Wise V Stupid

Wise V Stupid

In our social system, silence signifies awkwardness, stupidity, lack of depth: in order for us to fight this haunting ghost we watch films, read books, travel. The more of those things we do the more confidence we have in our capability not to be boring, and because we all expect not to be bored the person next to us feels compelled to do the exact same thing. We all end up homogenised: reading and watching the same things and going to the exact same places.
For instance, if you fantasize romantically about someone, you will shape your appearance in the form of someone that is agreeable, and you think the only way to achieve this is by understanding, by giving your opinion, ultimately, by talking. Finally after you have worked hard to prove that you are a capable intellectual being, you stop, and give room to what has been following you: silence, and silence most of the time turns into action. Now, after you have secured that someone’s attention and you are completely confident about yourself you do what has been in your mind all along. You kiss.
We could argue that most of the obsolete things human beings have invented come from avoiding silence. Take the ancient sport of wrestling as an example, perhaps this activity was invented after two bored males who have exhausted all the things they could talk about and felt the need to fill the gap provoked by silence, but did not want to engage in any sexual activity, came up with the rules of wrestling. Or we could look at the economy of a more modern sport, football. A movement en masse makes a living in order that a Sunday game be played smoothly, and that we are able to watch it. We could summarize that this heroic deed is orchestrated for a single purpose: the Monday morning break around the water cooler.
Because we always share our travel experiences and always talk about the things we have watched and read we can easily argue that we are all critics to some extent. Most of us keep our criticisms to those most proximate to us, but others, take this a step further, they write them in a blog, publish them in a newspaper and some even write a book. Busy in our quest for speech we seem to forget about the importance of silence. Let us value silence, because only after we have given speech an abstinence the truly important things contextualize (Cioran, 1956, p407).
Perhaps those who value silence are the only ones who can truly grasp humility, they understand the redundancy of words therefore they limit their speech to a single phrase or formula that can encompass the meaning of things, braggarts on the other hand, their job is to amuse or exasperate. Hence the comparison that Emil Cioran makes of Voltaire and Pascal, the former a prolific and generalist writer has no “sensibility for the intrinsic”, the latter a mathematician and philosopher who does not tell us “all there is to say” transcends time (Cioran, 1956 p405).
Silence has a close relationship with thought and thought with intelligence and intelligence with acting wisely. Cioran points out to us that to be “wise” is to act normally. A simple illustration of this will be to look at a normal move expected of a bright young Kiwi, which will be for him to enrol at university (preferably on a business degree), then depart on his overseas experience to England and after having gained enough “experience” enter the New Zealand work force, he will then work and save to “buy” a house. How quickly he does all these will be determined by how well he filled the societal norms assigned to him.
Everything we do is being questioned by others. For instance, a parent's goal is to provide their children with enough resources so they could finish with ease the early learning stages of their lives, in the process children's actions are closely monitored and criticised. On a different level, we have governments that build entire systems to monitor and punish behaviours considered to be fouled. TV programmes, newspapers, magazines are economically dependent on the abnormal actions of individuals and if they can't find any they fabricate them. Therefore, no one pays attention to the actions of the wise man, they are normal.
If we consider all aspects of silence, thought, and intelligence we could reach the conclusion that it is best if we remain silent, but Cioran tells us, it is “easier to renounce to bread than speech” (Cioran, 1956, p405). We cling to words in order to remain sane, because our thoughts are more likely to torture than to enlighten, so, we speak, but we do so mainly to escape our own mind. But our criticism is not targeted at those, it is aimed at people that want to publish a book only to reinforce the norm and bring up “ideas which are too acceptable” (Cioran, 1956, p408). But our criticism also goes to those that write in order to anger, those who are too afraid of being forgotten, of dying too soon without having had made a name for themselves. Hence Cioran's view on the importance of our enemies: our actions are more important than their own and as a result we “sustain illusions about ourselves” (Cioran, 1956, p410); our enemies' hate is not what upsets us, it is their indifference.
But if we take a wider approach to this enemy theory and think about the things that push us to make a name for ourselves we come to realise that we are battling for the world's attention, and money, often, is the only way to win. Therefore, driven by pride, ego and blindly believing in our talents thinking that our opinions are the only ones that deserve a voice: we write. But I am not suggesting for us to stop literature for several centuries (Cioran, 1956, p407), what I do suggest, however, is for us to be original, to experiment, to challenge the norm to be unwise. Finally, if we must write let us remember that “with gold anyone makes poetry” (Becquer, 1871), therefore, do not let us do it for money, or fame, let us do it only to further our minds and the minds of others.
The ideas above came from reading Emil Cioran's essay Some Blind Alleys: A Letter. At first his essay seems the work of a sour, antagonistic and depressed individual but after reading it a second, third and fourth... time one realises that perhaps he is a sour, antagonistic and depressed individual, nevertheless, within his writing we find ideas that are positive, constructive and progressive. Therefore, what I think Blind Alleys does is to question subjectivity, not in the sense that it is wrong to listen to someone's opinion but, often, opinions are simply made in order to avoid silence, to avoid thinking and to show off. A consequence of this is a world saturated with obsolete ideas that only serve as stagnations of the mind. Cioran suggests that in order for people to attain objectivity we need to wear the “pendant of adventure,” (Cioran, 1956, p407) and experience things rather than lead a life where nothing outside ourselves deserves attention or curiosity (Cioran, 1956, p405). But before we finish this reflexion I would like to ask you a final question. Should we be wise and lead a normal life; or should we be stupid and carry with us the book of our failures? Before you answer, take in mind that if we are wise we will lead a successful life according to the contemporary standards of society. But if we lead a stupid life we will bring with us, perhaps, many more experiences.

Bibliography

E. M. Cioran. “Some Blind Alleys: A Letter” [1956]. The Art of The Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. Sel./intro. Phillip Lopate. NY: Doubleday, 1994. 404-416. Originally Published in The Temptation to Exist. Translated by Richards Howard; Introduction by Susan Sontag. Chicago: UCP 1998. 108-25.

G. A. Becquer. “Rime XXVI”. Legends and Letters. Translated from the Spanish by Robert M. Fedorchek; introduction by Rubén Benítez ; drawings by Jane Sutherland.
Lewisburg [Pa.]: Bucknell University Press; London; Crandbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1995.
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