Re: <nettime> the silence on the rising fascism

[Ted Byfield via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

On 22 Dec 2023, at 6:47, paul van der walt via nettime-l wrote:

>> Am 21.12.23 um 20:03 schrieb Ted Byfield via nettime-l:
>>
>>> So, again: when someone laments the "silence on" some subject, one way to understand that gesture — just one way, not the only ways — is that it assumes a traditional, even nostalgic model of discourse, and on that basis diagnoses a collective failure.
>>
>> Silence is defined as a traditional model of discourse? I have to admit that this seems not intuitive to me. I tried to translate it to German - but the result does not make sense in relation to the definition. Maybe you can help me with a hint on the  other ways to define "silence"?
>
> The way i understand it, Ted is remarking that in our situation, (some number of) people are participating in a discussion on a mailing list, and some (many more, by definition almost, given the subscriber count) are lurking / listening / thinking their thoughts / sending everything to spam, but not replying in public to the postings.  He's saying that the gesture of labelling this phenomenon as an (my words) "active / deliberate silence" is firstly a specific framing (one of many, as he argues), and secondly a nostalgic one, in that it stands in comparison to collective manifestations out in the streets, with people shouting, as an example (among many).  I think the claim is that instead of choosing this one framing, of labelling this state of affairs as "silence", we are invited to reflect on how else to respond to our contemporary context.
>
> Apologies Ted if i'm flat-footing your (eloquent, IMHO) framing and argument.

Paul, it seems like Christian's question was about grammar: "it" = lamenting the silence on some subject, not the silence itself. But your summary is 🎯: yes, silence can and often should be understood as a form of discourse.

This exchange is a neatly concrete example of what I was arguing. I wrote to Christian offlist because it didn't seem like thousands of people need another mail from me; but if I don't acknowledge *your* mail, what does that suggest? Agreement? Disagreement? Disregard? That I'm too busy?

This dynamic isn't peculiar to mailing lists at all, it's everyday life. Everyone knows that silence can have many reasons and mean many things. It's something we learn through immediate relationships — family, friends, love, school, work... Extending that awareness to larger spheres like politics should be common sense, not a huge conceptual hurdle. And yet liberationist movements (most recently #BLM and #metoo) had to mount ferocious struggles to convince people to do exactly that: learn to listen in new ways.

It's strange that such a basic idea would encounter so much resistance. But there are reasons, and I think they have to do with conflicting imaginaries.

This isn't a baroque or obscure issue. The rise of radical rightism across much of the world can be seen *in part* as a failure of leftism(s) to offer compelling narratives and ways of communicating. There are countless reasons for that, but there's one that really needs to be called out, imo: hectoring demands that people "speak out" — that is, express themselves according to the norms of a particular imaginary. That imaginary is *very* 20th-C, i.e., nostalgic: it dreams of a world where the burning issues of the day are clear, where important books and journals are manageable, where public squares are universal, where formal education is attainable, etc.

That world is over. The new world is much noisier: everything everywhere all at once, adapted to every medium, tailored to every micro-niche, projected onto every space, inserted into every moment — an empire of notifications. In this new world, quiet is a very precious thing, something people want and *need*.

None of this is to say there are no burning issues, important sources for ideas,   open and shared spaces, or ways of learning. OF COURSE THERE ARE. And we need more desperately than ever to share and compare our experiences, and we need to find critical, effective ways to frame them. But exhorting and berating others to speak out doesn't work — and those "others" are under no obligation to explain why it doesn't work.

A meme I saw go by a few days ago put it well: something like, "Rickrolling has
taught us to be wary of random links more than any cyber security course ever has." And if you roll your eyes at rickrolling, that probably isn't your own, individual, well-researched and -reasoned opinion — it's your imaginary talking.

Cheers,
Ted
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