Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 09:56:22 -0700
From: Mark Holloway <mark.holloway-AT-dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: Silence


Clara Wing-see Ho wrote:

> in terms of silence and power...being still very much a novice on foucault
> (F.)  i think that silence is one way to exercise power over individuals
> and agree with the statement Tom (?) made about the "silenced" parties
> often being women.  but F. seems to propose that "sound" or "discourse" as
> he calls it is equally as limiting and oppressive if not more so than
> silence.  not allowing one to speak, yes, this is oppressive.  but
> allowing one to speak only within a specified realm of discourse where the
> "rules" have been set by some given party...which is worse?  rhetorical
> question?  perhaps....
> 

Yes. I find this really interesting. In Pinter, language can be seen to 
be a game. Certain individuals become trapped in the game - inevitably 
losers as soon as they begin to participate. We see them faltering when 
their speech is full of silence (pauses), but a complete silence - a 
refusal to play the game - is always a safeguard against losing. Perhaps 
there is an issue here of not allowing others knowledge of 
yourself...thus silence acts as an exercise in power-limitation. But as 
we have seen, not knowing is no obstacle  to hegemony. The debate about 
Nazis has raised this issue...the Jews killed by the Nazis are an 
appalling construction. The clumsiness of the construction, however, 
didn't prevent the holocaust.

Back to silence, though...thinking of pauses - which are very brief 
silences (does silence depend upon a temporal definition?...I don't think 
that it does) - is it possible to see silence as ubiquitous? Language 
relies upon silences for communication...the written word becomes 
illegible once the spaces are removed. Do such spaces, such silences, 
costitute the habitat of meaning? This leads off into ellipsis...

And yet, in art (in its many forms) there is possibly something unusual 
about silence. I've a feeling that we are culturally conditioned into a 
position from where silence appears as a stranger. Film and television 
use incidental music to cover up silence. How long was it, I wonder, 
before silent movies took (needed?) musical accompaniment? There's an 
argument to be made that silence in art makes the audience feel uneasy. 
But there's also a lot of comic potential in silence. And in relation to 
Pinter, I have found that the silences of a performance provide the 
moments during which the audience is most aware of their surroundings; 
coughs and whispers are audible from the auditorium...the theatricality 
of the event is at its most obvious...I'm trying to think this through to 
the possibility of a postmodern silence...any ideas?

Mark


> Regards,
> 
> Clara Ho
> 
> University of Calgary