
Environmentalist didn't speak for 17 years to learn how to listen to opponents - colinprince
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/breaking-silence-1.4526352/this-environmentalist-didn-t-speak-for-17-years-to-learn-how-to-listen-to-his-opponents-1.4527401
======
codr7
I did 3 months hard core full time Yoga in an ashram some years ago. As part
of the program; I didn't speak, read or write for a month. Or cut nails or
hair, but that's another story :) As an added bonus; the entire group followed
the same program, which meant that I didn't have to listen to them either.

The main take home for me was that most of the things that I feel are really
important to say in my daily life aren't. Once it was over, being expected to
speak felt like a burden.

~~~
beagle3
I’ve once met a German saying that I wholeheartedly adopted, “blessed be those
who have nothing to say, and nevertheless remain silent”.

(Don’t remember the German original - I don’t speak German)

There’s also a more philosophical take from Wittgenstein IIRc.

~~~
kasbah
I searched and found "Gesegnet seien jene, die nichts zu sagen haben und den
Mund halten!" which is the desired quotation but it's attributed to Oscar
Wilde [1] so probably originally English since Oscar Wilde is also quoted to
have said "Life is too short to learn German" (though he did learn German
according to Wikipedia).

[1]
[https://www.gutzitiert.de/zitat_autor_oscar_wilde_1481.html](https://www.gutzitiert.de/zitat_autor_oscar_wilde_1481.html)

~~~
codr7
Tell me about it.

I've lived here for three years, with a native speaking partner; but it's just
not happening much.

Before that I spent three years in school studying German, all gone.

I don't like the language very much, I guess that could be part of the
difficulty. It's just too damn complicated, the same way C++ is complicated.

~~~
bArray
> I don't like the language very much, I guess that could be part of the
> difficulty. It's just too damn complicated, the same way C++ is complicated.

Interesting comparison. I find computer languages incredibly easy to pickup.
Human languages on the other hand have been much more difficult. I only speak
English and sometimes even then my words come out in the wrong order or I
forget words entirely (+).

(+) I once forgot the word "and" \- as a result I struggled for a day to
speak/write many complex sentences.

------
jasaloo
Anyone who found this story intriguing should immediately go buy "Climate: A
New Story" by Charles Eisenstein. He explores how we use "war language" when
talking about environmental issues and how that undercuts our efforts... then
he proposes how we get out of that conversational rut, with allies, people on
the fence, and even climate change deniers.

~~~
Vagantem
Read it for free here: [https://charleseisenstein.org/books/climate-a-new-
story/](https://charleseisenstein.org/books/climate-a-new-story/)

------
ravenstine
I naturally don't make small talk as much as people usually do, and came up
with a saying when people tell me that I'm "so quiet":

 _If you 're always talking, you can't hear what's going on._

~~~
balabaster
I say this to my kids _all_ the time! They never stop talking... in fact, half
of the people around me never stop talking. It's astounding they ever manage
to learn anything, honestly.

~~~
dmix
Some people just need to voice every thought in their head. The best is when
two of these people start rambling to each other, they can go on for hours.

I used to date someone who always read everything out loud and talked things
out verbally while writing. Which they claimed helped them think but I'm not
convinced.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
> The best is when two of these people start rambling to each other, they can
> go on for hours

A phenomenon otherwise known as "conversation".

~~~
mwfunk
No, that's just people talking at each other. Conversation is when they listen
to each other too.

------
mabbo
John Francis's talk[0] was one of the very early TED online videos to go
viral- definitely the first one I remember watching, introducing me to the
entire TED format. Pretty powerful speaker.

That said, having studied ASL for a few years in University I find the view of
"not talking" pretty simple. So much can be communicated without your vocal
chords, so much can be "said" without speaking. Though, maybe that was part of
his point.

[0]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth?langu...](https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth?language=en)

~~~
eindiran
ASL and other sign languages are literally languages. There are linguists that
study how subfields in linguistics that traditionally only applied to spoken
languages (e.g. phonology) have analogues in sign languages[0], so its now
widely appreciated that anything expressible in spoken languages as a class is
expressible in sign languages. All of that to say "not talking" has nothing to
do with talking in a sign language.

John Francis took a vow of silence. He wasn't talking in a non-spoken
language; he was not talking. There is a lot you can do with non-verbal
communication (i.e. non-linguistic communication, through your body), but that
isn't nearly the same thing as speaking a sign language.

[0] See Diane Brentari's research for example:
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/prosodic-model-sign-
language-...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/prosodic-model-sign-language-
phonology)

~~~
mabbo
> ASL and other sign languages are literally languages

100% agree.

> He wasn't talking in a non-spoken language; he was not talking ... that
> isn't nearly the same thing as speaking a sign language

I disagree.

ASL 1000, first class, my professor was telling us elaborate, hilarious
stories without ever speaking and none of us "knew ASL" the language. But he
was communicating to us using a plethora of skills that a person fluent in
Signing knows how to use.

When we say that ASL is a language, that doesn't mean standing statically and
one sign at a time signing each one like a pictograph. A huge proportion of
the language is in the nuance, the non-words, the expression, the acting and
movement. That doesn't mean ASL is _just_ that acting part, but pretending
that what Francis was doing has no relation to ASL is a stretch in my mind.

What he was doing while 'not speaking' has a lot in common with what I'm doing
when I'm signing with Deaf people.

~~~
solipsism
Huh? How was he communicating if he wasn't speaking and wasn't signing? You
never say.

