I.
I don't know who came up with the slogan Silence is Violence, but it's certainly pithy - as an effective slogan should be.
In effect, it's a radical extension of the old idea qui tacet consentire videtur and powerfully conveys the contentious arguement that refusing to speak up against racism, for example, is tantamount not merely to lending one's support to discrimination and oppression, but is an act of violence in and of itself.
However, as a reader of Roland Barthes, I have long subscribed to the idea that fascism compels speech [1] and therefore have real concerns with the slogan silence is violence - and with the people who chant it in all seriousness (often having failed to think the idea through).
In brief: my worry is that the same kind of people who censor or restrict certain forms of speech on the one hand, now also wish to disallow the right to silence on the other hand; insisting that we must speak - although only in an approved manner [2].
II.
Of course, compelled speech has long troubled civil-liberties campaigners and not just Barthesians like me who would wish to keep the option of strategic non-discourse on the table.
The fact that woke activists fail to recognise the inherent authoritarianism of forcing people to identify themselves, express their views, and confess their feelings - so long as they conform to what now passes for moral and political orthodoxy - is certainly ironic (to say the least).
And writers including George Orwell and Michel Foucalt must be spinning in their graves ...
Notes
[1] Roland Barthes, 'Lecture in Inauguration of the Chair of Literary Semiology, Collège de France, January 7, 1977', trans. Richard Howard, October,
Vol. 8 (Spring, 1979), pp. 3-16. Published by the MIT Press. This text can be accessed via JSTOR: click here.
I am referring to the paragraph in which Barthes says: "But language - the performance of a language system - is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech." The reason for this, of course, is that speech acts don't take place in a vacuum; they unfold within the bounds of power (and very often enter into the service of power).
[2] Mick Hume summarises all this as follows:
"The
slogan 'Silence is Violence' does not only mean that you must speak
out, but that you must follow the correct script. You are free to say
exactly what everybody else is saying, and say it loud.
Free speech must always involve the right to offend, to speak what you
believe to be true regardless of what others think. The flip side of
free speech is that you must have the right to be silent when you choose
- particularly when somebody is trying to compel you to speak as
instructed."
See his article 'No, silence is not violence', Spiked (16th June 2020): click here.
