Growing
up in Montana, I experienced my teenage years in an area where I was the
religious minority. Religion, itself,
was a minority. I had a great group of
friends, but they also asked a lot of questions. You see, I was a part of the Speech and
Debate team. My friends had something to
prove and I had something to defend.
There were many long bus rides where my friends and I would go back and
forth on topics of religion.
I
remember one night in particular when, as we were traveling back to our hometown,
that my friend Nick and I were talking.
Quickly, the conversation turned to what I believed. He was a vehement agnostic. We were in our teenage years and, like many
teenagers, he had decided to rebel against the traditional views of his
family. Usually, our bus ride talks were
calm and measured. We had learned how to
agree to disagree. On this occasion,
however, our talking got louder and louder until it drowned out much of the
road trip chatter. A bunch of our
teammates around us began to lean in and listen. I’ll be honest, he asked some hard questions
and I didn’t know all the answers, though I tried to explain to the best of my
abilities the importance of faith and trusting in things we can’t always
see. At one moment, he arrived at the
pinnacle of his argument, exclaiming in a loud voice his final question. He asked it to our newfound audience as much
as to me. Dead silence ensued. It was that moment when you realize that
you’re losing the argument, public opinion and you wonder if you’re losing the
people around you.
What I learned from this experience was the power of silence in persuasion
I'm a musician, and so I look at a lot of things from a musical perspective. When I was learning to play the french horn, my band director drilled into my head the importance of "playing the rests"--or rather, the silences--in the music. Sometimes, an absence of sound can have a more powerful effect than sound itself.
ReplyDeleteWow. Well said. It's so interesting how the lack of response from others can persuade us to not act as well! Interesting. Also I loved Katelyn's comment in regards to music. I totally agree.
ReplyDeleteThere is power in silence and for some reason it has the ability to convey feelings. You learned that you had "lost" the audience when silence prevailed. They conveyed to you, through silence, that they no longer saw your argument as valid. But I would say that especially in situations such as this the best response is using that power of silence yourself. I learned on my mission that sometimes the most intelligent thing you can say in response to an objection is to not say anything at all. It's interesting how it works both ways.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I wrote about the power of silence being empowering, but it seems to have been defeating in your case. It certainly is powerful in either way it is used, or perceived even.
ReplyDelete