in a way where there\u2019s no chance of it being taken as entirely the opposite of what you\u2019re saying. Full-body communication is way harder to misinterpret because it taps into biological and social things that go back millions of years. Even orangutans smile at each other. So when you tell somebody, Hey, shut the fuck up, and you\u2019re smiling, our brains are like, Cool, dude, I\u2019m on board, I get what you\u2019re doing there. It takes so much longer to establish trust over text, and I feel like we think we\u2019re just establishing all this trust and communicating, but we\u2019re not. There\u2019s such a narrow range of expressions in text.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

One thing that I did not expect to happen with my book There Are More Beautiful Things than Beyonce<\/em> is a lot of people thinking my title is me saying that Beyonc\u00e9 is not beautiful\u2014which is something that I, having a firm handle on the English language, did not expect to come across. However, there are many people on the Internet who are mad at me. It\u2019s really disturbing to me that a lot of people had this reaction, because it\u2019s literally a book about multiplicity. That reaction has taught me so much about how we as a culture think\u2014that one thing can\u2019t exist alongside another thing. And it\u2019s really scary to me, because I wrote that book about multiplicity and inclusion, and the idea that, yes, Beyonc\u00e9 is beautiful, but so is this greasy, crown-fried box that I\u2019m seeing on the street in Bed-Stuy. All those things are beautiful because they are the many things that make up the world. And it puzzles me when people insist on asking, Well, what is more<\/em> beautiful? I think, well \u2026 maybe justice, you know? It\u2019s scary to me. If you truly think there is nothing more beautiful than a pop star, that\u2019s sad. And it\u2019s not okay. I didn\u2019t know that we were that deep in.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Right. And it\u2019s not just putting things in competition with similar things\u2014like my nation is better than your nation. It\u2019s a ranking of everything, flattening what makes anything worth anything, and turning everything into a hierarchy. Beautiful<\/em> has maybe become code for better<\/em>. Something that\u2019s less beautiful means it\u2019s worse.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s scary is the lack of nuance. Like, that\u2019s not what words are for. It\u2019s like what you were saying about emojis and the flattening of nuance and language. When I say beautiful<\/em>, I mean it in all the ways of the word. I think we\u2019ve forgotten that words have so many crazy meanings.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re communicating more and more about things that are worth a thousand words, how do you not lose the dexterity to deal with just one at a time?<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Well, but honestly, the flexibility of words is my whole jam. We know that words have multiple layers of meaning. And if we\u2019re thinking about emojis as words, then the emojis, too, must have multiple layers of meaning.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

They do, but the words we use and how we break up our thoughts are the product of a long evolution, not just one that has taken place over our lives as single people, but long beyond that\u2014there are\u00a0long histories to every word. When we start over\u2014and it feels like that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done with emojis\u2014it\u2019s gonna take us a long fucking time to build what we have with words. I mean, people are already talking past each other and are not good at communicating and not good at not hearing what somebody didn\u2019t say. We\u2019re already not articulate enough, so much of our lives. When we start over? Man \u2026 sure emojis can have nuances, but when they replace\u2014<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the thing that is scary to me\u2014the need to sub in and replace, instead of simply adding.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Yeah. Cause it\u2019s an option. The emoji is an option. It used to be that I would have to find words to say to you. And because every word is full of connotations and can mean all kinds of different things, I\u2019d have to make so many choices, especially if I don\u2019t know you super well. Now, it\u2019s like, Oh, shit, I can just send you a wave emoji? Tight.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

That\u2019s only hard when we\u2019re trying to not be ourselves, though. That\u2019s the real problem.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so. I think in any communication, there\u2019s so many parts of yourself you could share, and you choose which to let out. Like, you could be fully yourself at dinner with somebody you haven\u2019t seen in a long time and just unload every kind of worry or stress in your mind, but you don\u2019t do that. You channel. You\u2019re always filtering.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Theoretically.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I think emojis just let you avoid the choice.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019m not as good at that as other people.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I know. Well, I don\u2019t think you want to do that, which is really important. But I think a lot of people do. It\u2019s cool to not let everything out and say too many things. And with emojis, you can just click a button, send the emoji, and not make any kind of choice between the millions of possibilities of what words to use. It\u2019s too easy an out, man, it\u2019s too easy an out, and then we stop getting trained to do the difficult work of figuring out how other people might actually be thinking when they say something we don\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

