Much of what Theodore Zeldin says is built into this web; we highlight some of it to whet your appetite; and our comments. 

When we read what we already sensed but had not dared think it through or say out loud our lives do change in ways we cannot predict; it's as though we give ourselves permission to move out of what we don't understand into a new experience of living.  

Such dynamic experience is in direct contrast to the predictable and inevitable law of what ought to be, of what can and cannot be said, and by whom.
 
 
p21.Romantic language was originally one of revolution; lovers against parents, by woman against control of their affections; with love as a thunderbolt from heaven, uncontrollable, to which we are willing victims. 
 
p26 We can move beyond reiterating our helplessness and disarray; with depictions of despair and incoherence to make us more helpless. 

We seem stuck on the value of introspection. Asking 'who am I?' whilst  other people are infinitely more interesting and have infinitely more to say. e.g. Gary Witheford and Peter White. - potential/poverty/q2.htm
 
p29 heros etc self confidence without arrogance, theatre in our homes
 
p35. In conversation feelings are handed back and forth until an intimacy develops; so we learn to put the horse before the cart.
 
p46. The family is shaped [and similarly p50 work is shaped] by the direction in which it points its conversations. 

The sadness is that a dysfunctional family [firm or school] knows no conversation but only obedience to those who know best.
 
p59. . . those who want jobs which will make them better people. 

Zeldin seems not to have sensed the potential of our fundamental 
needs to equip us to realise that potential where ever we work.
 
p79. develop a new kind of conversation which is both hopeful and aware of the likelihood of failure 

p80. if we see our lives as a series of experiments, we would be less discouraged by our inevitable failures. 

Similarly Edward Said's "normadic, migratory and anti narrative energy" offers us a viable way out from the arrogance of seeing ourselves in perpetuity, driven by ideas of introspection. (p26 above)
 
Which is where we came in; and it's been here all the time for we are realising there is a metalanguage based on realising the potential of our fundamental needs, and being aware of qualified satisfaction.