by Mary Lucia Darst
Silence is the key. Only through silence can one learn to live with oneself. Only through learning to live with oneself can one learn to live with others.
Silence necessitates solitude. Because the presence of others precludes silence.
Silence is the precursor to much of what society lauds.
Essayist William Deresiewicz made the connection between society and leadership the subject of his lecture to the 2010 plebe class of the United States Military Academy. The text of the lecture is a meditation on the imperative of having a core or a contemplative life in order to be a leader. Introducing Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness and use of the phrase “chance to find yourself” in the context of the solitude of the sea, Deresiewicz said:
“The chance to find yourself.” Now that phrase, “finding yourself,” has acquired a bad reputation. It suggests an aimless liberal-arts college graduate—an English major, no doubt, someone who went to a place like Amherst or Pomona—who’s too spoiled to get a job and spends his time staring off into space. But here’s Marlow, a mariner, a ship’s captain. A more practical, hardheaded person you could not find. And I should say that Marlow’s creator, Conrad, spent 19 years as a merchant marine, eight of them as a ship’s captain, before he became a writer, so this wasn’t just some artist’s idea of a sailor. Marlow believes in the need to find yourself just as much as anyone does, and the way to do it, he says, is work, solitary work. Concentration. Climbing on that steamboat and spending a few uninterrupted hours hammering it into shape. Or building a house, or cooking a meal, or even writing a college paper, if you really put yourself into it.
Normally, society conceives of solitude as a sacrifice at best, e.g. religious hermits, or a punishment at worst, e.g. solitary confinement. Perhaps a sign of modern fear of silence is that some of the antagonists in Doctor Who are named ‘the Silence’. What, though, if silence and solitude are privileges? What effect does such an understanding have upon our conception of being alone?
The original meaning of the Ancient Greek word scholê (σχόλη) means ‘leisure’. But not in the sense of pleasure, rather in the sense of withdrawal. Such leisure is, in its ideal state, tightly conditioned: “Leisure should thus not be equated with freedom in the sense of emptiness or idleness.” The meaning of scholê is significant because it is the root of the word ‘school’, an institution not associated with leisure, withdrawal, or silent contemplation. Yet, the etymological history is quite logical: “The background is the simple fact that learned discussion, attention, and study require that one is free and undisturbed. […] Education presupposes that time is set apart for it and, as a consequence, that other things are not done”. While not pursuing some activities, such as daily manual labor, a schooled person, i.e. a person of leisure, it was not to be presumed that he or she might be idle.
The early places of leisure as defined by scholê in the Western world were of a monastic nature, a place where the emphasis was upon the
[S]imple and informal character of the “school,” its connection to the household, students’ contribution regarding provision of food, ideals of communal living, a mixture of students and visitors, the importance of written correspondence, and the role of benefactors.
None of the above directly suggests a place of silence or contemplation. Though one might observe that the description fits an Oxford or Cambridge college or Harvard house. But in reality, one understands that the institution is one of isolation, which in turn is a type of solitude. One receives great latitude in setting one’s own schedule, acquiring knowledge according to one’s own learning style, but sooner or later that weekly essay must be written. When that time comes, a person must retreat from his or her fellows, either literally or metaphorically, and seek a place of silence in order to achieve a goal.
Those within an environment of scholê are held aloof from the world in the name of not only study but of character development. Even prior to the development of Christian monasticism, with its direct ethos of isolation, the scholê of the ancient world emphasized sequestration in the name of “moral and social development.” In the modern world, “moral and social development” are still on the agenda, but the ideals are different. They always have been. A true aristocrat doesn’t want his or her child to have the ideals or morals of a state schooler, and vice versa. Herein lies a source of hatred for centuries. In the Buddhist East, as well as the Christian West, detractors of education according to scholê have indicted it as a source of privilege and social division. And in truth, there is reason for such a claim. If one looks at the historic proportion of leaders across all fields, they received a certain type of education at a certain type of institution. As historian and creator of leadership theory as a field John Eric Adair, himself an alumnus of St Paul’s School and Oxford, discusses across his œuvre, there is a fundamental personal character which is required for good leadership, but these institutions have over the centuries developed a system which is capable of incubating those with the requisite character. The scholê formation tends, for good or for evil, to produce men and women who are effective leaders. In contrast, the collectivist, top-down approach common in state schools has been designed from its inception to produce followers rather than innovators or leaders. Yet, why does the isolation of the monastic way produce leaders when popular culture says such children are sheltered? They have spent time alone with themselves, and now certain of their own minds, they are equipped to instruct others.
An environment of solitude and contemplation has the potential to foster envy based on the difference between its results and those of a more collective approach. Indeed, in relation to societal development and in the context of technological progress, the collectivist approach increasingly appears to produce individuals who are remarkably incapable of benefitting actively and constructively from an evolving technological landscape. Back in 2006, economist Carl Schramm raised the alarm that the majority of the younger generations were going to be consigned to life as passive consumers of content, users and victims of technology, and permanent infants in society as they had been raised without character, without introspection, and without the liberal arts that are the foundation of humanist thought and identity.
For universities to shift away from a broad, basic liberal arts education that includes grounding in mathematics and science threatens the production of the human talent needed to sustain the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ultimately, it will result in the production of young adults incapable of being creative and innovative contributors to society. […] Narrow vocationalism simply does not prepare our students to deal with the next opportunity nearly as well as a liberal education that allows them to realize the full range of their potentialities. Higher education should graduate intellectually curious students prepared to make innovative contributions to society and the economy. That will be the only way to succeed in the entrepreneurial economy ahead.
Along similar lines, in 2022, entrepreneur and blockchain expert G. C. Cooke warned that while the digital world is discreetly moving to blockchain, the majority of the population will be incapable of working effectively in the individual-centric, personal responsibility focused Web3 or Web4 environments or using the technologies constructively because they have been raised to be followers first, individuals second or even third. Exploration, development, silence and contemplation, or self-identification, these concepts are all alien to the majority.
Time for silence is a privilege. Environments which foster solitude and introspection are few and if they exist in the broader world tend to be maligned as ‘elite’, or even worse ‘religious’. But given the accrual of benefits, the benefits of spending time in solitude, can one afford to not dedicate at least part of one’s life to silence?
Mary Lucia Darst is a filmmaker, an active classical musician, an entrepreneur, and holds a DPhil in Music from the University of Oxford. Send her mail.
Isonomia Quarterly 