I have not yet left my apartment today. I look out my window, I can see the Empire State Building, a stark black silhouette against a low grey sky. It looks cold. I have overhauled my room. I have been organizing, throwing things out ruthlessly, getting my life in order. At the risk of being thought of as an absolute GEEK, I will say that I have been blaring music and singing along with gusto and passion throughout this whole process. The CD on right now is the musical “1776” (the geek level rises). I grew up with this musical. I have been singing gloriously: “SIT DOWN, JOHN…SIT DOWN, JOHN…FOR GOD’S SAKE, JOHN, SIT DOWN.” The poor neighbors.
I have something else to say about silence.
How silence is eerier than noise. Give me chaos, give me yelling voices, but don’t give me silence. This is primarily why I just can’t get behind hate speech legislation. In my heart, I find a lot of speech abhorrent and offensive, of course. But to have the government tell us how to use language, what words are okay to use, what words are not … It just does not sit right with me. It’s totalitarian.
I suddenly remembered a long and haunting passage in Ryzsard Kapuscinski’s book The Soccer War about silence. In regards to the frightening silence which emanates from certain countries and certain regimes. I’ll share it here, for those of you who are inclined to take a second and read on. I love his writing:
“People who write history devote too much attention to so-called events heard round the world, while neglecting the periods of silence. This neglect reveals the absence of that infallible intuition that every mother has when her child falls suddenly silent in its room. A mother knows that this silence signifies something bad. That the silence is hiding something. She runs to intervene because she can feel evil hanging in the air. Silence fulfills the same role in history and in politics. Silence is a signal of unhappiness and, often, of crime. It is the same sort of political instrument as the clatter of weapons or a speech at a rally. Silence is necessary to tyrants and occupiers, who take pains to have their actions accompanied by quiet. Look at how colonialism has always fostered silence: at how discreetly the Holy Inquisition functioned; at the way Leonidas Trujillo avoided publicity.
What silence emanates from countries wiht overflowing prisons! In Somoza’s Nicaragua — silence; in Duvalier’s Haiti — silence. Each dictator makes a calculated effort to maintain the ideal state of silence, even though somebody is continually trying to violate it! How many victims of silence there are, and at what cost! Silence has its laws and its demands. Silence demands that concentration camps be built in uninhabited areas. Silence demands an enormous police apparatus with an army of informers. Silence demands that its enemies disappear suddenly and without a trace. Silence prefers that no voice — of complaint or protest or indignation — disturb its calm. And where such a voice is heard, silence strikes with all its might to restore the status quo ante — the state of silence…
Today one hears about noise pollution, but silence pollution is worse. Noise pollution affects the nerves; silence pollution is a matter of human lives. No one defends the maker of a loud noise, whereas those who establish silence in their own states are protected by an apparatus of repression. That is why the battle against silence is so difficult.
It would be interesting to research the media systems of the world to see how many service information and how many service silence and quiet. Is there more of what is said or of what is not said? One could calculate the number of people working in the publicity industry. What if you could calculate the number of people working in the silence industry? Which number would be greater?”
