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Press:I have been paying attention to the news almost all of the past month. In this event that is destined to affect an entire generation, many things are being shattered and reconstructed. This is also a good opportunity to think. Let us resume reading and "break away" from sensibility, personal experience and tradition, so that we can better return to the reality we are trying to think about.
This article is from the small book "Lies" in the "Department of Philosophy". This series of books starts from real life examples and concerns the value of justice and freedom, the meaning of existence, our individual identity, and the human condition. It also means that, through these themes, we are always thinking to some extent about “the things that are essential for human existence in the world, such as work, living among other people, and death.”
You are all waiting for me to speak. You know me, you know I can keep silent. But sometimes, silence is lying, because silence can be understood as acquiescence.
——Miguel de Unamuno’s speech, October 12, 1936 Silence is consent
Silence means not saying a word, keeping silent about what you know. And lying is telling something that we know to be false - we say something about it, so lying is not silence. Some may jump to the conclusion that silence cannot be a lie. However, some silence does amount to lies.
There is a well-known proverb: "Silence is consent." By being silent, we give others the impression that we have passively accepted something deep down in our hearts, which can be considered to be lying, and by the very act of "inaction" we have accomplished something contrary to our inner thoughts. For example, if someone makes a racist comment in front of us and we do not react, then our attitude is equivalent to approval.
On October 12, 1936, the president of the University of Salamanca and the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno attended a ceremony in which Franco's wife was present. He spoke to express his opposition to the barbaric acts of the Franco regime.
"Long live death!" "Death to intellectuals!" Astorre, the commander of the Spanish Corps, shouted slogans one after another, but failed to stop Unamuno from saying this sentence that is engraved in history:
This university is a temple of wisdom, and I am its high priest. You are desecrating its sacred core. You can win because you have brutal strength; you cannot win because you have no reason. I think it is useless to advise you to think about Spain. I'm done.
After delivering this courageous speech, he was dismissed from office, placed under house arrest, and died soon after.
resistance in everyday life
It is also worth mentioning resistance in everyday life, not against violence such as Unamuno faced, but simply against one's own desires.
A group of people planned to break into an abandoned house near the school with the intention of causing damage. Hugo did not want to get involved, but was afraid that he would be ostracized from the clique for refusing. He can choose to be compliant or silent, or he can object or resist. Hugo was very conflicted, feeling that he was swinging between two opposing desires, what he wanted and what he didn't want.
But his inner opposition is a signal to him about what not to do. Expressing this inner hesitation can help him resist.
But this signal may not come. Where can emotional entanglement lead a person?
In the novel "The Confusion of the Student Thomas", the author Robert Musil discusses this issue. Sixteen-year-old Thores studied in a famous Austrian middle school. He quietly observed that two classmates frequently abused and violently abused the younger boy Basini - on the pretext of punishing Basini for a certain theft. Bored by mental and moral confusion, Thores maintained an attitude of complete indifference and at the same time hesitation. He felt like he was "torn between two worlds":
One is the world of the unbreakable bourgeoisie, where everything proceeds according to reason and rules, just as he is accustomed to at home; the other is the world of adventure, full of darkness, secrets, blood and unexpected surprises.
Thores does not have the kind of "moral resistance" needed to oppose others: he is confused by the irrational tendencies lurking deep in everyone's heart, and does not even want to "prevent actions brewing in darkness and violence", so there is no sense of guilt.
Silence equals agreement
“Say nothing” may even amount to endorsing the worst possible course of action.
The Dardenne brothers' film "The Silence of Lorna" confirms this point.
Lorna, a young Albanian immigrant, dreams of settling in Belgium, and to realize this plan she needs money. Thanks to the help of drug dealer Fabio, Lorna bought Claudy, a young drug addict, married him and obtained Belgian citizenship.
Next, Lorna also wanted to use her new nationality to make money and make a fortune by marrying a Russian in name. If Lorna wants to remarry, she has only two options, either Claudius dies or she divorces as soon as possible. In planning the deal, Fabio's plan was to have Claudius die of a drug overdose.
Lorna was conflicted internally: she sympathized with Claudius's pain, tried to help him detoxify, and started divorce proceedings at the same time; on the other hand, she also wanted to safeguard her own interests, so she did not reveal Fabio's plot to Claudius at all. Finally, without letting Lorna know, Fabio kills Claudius as planned.
Because of her silence - even though Lorna had tried to avoid the consequences and campaigned for a divorce - she became an accomplice in Claudie's murder. The guilt slowly leads her to madness, causing her to fall into some kind of atonement imagination - she mistakenly believes that she is pregnant with Claudius' child. Unable to choose between speaking out to save Claudie and staying silent to protect her own interests, she loses her mind.
Breaking the silence is the only way to save Claudius, and silence is tantamount to death.
How to explain our inner sway and ability to resist?
In "The Republic", Plato tells a story about Leontius.
Leontius found the corpses of several prisoners lying on the execution ground. He was tortured by the desire to see clearly, but at the same time, anger at himself prevented him from looking at the corpses. Reason requires him not to succumb to desire, and it is in this process that anger becomes his ally.
There are three forces in us: reason (raison), which is responsible for calculation and control; anger (colère), under the protection of reason, it prompts us to be annoyed by our desires and then rebel; desire (désir), its only pursuit is to be satisfied.
If desires should be restrained and controlled, then the anger—or power, passion—that we are capable of displaying should be educated.
Machine-translated from the Chinese original 有些时候，沉默就是说谎 (published 2020-02-21). WeChat original ↗