h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Not only are they liars who speak when they know better, but even more those who speak when they know nothing."

Fredrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, as translated by Walter Kaufmann

How honest are we who say nothing?

History has shown us that those who say nothing are accomplices, and I feel guilty that I don't say enough. Zero Intolerance and Positive Thinking are my two most important Ethics, but my guilt means that those ethics are not always enough.

Welcome David! Thanks for filling in the gaps. Someone important has recently started telling me to "Be Well", so it is with pleasure I pass that greeting on *in duplicate multiples*!

x x Fenny

Hi Fenny!

How honest are those who say nothing? Kinda of a broad question there, don'tcha think?

Is silence always the voice of complicity?

If the person who speaks truth plainly and directly is reviled, is the person who hints and leads to truth indirectly, and so is heard, more or less honest than the other? Is the person who keeps her/his counsel, as the only one who can be certain of having told no untruths more or less honest than the first two?

Seems to me that most people work on a sliding scale of silence, and have no single answer. Some will speak up if they witness a lynching, but remain silent when they see a shoplifter, telling themselves that turning in the shoplifter "isn't worth it." Others will gladly, even eagerly, turn in the shoplifter but remain silent after the lynching, out of fear.

The compulsively honest person is usually vilified. In the village of the blind, the one-eyed person who dares to speak of what s/he sees is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for being delusional and perceiving reality differently from everybody else.

How honest are those who say nothing? That's the type of question I think each person needs to answer for himself/herself. If you're feeling guilt, why not examine that guilt closely and decide for yourself how justified it is? The problem with being an ethical and moral person is those ethical and moral imperatives that make us do things that are uncomfortable, because they're right.

And, Fenny.... Be Well.

Thank you By Day

I read this first thing this morning, but I thought I'd wait until my lunch-break in order to give it the attention it deserves.

I was seeing silence as the non-voice of complicity, and non-discussion as the tool of cowards (only me - I wasn't insulting anyone, I swear!) But your description of the one who hints and keeps counsel are the opposite sentiments to those raised by my own self-doubts, and I honour them (if they were meant for me).

When I say and do nothing, it is the optimistic, idealistic and often forlorn hope of a better future. When I watch and nothing happens, I vow to speak out next time. Maybe 'next time' will be the time that will see me return, eloquent, to the main arena.

Fenny (sooner compulsively honest than compulsively dishonest!)

****

When I say and do nothing, it is the optimistic, idealistic and often forlorn hope of a better future. When I watch for a better future, and note the future becoming the present, but worse, I vow to speak out. Maybe 'next time' will be the time that will see me return, eloquent, to the main arena.

x x Fenny (obviously not a word-smith!)

Fenny,

My words were meant to describe nobody in particular, and intended to be applied generally. We've only just met! I can hardly claim to have any deeper insights into your thoughts and motivations.

That's why I encouraged you to examine your guilt carefully. Silence CAN be an act of hope. Or of complicity. Or of cowardice. Again, I speak generally, with no intent to offend you or make any sort of accusations against you or ANY individual, including those who are reading this now, knowing that you will continue to say nothing, for your own reasons.

Those who say little, or nothing, know their own minds. Nobody else does.

I think that all of the thinking people here would like to see things get better without having to see them first get worse. My personal opinion is that some people perceive the rules to be enforced lopsidely (Is that a word? If it wasn't, now it is, by decree.) while others preceive everyone who speaks bluntly as, by definition, a troublemaker who should just go away.

So, is it better to make waves, to point out immoderate moderation when you believe you see it, and invite the wrath of those who have the authority to act on that wrath, or to say nothing at all, because that is "safe?" Or is it better to take some middle ground?

I dunno. I can only say that the middle ground is the approach I have chosen at this time and in this situation. My current screen name and the contents of my space show that I am not willing to keep silence. On the other hand, there is much that I feel and believe that I have not spoken here, and will never speak here.

In his book "Trinity," Leon Uris has one of his characters say someting like (MODERATORS - THIS IS PARAPHRASE - IT HAS BEEN YEARS SINCE I LAST READ "TRINITY," SO I HAVEN'T A CLUE WHAT THE ACTUAL QUOTATION IS AND I'M JUST TOO LAZY TO GO FIND IT.) "What gives us power and makes people pay attention to us is our martyrs."

Well. There's something to be said for the occasional martyr. In my opinion, there's nothing to be said for the person who sets out with the specific purpose of becoming a martyr.

One problem is that everything that gets written here (or anywhere, for that matter), is read by someone who is not in the original writer's head. Every reader applies her/his own interpretation of the actual words, as filtered through his/her personal life experiences, opinions and biases.

The compulsively honest person, speaking what is, to that person, a forthright truth, eventually learns that other people will choose to look for deeper implied meanings that aren't there and come to all kinds of bizarre conclusions as to what that person meant, really.

Hmmmm.... Take the above paragraph, for instance. I was speaking in general terms. I think that most people reading it will put those words into the specific context of recents events here at h2g2 and decide that I was talking about those events, specifically.

Do you ever wonder if Shakespeare is getting a hearty laugh at all of the deeper meanings that have been read into his plays?

Whew. I don't usually go on like this. Really. I've even been known to tell the occasional joke. I think the fact that my current recreational reading is Nietzsche is having an adverse impact on my sense of humor. Maybe I should re-read DA again, or Terry Pratchett, who seems to want to be DA these days, but should stick to being Terry Pratchett. He's a lot better at that.