University of Chicago Essay: Silence - Not Always the Best Speech

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / b4

Mr. Garrioch

English Composition

November 29 2012

Silence – Not Always the Best Speech

[University of Chicago Prompt] Essay Option #3. Susan Sontag, AB'51, wrote that "[s]ilence remains, inescapably, a form of speech." Write about an issue or a situation when you remained silent, and explain how silence may speak in ways that you did or did not intend.

Two hours left, yet I still heard from no one. Among twenty people I contacted, thirteen said "Sorry, I have another schedule," and seven did not even respond. "New Message Arrived" – I opened my phone in slight expectation. It was, however, a message from the club teacher urging me to give the names of two participants right away. I threw away my phone in anger, and let out a loud wail.

MUNESCO, which stands for Minjok UNESCO, is a volunteer organization in KMLA that I had been the Chief for the last six months. One special characteristic of MUNESCO is that it is one of numerous affiliated clubs under the Korean National Federation of UNESCO; that is, there are similar clubs in other high schools all over the nation. Usually, each club acts independently, but occasionally there are camps that assemble all clubs to share their achievements. I was looking for two members who could join a three-day camp which would be held during the summer vacation. However, among twenty members – twelve juniors and eight freshmen – no one volunteered. No one.

Eventually, I couldn’t find two participants until the last moment, and had to contact the club teacher and National Federation that MUNESCO would not be able to join the camp. After being severely reprimanded, I started to question myself; why everyone was so passive to participate in club activities? Maybe my leadership had been wrong, I thought. Looking back the past half year, I realized that it was not the first time that MUNESCO members did not show their best devotion; they did not appear in group meeting, kept making excuses for not attending camps, and often ignored my contacts. My solution to this problem was “the speech of silence”, not direct confrontation and scolding. I expected that my silence would speak out everything – how I was doing all the jobs, including the members’ work; how burdened I was; how desperately I was waiting for the members’ apologies and voluntary participation; and so on.

But the solution did not work at all. All the members were already too busy with their assignments, quizzes, and other club activities. They were not attentive enough to be concerned over someone trying to convey message via silence. At the end of the first semester, I was utterly exhausted that I couldn’t continue working alone in silence. Still, I was too afraid to break the silence, which would create public discord. I eventually renounced the Chief position; I entrusted another member – the one who showed the most enthusiasm among reluctant members – with full power.

The new Chief’s policy was, definitely, not silence; she was not afraid to speak out loudly of her dissatisfaction about the members’ passiveness, even if it led to discord and conflict. Whenever she felt that members were not doing their best, she posted a status in reproach and anger on Facebook. Ashamed to be “publicized” for their lack of devotion, members started to participate. They came to almost every meeting, tried to join the campaigns except for the inevitable cases, and paid attention to the outspoken Chief.

(This is not real; I just made it up, but something similar like this was updated on the New Chief's FB wall few times.)

Silence, definitely, works far better than grandiloquent speech in some cases. As Leonardo da Vinci pointed out, “[n]othing strengthens authority so much as silence.” But sometimes, like my experience with MUNESCO, silence does not act as an effective form of speech; the listeners are too busy or inattentive to search for the message the silent speaker is trying to convey. Evidently, silence is not the best approach a leader can always employ. 

                                                                                                                                                                                   

To be honest, I did not want to upload this essay on my blog. This essay is about one of the most embarrassing experiences in my life; thinking back, I feel stupid about me for shrinking and hesitating to speak out, in an idle fear that members would resist to my reproach. But I actually learned an important thing -- that "silence is not the best approach a leader can always employ", as I stated in this essay's conclusion -- so... it's not that bad to undergo a frustration in return for some lesson, I guess? J