~~~
mabbo
If I wink at you then raise my eyebrows suggestively, was I using English? No,
English is a spoken language. Yet if you didn't know ASL, you'd know what I
was saying, right? So which language was I using?

Much of ASL communication- but not all by any means- uses this sort of
communication that is very language agnostic. To really get good at Signed
languages, you need to use a lot of these skills. That's what I mean when I
say that ASL isn't a list of specific signs matching to words, it's a very
complex system of communicating ideas.

My professor, one of the most wonderful teachers I've ever had, was a master
of communication. He could tell us hilarious stories without speaking English
and without us knowing ASL because he could communicate without language.

And my point to all of this is that saying that what Francis was doing isn't
Signed Language misses some nuance in what Signed Language is.

------
jtbayly
Silent protest is hardly the same thing as not speaking in order "to learn how
to listen to opponents."

~~~
tjbiddle
If you watched the video, you'd realize this has nothing to do with any sort
of protest.

He originally decided to be silent for a day simply for being tired of arguing
and wanted to rest - and then realized he began listening more as a result.

------
robbrit
Does a vow of silence include texting or email? He says in the video that he
wrote mail, so I'm wondering where one would draw a line.

~~~
zupzupper
I think a vow of this sort is a very personal one, so I'd guess the rules are
sort of up to him, it sounds like he stopped speaking, but communicated in
other ways. The article mentions he earned his PhD during his 'vow' so I would
guess he'd have done at least a bit of writing in addition to mail.

------
Panino
This article is very short but does a good job touching on an aspect of his
life.

To anyone interested in John Francis, consider reading his book
_Planetwalker_. It's beautiful, unique, and inspiring. Think I'll read it
again soon.

------
joe_the_user
Long term vows of silence actually seem like they can produce pretty unhealthy
result also - this is a story of a situation where a couple of people died
during a long term vow of silence.

[https://info-buddhism.com/geshe_michael_roach-Death-and-
Madn...](https://info-buddhism.com/geshe_michael_roach-Death-and-Madness-at-
Diamond-Mountain.html)

Edit: grammar + I'd note even many practices that involve asceticism give some
warning about extreme asceticism - the "middle way" of Buddhism is middle
between ordinary life and extreme practices.

~~~
hvs
That's a pretty broad statement drawn from one strange case.

~~~
joe_the_user
Meditation broadly is known for having both risks and rewards[1] (edit:
studying qigong I heard occasionally of the dangers of qigong psychosis[2], a
related problem). Extreme meditation can produce greater discipline, clarity
and so-forth. But it stands to reason it can produce more problematic results
too.

[1] [https://qz.com/993465/theres-a-dark-side-to-meditation-
that-...](https://qz.com/993465/theres-a-dark-side-to-meditation-that-no-one-
talks-about/)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10336217](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10336217)

~~~
drb91
I don’t subscribe to asceticism in the least, but the perceived benefits and
dangers are subjective and unlikely to be shared with health professionals.
What you are referencing sounds like a similar situation.

I believe the least painful life is lived on the middle path so I broadly
agree, but not all will.

~~~
wahern
I don't think it's controversial that meditation practices can be problematic
for some people with or predisposed to certain mental health issues. Some
people just can't be left to their thoughts. If thoughts are unhealthy and a
disorder effects self-regulation of and responses to one's thoughts,
meditation may only make things worse, and has proven to do so.

~~~
drb91
Problematic to mental health professionals, maybe. Not everyone aligns their
life around the same values of western medicine.

~~~
wahern
So suicide, onset of manifest schizophrenia, and similar results are _not_
problematic outside Western medicine? Because there's significant and AFAICT
largely undisputed evidence of spikes in these phenomena at retreats, schools,
etc for meditation.

Other HN commenters have said that it's well known by teachers in the West and
IIRC I've read articles that it's also well-known among priests and monks in
Eastern traditions--so much so that the ancient practices and teachings
incorporate rules and stories designed to address it. The names or labels
attached may differ between Western medicine and Eastern religion, but the
phenomena are the same and generally considered negative and harmful, nor
positive or curative.

It's rare but real. What's to be gained from denying it? It doesn't reflect
poorly on meditation in the slightest, it's just an admission of our human
frailty and that there are no panaceas.

~~~
drb91
Who am I to judge the quality of your life? Nobody can judge that but you.

------
modzu
im curious to know how he got through the oral defence of his phd. would they
grant an exception for these circumstances? pretty cool

~~~
michaelcampbell
How would ANY other non-speaker do it? Presumably there are plenty of deaf
PhD's about who have never, nor have the ability, to speak.

~~~
modzu
accommodating a disability is different than a vow, though, right? it just
strikes me as interesting.

~~~
zupzupper
True, though I imagine most universities would also honor a candidates
religious needs in this sort of situation, which would fall more under a
personal choice rather than a physical impairment.

------
dondawest
Sounds like he wasn’t doing much “active listening”

------
sunkenvicar
Canadian taxpayers give a billion dollars to the CBC every year. In return we
get American-centric stories on the front page that seem to reflect our
governing party’s ideology.

~~~
all2
Gee, a state funded news outlet turns out to be the political mouthpiece of
the ruling party? Who'd have thought this could happen?

As it stands, though, many news outlets in the USA demonstrate that they don't
need to be state funded to be political mouthpieces. I see real journalism
happening at the state and local level at this point. It seems mostly the big
players that can afford to not do their jobs.

