October 8, 2019--John Allan: Any Sense At All

John Allan said, "You make me sound smarter than I am."

We were having breakfast together at the Bristol Diner.

"You mean in the blog I wrote last week about Trump's Australian connection?"

"That's the one. I was the one who posed the question that got us going but you put words in my mouth. Not that that upset me. I liked the words and thoughts you assigned to me."

"He does that all the time," Rona chimed in, "He claims it's the way he gets closer to the essence of a situation."

"I didn't make stuff up the other day. You said almost everything I attributed to you."

"'Almost everything?' I'm not sure I see that as journalistic."

"It isn't," I said, "I'm not a journalist. I see myself as an essayist."

"What pray tell is that?" playing with me, John said.

"I know this will sound pompous but I seek the truth in things. Which means I often have to extract it from ambiguous and incomplete information."

"I get that," he said, "So tell me how that worked the other day when we were talking about Australia because it still sounds as if you make stuff up."

"First of all, you're not the best witness as to what was said, what even you yourself said. No one is. I mean about what they say. No one is a human tape recorder, capturing  exactly what they said. And then there are the subtle inferences that are often best communicated via body language and gestures and nods and winks. You're really good at the latter. You're about the best winker and shrugger I know. It's like a private language of yours."

"That makes sense to me, "John said, "And I do like that, but still I'm a little uncomfortable with your methodology. Particularly when it comes to me." He sent me a broad wink.

"Let me tell you a story--"

"Not another story!" This time John didn't wink.

"I know. I can be tedious with some of my stories. But I think you'll like this one. It's about finding truth in discourse. Though putting it this way makes it sound more profound than it is."

"Actually," John said, "this story sounds promising."

"It was told to me by a colleague and friend, Sir Claus Moser, who I worked with in some of the Ford Foundation's work with expanding higher education opportunities for low-income students. He led that effort for Great Britain but before that was head of development for the British Museum and before that was the secretary to the British cabinet. In that role, among other things, he was responsible for preparing the minutes of cabinet meetings."

"Where is this headed?" John asked, "I've got to get to the office."

"I'm almost done," I said. This time Rona rolled her eyes.

"He told me there are three ways to prepare the minutes. 'Since recoding devices weren't allowed, first, you can do your best to capture as precisely as possible exactly what members said. Then, you can do that and add a little editing. For example, to clean up the grammar and syntax. Finally, you can do what I did--write what members would have said if they had any sense at all.'"

"I do like that," John said. "And I take your point. Now I have to get to work."