Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 19:10:30 +0000
From: "steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: silence


Judy/all

yes I agree this is another case of 'silence' being used to associate 
opinion and humanity with the dominant ideology. Here the media blackout 
continues to grow darker and darker - speaking to an american friend and 
colleague today and hearing his depression I told him to "...switch the 
damm spectacle off Matt..." - so I presume that the illusion that the 
spectacle is publishing information and knowledge rather than attempting 
to reduce us to silence - still needs saying.

There's a strange text by Zizek floating arnd the net at the moment 
which I'd assume most people will have seen, where he suggests that the 
dominant US conservative opinion is "...if we scratch the surface, we 
are all Americans, that is our true desire ...." Curiously what he never 
does is argue the converse namely that only those who proclaim their 
Americanness can be understood as being Americans. Rather what Zizek 
accepts is the logic that only those who resist and break their silence 
and show their resistence are able to deny the conservative statement. 
 [This is not the moment to deconstruct Zizek's text plainly it needs 
this but I personally don't feel it's worth the attention].  The 
wonderfulness of the idea that true humans desire to be (like) Americans 
is so marvellous as to force one to speak the negative - whilst reaching 
for the nearest weapon.

The underlying logic is that silence is an acceptance of the hegemony of 
the "pax-americana" - which is of course the position of the left led 
StopTheWar coalition as well as the position of the American and 3rd way 
conservatives who are running the imperialistic adventure. I would like 
as I'm sure Don and Blanchot would to be in situation where only those 
who noisily claimed to be conservatives would be accepted as such, but 
this is not the case. Rather we are existing in a world where we can 
still justly apply an aphorism of Edmond Jabes from The Book of Margins 
-"Silence is in possession of all the words that by and by, will break 
it. Is a word the only shard we percieve?" But where Jabes  suggests 
that the "main function of  speech - of words - is to express us?" I 
would also suggest that in the present this be read as resistance and 
desire. Not that this is not incorporated in the work, for it is...

It occurs to me to add that I am not attempting to impose an answer for 
this would stifle any atttempt to resist the forces that drive us to 
silence, to produce in us a docile,  subservient and neutral attitude, 
perhaps even the very silence that Blair requires if he is to be allowed 
to make the poor of Iraq and the Uk pay for this war and next as yet 
unplanned one.

my love for Jabes is on the same level as that for the wonderful Duras 
of "destroy, she said".

regards
steve

Judy wrote:

> steve, all
> Your words bring to mind Nixon's 1969 construction of the "great 
> silent majority" idea, as he struggled agasint the Vietnam war 
> opposition.  It was a powerful phrase, energizing war proponents, 
> demoralizing war opponents. Its force was hammered home in the massive 
> overwhelming defeat of George McGovern in 72 (largely thanks to 
> determined and shameful media efforts to caricature and discredit 
> him).  This 'great silent majority' force continues to reverberate in 
> its haunting and daunting American relevance.
>
> Here is an excerpt from Nixon's speech:
> http://chnm.gmu.edu/hardhats/silent.html
>
>>  Let historians not record that, when America was the most powerful 
>> nation in the world, we passed on the other side of the road and 
>> allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to 
>> be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.
>>
>> So tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, 
>> I ask for your support. I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency 
>> to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated 
>> a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge 
>> ["Vietnamization"]. The more support I can have from the American 
>> people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed. For the more divided 
>> we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate in Paris.
>>
>> Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. 
>> Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate 
>> the United States. Only Americans can do that.
>
>
>
> Eventually though the refusal of silence did defeat, or cause some 
> setbacks, to this US global agenda and ended its staggering atrocity 
> agaisnt the Vietnamese.  However, the peace settlement itself was 
> unfortunately silencing.  Conversation and learning about what was 
> mistaken about the US in Vietnam, and its wider implications for US 
> foreign policy, stopped, and most people have been left not to 
> understand why the war was wrong, or even clearly that it was wrong. A 
> majority never opposed the war on moral grounds, but only because it 
> wasn't worth the cost.  US history books present the story to the 
> young very superficially. The moral questions raised by imperialism, 
> or that imperialism was involved at all, are left in silence
>
> "fools" said i, "you do not know
> silence like a cancer grows
> hear my words that I might teach you
> take my arms that I might reach you"
> but my words like silent raindrops fell
> and echoed in the wells of silence...
> P.Simom, 1964
>
> steve, i appreciate your comments on silence, keep on going
> Judy
>
>
>
>
>
>> Don/All
>>
>> Interesting that you bring up Blanchot and Beckett - Besides neither 
>> of them can be considered as 'silent' to much noise, too many texts. 
>> Considering that the silence I was thinking of was related to the 
>> normative belief that silence is an acceptance of the dominant 
>> hegemony. Related to my current experiences of the stop the war 
>> campaign in the Spectacle silence is understood as a means of 
>> assigning the silent person a status as a supporter of the war.
>>
>> But I was not strictly speaking considering this - rather I was 
>> thinking that 'silence' as acqiesence emerged at around the same time 
>> as the spectacle - which i'd date as around the great crisis of 
>> 1926-29 - at this point in the history of 20th C things changed 
>> dramatically. Perhaps silence as acquiesence becomes normal at the 
>> same time as the sound film appears (those who are silent become 
>> simply extras) - but more accurately it is better to think, to 
>> understand it, because of the nearly universal franchise that emerges 
>> at that time and the place where silence becomes interpreted as 
>> agreement and acceptance of the correctness of the representatives in 
>> the parlimentary democracies...
>>
>> Personally i prefer noise, the chaotic interference of white noise, 
>> to the silence of unproblematic communication - which is impossible
>>
>> regards
>> steve
>>
>