For The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah<\/em>, I spent five years basically working on the story of that part of growing up. When you relive and reprocess and try to share a story for a long time, you gotta stay in it. I think that whatever the next steps are, in some ways, I\u2019ve forced myself not to take them, because I was still working on the thing before.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean that sounds incredibly hard.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve gotta be twenty-one to drink\u2014I wonder if you should have to be at least forty-five to write anything that they call a memoir.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the perspective is important, and otherwise you\u2019re kind of delaying becoming the person after at the end of the story.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

A hundred percent.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Like, I write poems about my everyday life, and if I look at my books\u2014when I wrote my first book, I\u2019m like, Yeah, I remember that bitch. I\u2019m not her anymore, but I was writing from that place. But I haven\u2019t been able to write about high school until now, and it took me forever to finish that novel draft because I was still reckoning with so much of who I was in that time.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Absolutely.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s having ten years\u2019 distance from that time. But it required a weird reentering into it that pervaded my whole life. I felt like I was constantly regressing\u2014it just felt weird. Even though I believe and believed that I had enough distance from that person, it was still a really emotional and tough experience to try and make peace with that version. I think one of the biggest reasons I didn\u2019t finish for so long was because I hadn\u2019t forgiven that version of myself. I couldn\u2019t even really stand to look at her. Because I had moved so far away from there, and spending time with her made me think, Oh my God, have I ever changed!<\/em> And I never wanted to be in the company of that bitch ever again. I think it\u2019s different when you\u2019re writing about something that just happened. What does it mean to go over that story over and over? Does the story start to change, does it take on different shapes, does it sometimes feel like a comedy, sometimes\u00a0like a tragedy? I can\u2019t imagine it because you wouldn\u2019t be able to grow and change in the everyday, right?<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I have such a big problem with that distance. I find it so hard. And maybe it\u2019s just the kind of journalistic ethos applied to first-person feelings?<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Right, which is impossible.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Well, it made me think, Okay, the only way of really being able to pull through this story and explain what I was seeing and feeling, and feeling about what I was seeing, and feeling about what I was feeling\u2014in order for the reader to navigate, I still had to be able to connect with all those things. And at the same time, I was talking about some older version of myself that I actually wanted to leave behind in a lot of ways\u2014like, I hope the narrator in The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah<\/em> seems stupider at the beginning, you know? I hope in ten years, I can look back and read some of this and go, I can\u2019t even see where this dude was coming from! Cause there\u2019s something\u2014I think this is what\u2019s really hard\u2014where to be able to understand where somebody else is coming from, you have to be able to at least logically understand how they got to that thought. But in order to hold something really that different in your head, you have to let it kind of pull you toward it in some way. I think that to truly leave something behind you actually have to stop being able to communicate with it as cleanly. You have to lose the language, too.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Yeah, for sure. It\u2019s funny to think about working in different genres, and what this process is. I feel like I\u2019m really intimate with myself when I\u2019m writing, and that goes for poems and essays and fiction. And I\u2019m very hard on myself in the process as well. I think in poems, I\u2019m trying to work something out or find an emotional space for something\u2014for future reflection, or making sense of. But there isn\u2019t really a sense-making in the poem itself, it\u2019s more just a painting of an emotion. And then with essays, I\u2019m doing more of a logical working out of something, which usually demands a little bit more distance and time. However, with this long-form look at me in high school, the relationship I felt with\u00a0the material, aka my young self, changed over the course of writing. When I started, I was so embarrassed by her, and then it moved into making fun of her, and then it moved into trying to make her look better than she was, and then it moved into pitying her\u2014and all these things that are not quite the right response, right? But I had to go through all these stages, almost like stages of grief, and now, at the end of it, I don\u2019t recognize her, and I don\u2019t always agree with her, but I feel really tenderly toward her. And that feels like the right note, but something that couldn\u2019t have happened without all of the other phases. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It\u2019s not just pruning. It\u2019s not just saying, Hey, you\u2019re not part of the plant anymore\u2014get out. In the yard-work world, we would call this compost [laughs<\/em>]. You know, you take the dead leaves and you put them in a big pile and they turn into mulch and you use that to grow the rest of the plant. It\u2019s the best soil you can have, that other dead plant.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I think about this always\u2014that to make a choice that is really just rejecting some limit, or attempting to prove that that limit is bullshit, is basically letting that limit decide for you in almost exactly the same way, you know? Like, if you go into an ice cream place, and there\u2019s a trillion flavors, and you don\u2019t want to get what your friend wants, but you know your friend hates chocolate, so you get chocolate\u2014did you make a choice? No, you didn\u2019t. Your friend chose, you\u2019re just shirking choice.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

