Irrelevant Conversation

This was a game we used to play in IIT. 'twas called "irrelevant conversation" and ze rules were simple. Two people made one statement at a time, with only one condition: No statement made by either person should have any relevance with any other statement made previously by either person. Sentence fragments were not allowed. The first person to spot a mistake by the opponent would have to slap the table with an open palm and say "I object". If the objection stood, the other person would have lost the game. If the objection was overruled by the moderator, the person raised the objection would lose.

Irrelevant conv. was immensely popular in IITM in the mid-nineties. There were elaborate strategies devised to fool the opponent including the following:
Strategy 1 was to say, "I object!" without actually slapping the table, and then wait for the opponent to ask what the objection was. When the unsuspecting took the bait, the first person would then object, properly this time, that the other person had responded to a question and was hence out.
Strategy 2: the opening statement would be "IIT". the opponent would object that this was not a sentence. the first player would then insist that what he had actually said was "I eye Tea", and that was a complete sentence by itself.

For some reason, non-IITians didn't really seem to like this game a lot. I wonder why! :)

I was talking to some of my students, yesterday, who were asking me to reduce the number of jokes I cracked per class. They insisted that the jokes were distracting them and that they could not concentrate on the lecture because they were thinking about the joke.
(I had explained entropy and spontaneous processes, by using the example of a person
farting in a room, instead of the more traditional one of opening a bottle of perfume. The joke raised a stink!)

My stand was, and always has been, that humour was essential to learning. Bernard Shaw's work is proof undeniable that the technique of wrapping a didactic lecture in a humourous package is an excellent way of delivering one's message to one's target audience. (I enjoy Stephen Leacock's work too, but it has far less value as a lecture series.)

The students had a fair point as well. They insisted that they were interested enough in the quality of the contents of the package and didn't really care about the wrapping it came in.

I accepted the possibility that they didn't need the humour to keep them interested in the lecture. But i refused to believe that the joke could be so gripping as to compromise their ability to concentrate on the lecture.

I told them that they could always put the joke aside.

It was at this point in the conversation that the idea of irrelevant conversation came up. I remember having done pretty well in the game, and my basic strategy had been to concentrate on the words that the other person was saying without actually taking in the meaning completely. If I actually tried to figure out what the other meant, it also usually meant that, at some level, I would respond to their words. (This, I had learned through experience!) the key to winning was being attentive enough to hear the words, but to also be distracted enough to prevent those words from being integrated into one's though process.

To be able to take in the humour (and not be distracted by it), would necessarily imply a level of distraction that I wouldn't appreciate in my students. They've made their point and there will be fewer jokes in class of course.

But I cannot imagine going through life the way these kids do. a 17-year old taking something so seriously that he/she does not want to be distracted by a little irrelevant conversation!

Is this normal? Am I too old to understand what they think like? Or is there something fundamentally and systemically wrong with a person who has such a rigid interpretation of his/her wants?

(Having written that last line, I realize that I could well have written it about myself. I do have a very precise idea of what I want. Maybe it is not the rigidity of their ideas that I abhor. Maybe the key is that the ideas that these people stick to are abhorrent to me!)

I have some plans. Maybe I'll post the results some day.