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WATCH OUT FOR THE QUIET ONES |
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by Charles Carreon I often hear people talking about how quiet someone is, usually with the implication that this quality is a great virtue. Everyone seems to admire the person who has nothing to say. The monk keeps silence, the sage guards his words, scholars reserve their opinions, and politicians refrain from comment. All preserve dignity thereby, and even the most common among us can earn some measure of deference by keeping our mouths shut. "Oh," people say, "she's so quiet -- he's so calm --" and "he never speaks except when he's really got something to say." Everyone praises the silent ones for their reserve. Rarely does anyone consider that these people might have nothing to say, that their serene inscrutability might not conceal deep thinking, but rather mere emptiness. Common logic recoils from such a thought, holding to the notion that silence is a seal of superiority. And yet I must insist, how are we to measure the quality of a person's ideas who will not reveal them for our examination? This habit of heaping praise upon the head of every reticent fellow is surely absurd: the quality of their wit can at best be considered an undetermined quantity. While the closed mouth of an acquaintance may conceal the mind of an Einstein, it may also be the honest expression of a total lack of intelligence. The other half of this specious argument is the notion that talkative people are vain purveyors of dubious information. People who talk a lot, the reasoning goes, do so merely because they love the sound of their own voice; they are likely to say anything, and thus their words are without weight. Nothing could be further from the truth. The value of a statement lies not in who says it but in its congruency to actual fact. Whether Caesar or his parrot says "the sky is blue," does not affect the value of the statement, which is true regardless of who says it. If we are going to examine statements for their truthfulness, we will immediately discover that it is much easier to examine statements that have been made and heard, as opposed to those which have never been voiced. The reason is that while the first object is available for study, the second simply is not. Likewise, it is much easier to judge the thoughts of talkers than those of their silent counterparts, who refrain from conversation. While I do appreciate the fact that good listeners are rare, and that the practice should be encouraged, this advice is often disseminated by gabby people who relish the lack of competition. They are more than willing to feed the silent ones the sop of common praise in exchange for keeping the floor to themselves. Authority figures also speak out loudly in honor of silence, realizing, of course, that dissent must be voiced to be effective, and that those who don't speak out must consent to be spoken for. Just as no news is said to be good news, a lack of protest may be construed as actual agreement -- a moment of silence as an implied consent. Ultimately the notion that silence is preferable to talk may be dismissed as mere superstition. A moment of silence could be full of more lies and misinformation than a single sentence could possibly contain. And worst of all, we would never know it. (May, 1982, Issue 40, "More Than Food," Ashland, Oregon)
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