True conversation can only occur where the interlocutors are of a similar intelligence, general experience and, particularly, education. The loss of the "classical" educational model is probably responsible for there being so much less conversation than there used to be, since the elements of rhetoric were part of that model. How many people who you've spoken to in recent times have had trouble framing a sentence or following a theme to its conclusion in a logical way?

Except in the most general social sense, most "conversation" I hear these days is basically two arguments or points-scoring efforts going on at once.