You can never really get to the right metaphor.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t think the ice cream was the right\u2014that was a bit sloppy, honestly. Forget it. The point is, it\u2019s a false binary. It\u2019s saying, You said this, and therefore, this is me. Well, it\u2019s not, bro. You\u2019re not an opposite to what\u00a0your parents are. You\u2019re not the opposite of what the State Department travel warnings say\u2014that\u2019s not gonna help you sketch out your personality and your place in the world.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Well, cause it\u2019s a two-part thing, right? It\u2019s like, Okay, I know that I don\u2019t want to listen to you, but instead, I\u2019m going to do x, y, and z.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

And it can\u2019t just be, All right, so I\u2019m the opposite. You then have to build something on top of that. It\u2019s like if you\u2019re in a work meeting and you say, Oh, I don\u2019t like that idea. You then have to also provide an idea.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Yeah. You have to actually make a choice.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done this on dates\u2014I have a really weird assortment of songs I would like to play at my wedding. And I have told this to a couple of men. I\u2019m like, If you\u2019re down with this particular combination of songs that are very weird, we could just get married. Like, that\u2019s a solid litmus test. Like, my fucking Tinder is a combination of Allen Ginsberg and Angela Bassett and Bernie Mac! And I feel like if someone sees that and thinks, Okay, that\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for, then we\u2019re good, you know? It\u2019s hella specific\u2014no one messages me ever\u2014but, like, you know, the odds are really not in my favor, and I\u2019m just weeding out literally most humans. What sort of person wants to walk down the aisle to Jay Z and Beyonc\u00e9 \u201c03 Bonnie & Clyde,\u201d the best love song of all time\u2014what sort of person, that same person, also wants to have their first dance to Steely Dan? I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s one other person on the planet. So you know, specificity is important.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all cocktails, man. You\u2019re just doing a really good job finding your recipe.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

I mean, I\u2019m not saying that it\u2019s working. I just really know what I\u2014<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Defining the recipes, yeah, but still.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

I know what I\u2019m putting out there. And I just feel like I don\u2019t have time for a person to discover who I am after they thought I was someone else. So I\u2019m just like\u00a0<\/em>let me lead with all the information.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re saying you don\u2019t have time, if somebody assumes you\u2019re somebody else, there\u2019s really nothing you can do to say, Oh, well now that your momentum is going this direction, I\u2019m gonna do what people do in judo or whatever and use your momentum to make you do a different thing, to actually pull you back around to where I want you to be.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Well, I think\u2014I mean, it\u2019s interesting. I think that describes how I write books. That is really what I like to play with in poems and in the life cycle of a book. But I don\u2019t think I have the energy to do it in an interpersonal situation. I don\u2019t really have the energy to pretend, even for one dinner, that I\u2019m whatever those white girls in their J. Crew are, you know? Like, I\u2019m just not gonna pull that off, for any length of time, at all. So I don\u2019t even wanna try, because I\u2019ve done that thing, and it\u2019s just kind of heartbreaking and uncomfortable. So I might as well just be like, All right, here\u2019s what the deal is, for real. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

Yeah, totally. I really think I understand that. It\u2019s funny, because I feel like I do the other version of that, which is I\u2019ll lean into whatever the assumptions would be, and then try and work on this other version of myself that is in pretty direct contradiction to a lot of those things.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Sure.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

For people that I care about but that are maybe only getting one side, where\u2019s the scenario where they see the whole thing, where can I bring them both together?<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

But how do you keep track of yourself in that?<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

I think I do lean into certain real binaries. Like real black-and-white distinctions, so that if I feel like I\u2019m conflicted in some element of my personality, it\u2019s a matter of compartmentalizing those things, you know? And maybe I\u2019m taking a page out of America\u2019s political book, where we\u2019ve just always lived saying you\u2019re either this or you\u2019re that. Or from old religious traditions that marked things as either sacred or profane. But any cultural sociologist will say that it\u2019s way deeper than that\u2014this is really ingrained in how we deal with symbols of any kind, we really just want to mark them as in or out, good or bad.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

Good or bad, yeah. I mean, I know that our brains work that way, but nothing real happens in that space, in that negotiation. You know what I mean? Like, everything real happens in the mixing and the complexity of holding two binaries and adding a third one and a fourth. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

My reaction was to not really label things good and bad at all but just label traits good and good in a different context, and then to parcel them out so that some version of me could claim all of the things that I thought were good, but that\u2019s such a more complicated way of existing then just saying, Hey, whatever that binary was, it was a false distinction. The distinction between, say, being an adrenaline junkie and wanting to dig into the linguistic tradition of an ancient language\u2014those aren\u2019t in opposition, man.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not opposites.<\/p>\n

