Heuristic

Henry Fuselli’s “Silence”

I wake up in the middle of the night. I wake up frequently, actually, because I can barely get any sleep. A solitary prisoner confined to a cell, the night marched on. My comfort is forced to the cold, dank concrete that carried me in and out of sleep. As I dreamt, the world would collapse in on itself leaving me at the hand of my subconscious. The darkness and silence filled the night. 

Winter approaches, and, with it, comes the deafening whiteness and frigidity of snow. In these settings, the concept of silence is powerful. Taking breaks from speaking or writing invites the reader to share a moment of silence. Silence in all forms, though is powerful. Even the near-instantaneous full-stops at the ends of sentences and our quiet moments as we process thoughts hold meaning in our rhetoric and art can be filled with introspection of many forms. Composer John Cage’s (approximately) four and a half minutes of silence song forced us to listen to the ambient sound around us and question what we consider music itself. As it shed light on the ways musicians, writers, poets, and other scholars use pauses and breaks, silence of any form reveals these deeper natures within ourselves. Silence is a powerful force that lacks a moral direction in the general sense. For this reason, we can use it for both good and evil as equal as they are in one another. 

The wrath of silence comes in many forms. At its worst, people use silence as means of manipulating. We can examine silences like a politician or scholar choosing to remain silent on issues. The allegations of Trump silencing women can show hidden intentions and motives. In some cases, it can produce the ironic result in revealing more than we would otherwise say when we choose to speak. The inexpressibility of horrors like trauma speaks about greater concerns in the individual psyche. Some force others to recognize what they lack the courage to communicate. as many call the “silent treatment,” is abusive, deceitful, and immature. Denying a person’s right to respond to criticism or allegations furthers the sinister nature of silence. 

In a social sense, isolation, a more personable form of silence, has been shown to have adverse affects on the brain in the way it forms neural connections, according to Neurobiologist Richard Smeyne of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. We can view isolation as a form of silence between individuals in a social network. Through isolation, our thoughts and voices might are silent in a figurative sense, even if we still have the power to speak. This takes forms of pressures among marginalized minority groups and opinions. It may also include  isolated scientists who don’t collaborate or communicate with others. Even without pure social isolation, many of us feel loneliness deep within ourselves. It can produce a myriad of mental health issues through its silence of our thoughts and ideas. Individuals suffering from depression often “suffer in silence” with their sheer inexpressibility. I’ve even wondered whether my break from blogging during 2017 and 2018 represented a silence of my soul’s expression. Finally, for legal and social purposes, our methods of solitary confinement exacerbate these detrimental consequences psychologically and neuroscientifically. All these phenomena use silence in one way or another in achieving their ends. 

Silence, in other contexts, forms the basis of beauty and harmony. Through music, we wouldn’t have our fundamental concepts of rhythm and dynamics without resting. A painting’s use of white space can reveal greater emphasis on some parts over others. As an example of the latter, newspaper will often use white space between sections and words to draw attention to them and ease readability. 

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein