The Ethics of Communication — Silence as a Choice

This series began with the pursuit of correctness and proceeded through the design for being received, dealing with cognitive bias, listening, feedback, and dialogue with opposing views. The last remaining question is the most paradoxical: the fact that not speaking, that is, silence, can become another way of speaking. Wittgenstein, Laozi, Vimalakīrti, Levinas, Pinter, Dōgen, Arendt — seven traditions, in different words, illuminate the ethical weight of silence. This volume weaves that wisdom and stands as the closing of the ten-volume Communication series.

01Speaking and Being Silent — The Last Question of Ethics

The premise running through this series has been that communication can be designed. Context, timing, temperature, medium, structure — assemble these consciously, and the quality of conveyance changes. This is a proposition shown repeatedly throughout the series.

But this volume shakes that premise one step. Speaking is not always the best. In some scenes, the most honest communication may be not speaking. Silence is not evasion, not indifference, but one of the options. On the pharmaceutical floor, one need not necessarily verbalise every point of correction. One need not necessarily point out every felt unease. Silence sometimes preserves the deepest quality of dialogue. This is the last ethical question this volume faces.

02Wittgenstein — "Whereof One Cannot Speak, Thereof One Must Be Silent"

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), touched on also in Vol. 1, stated this in the final proposition of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921).

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
— Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. (Tractatus, proposition 7.)

This single sentence is often read as a positivist prohibition. But Wittgenstein's own intent was in a deeper place. The domain that language can express precisely has limits. Forcing what is outside those limits into language distorts what is truly important — this was his central proposition.

On the pharmaceutical floor, not every judgement, every unease, every value can necessarily be put into language. Intuition rising from experience, deep respect for the other, ethical sensitivity beyond norms — forcing these into words often distorts them. What Wittgenstein shows is the fact that silence is not the defeat of intellect but also its summit.

03Laozi's "The Great Sound Is Faint in Voice" — The Deepest Sound Is Unheard

From the Eastern lineage, a classical proposition pointing to a place strikingly close to Wittgenstein. From chapter 41 of Laozi's Daodejing.

"The great square has no corners. The great vessel is late in completion. The great sound is faint in voice. The great image is without form. The Dao is hidden and has no name."
— Daodejing, ch. 41.

"The great sound is faint in voice" — the greatest (deepest) sound is almost unheard. The most important does not often take word or form. This paradox of Laozi anticipates, in different words, the place Wittgenstein reached twenty-five centuries later. The most essential dwells in the place that cannot be spoken.

On the pharmaceutical floor, the judgement that comes from years of experience, deep attachment to the organisation, thought for the patient — most of these melt into the air of the floor without being clearly spoken. It is not necessarily right to force all of them into language. Only the person who holds the feeling of "the great sound is faint in voice" can respect the weight of what is transmitted without being spoken.

04The Silence of Vimalakīrti — The Highest Sermon in Buddhism

One more from the East. In the Mahāyāna scripture Vimalakīrti Sūtra, there is a famous passage. The chapter "Entering the Gate of Non-Duality" — after thirty-two bodhisattvas one after another spoke of "what is non-duality (the state beyond dualism)," the question was finally thrown to the lay saint Vimalakīrti. His response was this.

"Vimalakīrti was silent. Mañjuśrī praised, saying, 'Excellent, excellent. To the point of having neither letters nor speech — this is truly entering the gate of non-duality.'"
— gist of the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, "Entering the Gate of Non-Duality."

Vimalakīrti said nothing. He simply sat in silence. Seeing this, the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī said in admiration — "This indeed is the true way of entering the state of non-duality." What thirty-two had exhausted words to explain, Vimalakīrti showed by silence.

What this teaching shows is the recognition that there is a domain language can only approach, and a domain language can never touch. About the latter, speaking rather distorts. Vimalakīrti's silence is not the silence of ignorance but the silence of one who has arrived. On the pharmaceutical floor, at the most important moments, we may sometimes be able to show without speaking.

05Levinas's "Ethics of the Other" — Silence Frees the Other

The Lithuanian-French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) brought a decisive turn to twentieth-century ethics. What he showed in Totality and Infinity (1961) was the fundamental proposition that the other does not become an object of my language.

"The face of the other is not the object of my language, nor my possession, nor the frame of my understanding. The other is infinity and constantly transcends my understanding. Ethics begins not from trying to take the other into my words but from the silence that respects the other's otherness." — paraphrase of Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (1961)

Levinas's implication reaches this volume's theme directly. The moment one feels one has completely understood the other, one is robbing the other of its otherness. The desire to speak all often becomes a violence enclosing the other in one's own frame. Silence gives the other room to speak itself in its own language — this is ethical silence.

