Is Silence Compliance?

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You see this idiom across the internet almost on the daily.

Silence is compliance. But is it? This won’t be rage bait, don’t worry. I’m jut not sure it is.

I think that, if you are knowledgeable, and you have a platform, and you want to, you should talk about things you feel compelled to talk about. And if you do, well done. It’s important that people talk, especially about things like genocide, or violence, oppression, injustice.

However, I’m not convinced that not talking (publicly) about a given topic is compliance. Not everyone uses social media to make content. Not everyone knows exactly what is going on. Some people don’t post on their stories but do talk with the people around them. Or they email their TDs, sign petitions, donate money. Are they then compliant because they don’t talk online? Isn’t the actionable more impactful?

Examples that spring to mind are when everyone put a French flag as their profile picture, or when everyone posted a black square on their grids. All done with good intention, but arguably performative? And when you feel like you’ve done your part, you may not feel obligated to do something that will have actual impact. And while I do generally believe that people act with good intentions, there are some people who are posting about Palestine today as a performance. Because it’s trending. Because it gets them more views, more followers, more validation. And that’s not good either.

But those people are the minority of people. And there are so many people I admire doing incredible work to spread awareness and drive change around this genocide. However, I don’t believe that silence is compliance. It’s not as black and white as that. I think silence can be compliance, but I don’t think it’s true for all cases.

And if you are only talking about a truly horrifying moment in human history for performative, ultimately using the suffering of others for individual gain, I think that’s gross. That’s dark, man. And I know we don’t want to believe it happens, but it does. Sadly, it does.