The Case for Silence
An Anti-Mimetic way to approach to the Content Craze: What if more people tried being quiet, even if just for a day?
The most important moments of our lives happen in silence: in the development of life inside the womb; on the quiet walks when we have a flash of self-awareness and come to know something essential about ourselves for the first time; at the mysterious moment we fall in love with someone; even in the precious moments before death. These things happen in the space between the noise—in the silence of our own hearts.
Modern society is making it harder to fully experience or appreciate these moments, though. Almost everything conspires against them. Noise presses in on us from every side. There are strong incentives to become yet another voice, competing for attention.
Yet our fragmented and divided culture is often still united by silence.
Times of silence are one of the few remaining ways that we express a widespread, shared experience of sacredness. On the anniversary of September 11, there are sports stadiums packed with 60,000 or more fans that …