Many activists on social media (and elsewhere) shout the phrase "Silence is Violence"
That statement implies that you're either with us or with the bad guys. That being neutral gives aid & comfort to their enemies.
To those activists, violence isn't just bombs, bullets, kicks & punches. To them, violence is also any disagreement with them, any inconvenience to them, anything that gets in their way to victory.
They claim that the use of hurtful words is psychological warfare.
But the phrase "Silence is Violence" is a form of psychological warfare
Here's a perfect tweet on this from 2022
https://twitter.com/Louis_Allday/status/1573013966107906048
And that's the thing. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to be ready to go public on your side on every issue.
Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to have more people fighting on my side.
I mean, there's a reason I blog and make YouTube speeches. To get more people on my side.
But not everyone who is silent is doing it out of malice.
Some of the silence is due to things like
- being too busy to survive (or helping their family to survive) to be paying attention to all that's going on in this world
- Not enough time or mental energy to research the issues that are out there
- Not having the mental capacity to understand all the issues
- Some people are just very introverted. Public attention has the same harmful effect on them just like how peanuts & bee stings have harmful effects on those with allergies
- Some people have difficulty expressing themselves
- Some people are afraid to lose their job and are one missed paycheck (or direct deposit) away from becoming homeless.
But not everyone was taking a side. As I scrolled through my timeline, I saw lots of random citizens being told that if they didn’t speak out, they, too, would have blood on their hands.
People speaking from both the right and the left seemed to attribute my silence to depraved indifference to human suffering, though they were divided on which humans were suffering. As it happens, I had been dealing with shingles (zero stars, do not recommend) and the depression I struggle with periodically. I was tired and overwhelmed, as are a great many other people. But the voices yelling at me and anyone else who failed to post seemed to believe that not making a statement was itself a statement — and an immoral one, at that.
and the reason more don't take a public stance on Israel-Palestine
There’s a facile version of taking a stand on social media that generates righteous back patting but reduces complex issues to a simple yes or no. Taking simplistic stands can also lead to twisting words. Concern for Palestinians is portrayed as support for Hamas or hatred toward Israel or Jews in general. Anger about Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israeli citizens — or any mention of antisemitism — is portrayed as denigrating the dignity of all Palestinian lives. This kind of thinking is deeply unserious and further fuels hostilities, warping nuanced positions into extremism and mistaking tweet-length expressions of outrage for brave action in the face of atrocity.
and this
Sitting with uncertainty is hard, especially when social media has primed us to expect perfect real-time information during traumatic events and to want instantaneous answers and resolution. Moral certainty is an anchor we cling to when factual certainty is not possible. And the faster we express it, the more certain we appear. The most righteous among us post — and do it immediately.
Totally agree with that part. In most incidents, the facts of the case aren't made public within the first 48 hours. In many cases, even 48 days later, there are still facts not yet made public. There are things to investigate and verify before officials make official statements. But conspiracy theorists don't even have to wait 48 seconds before they spread half-truths and non-truths on social media.
That's why I tend to restrain my commenting on very recent incidents. I prefer to wait until the facts come out. It's also why I usually wait before I blog on the topic.
Now, the following paragraph is more classic than classic. It should be studied by future generations in high school & college courses. It's that important
Knee-jerk social media posts are not what bother me most, though. Instead, it’s the idea that not posting is wrong somehow — that everyone needs to speak, all the time. It discourages shutting up and listening and letting the voices that matter the most be heard over the din. It implies it’s not OK to have any uncertainty about what’s going on or any kind of moral analysis that does not lend itself to presentation in a social media post. It does not leave time or space for people to process traumatic events in the sanctuary of their own minds or to gather more information before pronouncing a judgment. It pressures people who don’t have an opinion yet or are working out what they think to manufacture one and present it to a jury of total strangers on the internet who will render an instant verdict on its propriety.
In an interview with ESPN on Thursday night, Kim opened up about her experience of racism, her fears for her safety and that of her parents, and her decision to speak out as a high-profile Asian American woman."I was getting messages from people telling me I'm part of the problem because I was being silent," Kim told ESPN. "I was like, 'Do you realize I'm also Asian American and this affects me?' It was a lot of white people telling me they were upset at my silence."Kim said she hoped her Instagram post raised awareness about the prevalence of Asian American hate and illustrated that she, too, deals with discrimination on a daily basis. Her silence was not due to apathy, she said, but fear. "Just because I am a professional athlete or won the Olympics doesn't exempt me from racism," Kim said. "I get hundreds of those kinds of messages monthly. I see maybe 30 a day."
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