Civilization Requires Silence

I stood at the peak of the Watchtower, a 9,000-foot peak in Sequoia National Park, taking in the sublime natural beauty of the scene before me.

Screaming shattered the serene peace. Behind me, three young Pakistani men cried out for help. 

I turned, ready to come to their aid. Then they began laughing. These men were not in any danger; they simply enjoyed the sound of their own voices echoing in the canyon. That this might bother other hikers was not only not a concern but part of the fun! One youth began to loudly impersonate the sounds of a woman in orgasm. Another shouted, “Fuck India, Pakistan is the greatest!”

These young men are an example of a powerful tendency among many human beings: the desire to make noise precisely because it is disruptive. For these human beings, silence is a terrible curse. They hate it. For them, making noise, no matter how stupid and purposeless, is preferable to listening to their own thoughts (assuming they have any thoughts at all.)

Harassing others, polluting, and littering are highly enjoyable activities. Disrupting the lives of others is a way to express power and dominance. Auditory terrorism—the intentional and senseless use of noise to annoy and harass—is a particularly common manifestation of this impulse. 

Serious contemplation is the foundation of civilization. It is the human ability to think and to speak rationally that distinguishes us from the animals. Thinking, however, requires focus and a lack of distractions. A constant din of noise gets in the way of thinking.

Silence, therefore, is inextricably linked to civilization

It is no wonder that we find the fathers of civilization in Ancient Greece cultivating oases of peace in which to conduct their work. We are told by Aristophanes that the location for Plato’s school featured sacred olive groves and a number of shaded walks. Other Greek writers note that the Academy began as a public park located in a part of Athens surrounded by graveyards, altars, and sanctuaries. 

It is no accident that the first founders of education and learning preferred to conduct their philosophical conversations in private and quiet places where earnest and serious discussion was possible.

Drowning our lives in sound without making room for spaces of quiet and contemplation is a means to strip away our humanity. The din of lawnmowers, leaf blowers, cars, and blaring music in public places are forms of pollution. It is imperative that we work to carve out spaces of silence and meditation in the midst of the cacophony that threatens to overwhelm these fragile islands of thought.

Cultivating silence is an intentional choice and one that more Americans should pursue in this time of political and civilizational chaos.

One of the most striking differences between the third world and the first is the cultivation of quiet places. Public parks, libraries, and churches, at their peak, are places designed to preserve serenity, meditation, and contemplation even in the middle of the bustle of city life. 

Noise-making is an inevitable part of making civilization possible, of course. We need trains, airplanes, and trucks to ship needed goods across the landscape. Construction equipment is a necessary part of building the infrastructure necessary for our advanced way of life. The point is not that we should make the whole world into a library foyer but to become mindful of preserving and cultivating the places of quiet that already exist.

I have often noticed large numbers of people, especially the young, with their earphones in everywhere they go. This is neither necessary nor healthy. It is not good for human beings to spend their entire lives immersed in sound. We must make space for silence.  

We also need to be more aggressive about cracking down on anti-social and disruptive auditory terrorism. I once rode the subway in Washington, DC, during rush hour when another passenger, a black homeless man, began loudly rapping along to the music in his earbuds—this involved repeated uses of racial slurs and a disgusting recounting of sexual acts. 

Contrast with my experience on the Tokyo subway in the morning rush hour—though the train was full, it was almost completely silent, other than the sound of the cars on the track. America does not need to achieve Japanese levels of reserve but sterner enforcement of prohibitions on noise pollution would serve us well. 

Arthur Schopenhauer, in a brilliant essay entitled “On Noise,” describes the baleful effects of auditory harassment as follows:

“Noise is the most impertinent of all interruptions, for it not only interrupts our own thoughts but disperses them. Where, however, there is nothing to interrupt, noise naturally will not be felt particularly. Sometimes a trifling but incessant noise torments and disturbs me for a time, and before I become distinctly conscious of it I feel it merely as the effort of thinking becomes more difficult, just as I should feel a weight on my foot; then I realise what it is.”

We ought to seek out lives where noisy interruptions are less common. We should spend more time in thought instead of senselessly banging about. The auditory and visual bombardment of our time is a kind of psychological oppression. The thoughtless character of our time emphasizes just how necessary the conditions of thinking truly are to civilization. Quiet and contemplation are needed now more than ever.