VALEN LEVINSON<\/p>\n

They\u2019re just not. They\u2019re just not opposites, even at all. They\u2019re the same, they\u2019re both adventures.<\/p>\n

PARKER<\/p>\n

It makes sense.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam Valen Levinson is a fellow at the\u00a0Center for Cultural Sociology<\/a>\u00a0at Yale University, where he studies senses of humor as a key to crosscultural understanding. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em>The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah. <\/i><\/p>\n

Morgan Parker<\/span> is the author of the poetry collections <\/em>There Are More Beautiful Things than Beyonc\u00e9\u00a0and<\/em> Other People\u2019s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night. A third collection, <\/em>Magical Negro,\u00a0a book of nonfiction, and a young-adult novel are forthcoming.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two writers discuss false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and a\u00a0lack of nuance on the Internet.   Adam Valen Levinson and Morgan Parker met many years ago\u2014more than five, almost certainly less than eleven\u2014as undergraduates at Columbia University; neither recalls precisely how they met. Now, as published authors, the two often banter and joke and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1350,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[699,32367,32368,32366,23443,32365,23444],"class_list":["post-119834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-allen-ginsberg","tag-angela-bassett","tag-bernie-mac","tag-center-for-cultural-sociology","tag-other-peoples-comfort-keeps-me-up-at-night","tag-the-abu-dhabi-bar-mitzvah","tag-there-are-more-beautiful-things-than-beyonce"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Breakdown of Human Communication<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two writers, a black woman and an American Jew, discuss\u00a0false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and the lack of nuance on the Internet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Breakdown of Human Communication by Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 4, 2018 \u2013 Two writers discuss false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and a\u00a0lack of nuance on the Internet.   Adam Valen Levinson and Morgan Parker met many\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-04T14:00:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-05T18:37:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"18 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c8ae53a12ae71ddc96fbafc71e2f553\"},\"headline\":\"The Breakdown of Human Communication\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-04T14:00:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-05T18:37:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\"},\"wordCount\":3677,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Allen Ginsberg\",\"Angela Bassett\",\"Bernie Mac\",\"Center for Cultural Sociology\",\"Other People\u2019s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night\",\"The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah\",\"There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonc\u00e9\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\",\"name\":\"The Breakdown of Human Communication\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-04T14:00:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-05T18:37:54+00:00\",\"description\":\"Two writers, a black woman and an American Jew, discuss\u00a0false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and the lack of nuance on the Internet.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Breakdown of Human Communication\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c8ae53a12ae71ddc96fbafc71e2f553\",\"name\":\"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b4e9ad1a25a8edcd96d73ca21ec8077c41efc7940b964b17d6cf825e5deffe41?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b4e9ad1a25a8edcd96d73ca21ec8077c41efc7940b964b17d6cf825e5deffe41?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/mparkerlevinson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Breakdown of Human Communication","description":"Two writers, a black woman and an American Jew, discuss\u00a0false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and the lack of nuance on the Internet.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Breakdown of Human Communication by Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson","og_description":"January 4, 2018 \u2013 Two writers discuss false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and a\u00a0lack of nuance on the Internet.   Adam Valen Levinson and Morgan Parker met many","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2018-01-04T14:00:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-01-05T18:37:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson","Est. reading time":"18 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/"},"author":{"name":"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c8ae53a12ae71ddc96fbafc71e2f553"},"headline":"The Breakdown of Human Communication","datePublished":"2018-01-04T14:00:43+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-05T18:37:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/"},"wordCount":3677,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg","keywords":["Allen Ginsberg","Angela Bassett","Bernie Mac","Center for Cultural Sociology","Other People\u2019s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night","The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah","There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonc\u00e9"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/","name":"The Breakdown of Human Communication","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg","datePublished":"2018-01-04T14:00:43+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-05T18:37:54+00:00","description":"Two writers, a black woman and an American Jew, discuss\u00a0false binaries, litmus tests for dating, and the lack of nuance on the Internet.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/morganandadam.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/skype-conversation-breakdown-human-communication\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Breakdown of Human Communication"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c8ae53a12ae71ddc96fbafc71e2f553","name":"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b4e9ad1a25a8edcd96d73ca21ec8077c41efc7940b964b17d6cf825e5deffe41?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b4e9ad1a25a8edcd96d73ca21ec8077c41efc7940b964b17d6cf825e5deffe41?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Morgan Parker and Adam Valen Levinson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/mparkerlevinson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119834"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119976,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119834\/revisions\/119976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}