Silence, a Politics

Contemporary Political Theory, 2003, 2, (49–65) r 2003 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1470-8914/03 $15.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/cpt

Silence: A Politics
Kennan Ferguson1
Department of Government and International Affairs, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, SOC 107, Tampa, FL 33620-8100, USA E-mail: [e-mail]

This article investigates the unfamiliar political implications of silence. Generally regarded as simply a lack of speech imposed upon the powerless, silence is thereby positioned as inimical to politics. In a normatively constituted lingual politics, silence’s role can never be more than that of absence. The subsequent understanding that silence can operate as resistance to domination has opened original and ground-breaking treatments of its role in political practice. However, the argument here moves beyond this simple dualism, examining how silence does not merely reinforce or resist power, but can be used to constitute selves and even communities. That silence can operate in such diverse ways, as oppression, resistance, and/or community formation, leads to the recognition that its ultimate politics cannot be fixed and determined. Contemporary Political Theory (2003) 2, 49–65. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300054 Keywords: silence; politics; communication; linguistics; community

Introduction
Political conflicts, identities, and ideologies are negotiated linguistically, language being both the instrument by which humans interact and the means of constructing what it means to be human. That voice and speech are central to the construction of community and political action is practically a truism within political theory. The assumption that language is deployed unproblematically and ubiquitously F that is, that language ‘just is’ and that all people use language identically and constantly F is, unfortunately, just as much a truism. For example, take what has served as the archetypal community for political theorists from

References: Allen, J. (1986) ‘Evidence and Silence: Feminism and the Limits of History’, in C. Pateman, and E. Gross (eds.) Feminist Challenges: Social and Political, Boston: Northeastern University Press. Barclay, R. (1831 [1692]) Truth Triumphant, Through the Spiritual Warfare, Christian Labors, and Writings, of that Able and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Robert Barclay: To Which is Prefixed an Account of his Life, Philadelphia: BC Stanton, 3 v. Contemporary Political Theory 2003 2 Kennan Ferguson Silence: A Politics 64 Bauman, R. (1983) Let Your Words Be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence Among Seventeenth Century Quakers, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Block de Behar, L. (1995) A Rhetoric of Silence and Other Selected Writings, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Bosmajian, H. (1999) The Freedom Not to Speak, New York: New York University Press. Brook, M. (1795) Reasons for the Necessity of Silent Waiting, in Order to the Solemn Worship of God; To Which are Added Several Quotations from Robert Barclay’s Apology, New York: John Bull. Brown, W. (1998) ‘Freedom’s Silences’, in R. Post (ed.) Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities. Brownmiller, S. (1975) Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, New York: Bantam Press. Cage, J. (1961) Silence, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Campion, J. (1993) The Piano, Artisan Entertainment Santa Monica CA. Clair, R.P. (1998) Organizing Silence: A World of Possibilities, Albany: State University of New York. Colley, T. (1805) An Apology for Silent Waiting Upon God in Religious Assemblies; With Some Observations on the Nature and Ground of True Faith, and the Application Thereof in the Important Concern of Worship, Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank. Crown, C.L. and Feldstein, S. (1985) ‘Psychological Correlates of Silence and Sound in Conversational Interaction’, in D. Tannen and M. Saville-Troike (eds.) Perspectives on Silence, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Crystal, D. (2000) Language Death, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dendrinos, B. and Pedro, E.R. (1997) ‘Giving Street Directions: The Silent Role of Women’, in A. Jaworkski (ed.) Silence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer. Ferguson, K. (1999) The Politics of Judgment: Aesthetics, Identity, Political Theory, Lanham, MD: Lexington. Foucault, M. (1980) in R. Hurley (trans.) The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction, New York: Vintage Books. Fraser, R. (1979) The Language of Adam, New York: Columbia University Press. Gilmore, P. (1985) ‘Silence and Sulking: Emotional Displays in the Classroom’, in D. Tannen and M. Saville-Troike (eds.) Perspectives on Silence, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Griffin, G. (1992) Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue, New York: Trilogy. Habermas, J. (1998) in W. Rehg (trans.) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press. Hodgkin, L.V. (1919) Silence: The Way of Wonder (Swarthmore Lecture 1919), London: The Swarthmore Press. Keith, G. (1687) The Benefit, Advantage, and Glory of Silent Meetings, both as it was Found at the Beginning, or First Breaking Forth of this Clear Manifestation of Truth, and continued so to be Found by all the Faithful and Upright in Heart at this Day, London: Andrew Sowle. Kostelanetz, R. (1988) Conversing with Cage, New York: Limelight. Lang, B. (1996) Heidegger’s Silence, Cornell: Cornell University Press. Langton, R. (1993) ‘Speech acts and unspeakable acts’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 22, pp. 305–33 Lyotard, J.F. (1988) in G. Van Den Abbeele (trans.) The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. MacKinnon, C. (1993) Only Words, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Muneto, S. (1991) ‘The Eloquent Silence of Zarathustra’, in G. Parkes (ed.) Nietzsche and Asian Thought, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nietzsche, F. (1969) in R.J. Hollingdale (trans.) Thus Spoke Zarathustra, London: Penguin. Contemporary Political Theory 2003 2 Kennan Ferguson Silence: A Politics 65 Noelle-Neumann, E. (1984) The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion F Our Social Skin, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Olsen, T. (1978) Silences, New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence. Picard, M. (1952) in S. Godman (trans.) The World of Silence, Chicago: Henry Regnery. Rich, A. (1979) On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978, New York: W.W. Norton. Rehnquist, W. O’Connor, S and White, B. (1989) Dissent, Texas v. Johnson, 491 US 397. Rochester, S.R. (1973) ‘The significance of pauses in spontaneous speech’, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 2 51–81. Sattel, J.W. (1983) ‘Men, Inexpressiveness, and Power’, in B. Thorne, C. Kramarae and N. Henley (eds.) Language, Gender, and Society, Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Scallon, R. (1985) ‘The Machine Stops: Silence in the Metaphor of Malfunction’, in D. Tannen and M. Saville-Troike (eds.) Perspectives on Silence, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Solomon, L.J. (2000) ‘The Sounds of Silence: John Cage and 40 3300 ’. www.A2STRNET.com Sontag, S. (1969) ‘The Aesthetics of Silence’, in Styles of Radical Will, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Steiner, G. (1976) Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature, and the Inhuman, New York: Athenium. Tannen, D. (1985) ‘Silence: Anything But’, in D. Tannen and M. Saville-Troike (eds.) Perspectives on Silence, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Tannen, D. (1990) ‘Silence as Conflict Management in Fiction and Drama: Pinter’s Betrayal and a Short Story, ‘Great Wits’, in A. Grimshaw (ed.) Conflict Talk: Sociolinguistic Investigations of Arguments in Conversations, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1922) in C.K. Ogden (trans.) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Wang, Y. (2001) ‘Liberating oneself from the absolutized boundary of language: a liminiological approach to the interplay of speech and silence in Chan Buddhism’, Philosophy East and West 51 83–99. Wardhaugh, R. (1985) How Conversation Works, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wright, D.S. (1992) ‘Rethinking transcendence: the role of language in experience’, Philosophy East and West 42 113–138. Zielinski, S. (1975) Psychology and Silence, Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill. Contemporary Political Theory 2003 2