3.
Silence vs darkness
Let us still
deepen our understanding of silence by taking a one new and particularly
intriguing perspective on silence. As we
noticed in the previous chapter silence is related but not restricted to our
hearing ability and thus to our ears? Partly
silence means that we do not hear anything but silence also means many other
things. This is really intriguing. Wikipedia opens its silence entry with the
following lines:
Silence is the lack of audible sound or presence of sounds of very low intensity. By analogy, the word silence can
also refer to any absence of communication, including in media other than speech. Silence
is also used as total communication, in reference to non verbal communication
and spiritual connection. Silence also refers to no sounds uttered by anybody
in a room or area
One way to
deepen our understanding about silence is to ask that are silence and darkness
comparable concepts. One might think so, because the other refers to hearing
and the other to seeing. One might think
that silence prevails when you do not hear anything, and darkness prevails when
you do not see anything. You might think that these concepts are sisters or brothers
on the semantic[1]
sense, but they seem to be very different. In particular the connotations which
relate these words are surprisingly different.
Please test
this by yourself: silence vs. darkness. Please stop for a while to reflect
these two words. How they are similar? How they are different? What would you
propose?
One answer
in my mind is that for some reason silence appears to be both very positive concept
(happy, joyful, awe, refers to deep wisdom etc.) and word which brings with it
very negative connotations (sad, even bad because the lack of caring, fear, etc.).
On the
other hand the connotations which relate to darkness appear to be predominantly
fearsome, sad and even evil. Again I
turned to internet and searched for pictures which were related to darkness. In
one picture there was a following evocative sentence which appears to capture
the message which was present in numerous pictures:
“It's not
the darkness we are afraid of,
it's what lays within the Dark we fear!”
It actually
seemed that one major line of approaching darkness in numerous pictures was
that there is something dangerous in the darkness and our heroes go there for
us and fight the fight for us.[2]
The message seems to be that the fight would be too difficult to us hence we
need a hero who is capable to face that foe and win our battle for us.
What can we
learn from this discussion when we turn our attention to silence in an organization?
At least one message is clear, we must not be too quick to think that silence
is always a negative thing, just an item in liabilities. Perhaps there is more
in silence, also when examined in organizational context. At least tentatively
we must keep open the possibility that sometimes silence may also be - surprise, surprise - a success
factor.
[1] And again Wikipedia helps: Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikós)[1][2] is the study of meaning. It focuses
on the relation between signifiers, like words, phrases, signs, and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotation.
And internet
help to find explanation for denotation: Denotation refers to
the literal meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition."¨ For
example, if you look up the word snake in a dictionary, you will
discover that one of its denotative meanings is "any of numerous
scaly, legless, sometimes venomous reptiles, a long, tapering, cylindrical body
and found in most tropical and temperate regions." Connotation, on the other
hand, refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word or the
emotional suggestions related to that word. The connotative meanings of
a word exist together with the denotative meanings. The connotations for
the word snake could include evil or danger.
[2] One very tentative thought
why silence and darkness bring with them so different connotations. Let us
think how language has developed in connection with human development. Let us
think a hunter in the forest. Could it be that for her/him darkness was a
negative thing, a predator could be close. And could it be that silence was a
good thing, a one sign of safety.