On the pharmaceutical floor, the moment we feel we "understand" the requester or colleague, we are often enclosing that person in the frame of our understanding. To maintain the silence "there is a part I do not understand" respects the other's otherness. This is not a passive posture but a deep ethical attitude.

06Harold Pinter's Dramatic Silence — What Lies Before and After Words

The British playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008) was a pioneer who introduced "silence" to contemporary theatre. Long silences are inserted between the lines of his plays. They are not meaningless pauses but moments when emotions and tensions impossible to express in words run.

"There are two kinds of silence. One when no word is spoken. The other when, perhaps, a torrent of language is being employed. The latter silence is born precisely by the words." — paraphrase of Harold Pinter, Nobel Lecture (2005)

Pinter's observation has a serious implication for the practice of communication. Excessive words often cover up a deeper silence. What one truly wants to convey, what one wants to reach the other, becomes buried in the torrent of words. On the pharmaceutical floor too, the longer the correction request, the more the real intent may thin. What Pinter shows is the playwright's wisdom that consciously leaving "the weight of silence" raises the quality of conveyance.

07Dōgen's Silent Illumination — Wisdom Before Words

The founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen school Dōgen (1200–1253), in the Shōbōgenzō, systematised the unique practice of Zen called shikantaza (just sitting, 只管打坐). This connects to the stream of mokushō zen (silent-illumination Zen, 黙照禅).

"Simply sit upright, do not think, do not weigh right and wrong. Let mind-consciousness rest in one place. This is the essential art of zazen." — gist of Dōgen, Fukan Zazengi (1227)

What Dōgen shows is the recognition that within the state of temporarily stopping words and thought, another form of wisdom rises. This is not anti-intellectualism. Rather, it is the spiritual discipline of stepping beyond, having known the limits of words and thought to the full. On the pharmaceutical floor, trying to justify every judgement in words sometimes thins the quality of the real judgement. Respect "the judgement that moves before words" — this is another form of professionalism Dōgen showed.

08Arendt's "Responsibility of Silence" — Not Speaking Is Not Neutral

So far we have seen the affirmative side of silence. But there is another side. The fact that silence can sometimes be an ethical dereliction. The one who argued this most sharply was Hannah Arendt (1906–1975). It resonates here with the discussion of "the banality of evil" also touched on in Vol. 2.

"Silence is not neutral. The one who has the power to raise the voice and remains silent participates, through that silence, in the present evil. Not speaking in a scene where one should speak is itself an ethical choice, and responsibility accompanies it." — paraphrase distilled from Arendt's various works (The Human Condition, 1958; Eichmann in Jerusalem, 1963)

Arendt's observation moves in a different context from Wittgenstein's or Laozi's "silence toward the unspeakable." The silence that does not speak what should be spoken holds heavy ethical meaning. On the pharmaceutical floor: seeing a compliance violation and being silent, being silent without objecting to an improper instruction — these are the forms of silence Arendt indicted.

So there are two kinds of silence. The humble silence toward the unspeakable and the negligent silence that avoids what should be spoken. The former is the summit of ethics; the latter is the failure of ethics. The sensitivity to distinguish the two is asked at the final phase of communication ethics.

09The Discipline of Silence on the Pharmaceutical Floor

Bring the abstract down to the floor. Silence has plural forms, and each has its own scene.

The discipline of silence begins from distinguishing which silence. The silence of Wittgenstein and Laozi and the silence Arendt indicts are entirely different things. Conflating the two collapses the professional's ethics.

10Summary of the Ten-Volume Series and the Final Four Disciplines

Here, take an overview of the place this ten-volume Communication series has pointed to.

And, the final four disciplines for bringing the wisdom woven up to this volume down into daily practice.

Communication is not only speaking. Not speaking, too, is another way of speaking. Wittgenstein, Laozi, Vimalakīrti, Levinas, Pinter, Dōgen, Arendt — seven traditions, in separate words, have shown the ethical weight of silence. Silence is neither evasion nor indifference but one of the options. Between speaking and being silent dwells the final ethics of communication.

Through ten volumes, we have advanced from correctness, through the design for being received, the habits of cognition, listening, feedback, dialogue across opposing views, and finally to silence. All of these are a map for turning the communication you do daily on the pharmaceutical floor into something deeper, more honest, more reaching. May this series serve as a small compass in your work.