aspects of the world #1

And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But Jesus remained silent.

The World hates silence. Nothing is less natural for a worldling than to sit unblanketed by the sound of speech, especially when he is in the presence of another.

Thankfully, he has been given a tongue and a capacity for language, which he can use to banish silence wherever he encounters it. A telling mark of good manners and upbringing in a worldling is his facility in the art of conversation, which is used to fill out interactions with good, fitting words so as to avoid all “awkward” silences. The invention of the telephone was a great milestone for the conversation-oriented World to permanently stave off silence.

Polite worldlings are becoming less common because new technologies allow the World to satisfy its constant demand for noise in ways that do not require them to speak to one another or to exert any effort at all. Many born in the mid-20th century have lived and died within continuous earshot of a television, falling asleep every night to the sound of sitcoms and infomercials. Even while dreaming, the World could still be constantly supplied with speech to stimulate the ear. Similar technologies have developed this triumph further. An ultra high-definition television can be carried around in one’s pocket in the form of a smartphone. The worldling of today can wear an earbud every hour of the day and night, allowing her to perform all of her tasks to the sound of a favorite podcast host or audiobook reader or singer.

There is another interesting technology which, like conversation, is declining in importance, though it has been used for thousands of years to satisfy the worldly need for human speech. It is interesting because it allows for words to be consumed while still in a state of aural silence, thus allowing for the creation of a pseudo-silence that can, for some, provide a substitute for talk. This technology is writing.

The pseudo-silence of writing and of reading the written word has served as a channel for worldliness to flow into the Christian Church. The scholar retreats into the pseudo-silence of text while a woman of the Spirit retreats into the true silence of prayer: to one with weak eyes, the resemblance of the two gives the former a spiritual sheen. Thus some Christians, especially men, it seems, fail to recognize the worldliness of reading (or pretending to read) a lot of “theology”. They fail to recognize the worldliness of assembling (or, for the ten millionth time, repeating) written arguments concerning Christ-adorned minutiae. Many clerics have thought it spiritually acceptable to make the Liturgy of the Hours, reading-text-as-praying, their sole extra-sacramental prayer practice. This is the World.

The funniest result of the world’s talk-immersion is their collective choice to pretend that speech is politically powerful. Worldlings love to “take a position”, or even to demand that others “take a position”. Worldlings love to “condemn” or to demand that others “condemn”. Worldlings love to “protest”. Worldlings love to make “calls to action”. Worldlings love to “raise awareness”. They love to “weigh in” on whatever topics are current for “the discourse”. They love to “send thoughts and prayers”. Worldlings love to “educate”. Their constant connection to the speech technologies known as “social media” and, through these, to the public relations apparatuses of political power, opens up for the World an immersive game of commentary and popularity which, in previous forms, would have been limited to published polemicists. Within the game, the worldling can do “activism”. He can spit on politics with an easy and aloof posture. He can farm likes with a steady routine of established worldling opinion. He can farm fewer but more meaningful likes with a smaller community of political outcasts. He can identify himself with some; he can differentiate himself from others. He can compose a tweet; he can watch a video; he can make a podcast with his friends; he can read a book. Politically consequential action usually carries some risk, and risks are for fools. Most worldlings give themselves a pass when it comes to their own inaction. But there must always be words.