Silent Phrase no. 4

Even now, as I am writing this text, even I feel the responsibility of conveying what I know, although I realize at the same time that I do not fully understand what it is that I know. A Greek public saying has been haunting me for years and came to this day, faded and distorted, to echo again in my mind, Between the half-truth and the lie, I prefer silence.

I could wait for my understanding to grow in my head, as I allow it to inhabit my thinking; but I dread the idea of having it residing in some other space, an accessible place where someone can meet it. I could wait for someone else, someone more daring than me, to fill the space by sharing her or his knowledge and ideas. But knowing is enough to recognize that there are things that need to be said. Sometimes in fact, it occurs that the moment of knowing calls for an immediate response to the thing known. This seems now a transition, an awakening if you like it, from the introspection on my experiences and feelings to a gesture in the affairs of everyday life.

If what I see when looking is human misery, with all the tragedy of the world, then I prefer to perceive the dramas of life as Greek tragedies; which make me think that Reinhardt was right in saying, “…the best theatre is not only performed on stage. Actually, the most important players are sitting in the auditorium… When the one who creates receives at the same time and the receiver becomes the one who creates, that is the moment when the precious and incomparable secret of theatre is born.”50

On June 2, 2020, I woke up from the sleep of just, only to find myself on a very confusing day, The Blackout Tuesday.51 While I was having my morning coffee, I was informed about the ongoing movement on Instagram that started from an international community, as a response to violent acts of racial discrimination that happened a few days earlier in the USA. My immediate reaction was to take part in it, by posting the black square on the Instagram account of the cultural blog I was running. While I was preparing the post, searching and choosing the appropriate tag line and hashtags, I began to be wary of my act. My worries were simple. What will be the position of the blog after posting the image? On what does exactly the blog inform the audience? And what does it ask them to do?

Beyond my worries, I was confident that the post should be published immediately before the participation would have gotten even more popular and overloaded with reductive assumptions. For example, the act of publishing later on might have been assumed to be simply a need of following the mainstream rather than a conscious statement. So, I posted the black square.

Yet, the post was partially opposed to the exact given instructions (the image should be solely a black square), and looked like this: going, in drawing your attention to some points of petite politique and present history, to tell you a story, precisely, and unfold my little narrative … My narrative is not universal history being recounted through my mouth.”54 A proclaimed “I” is not necessarily a claim to authority or expertise. It is simply a gesture of consideration for potentiality. In the next page, the published text follows.

When I finished the article, I recognized that I did not provide any insights into what this movement was about nor what it meant to take part in it. Needless to say, I did not position the blog, nor did I respond to the “why” behind the act of publishing in the first place. Rather, I wrote in terms of being conscientious and challenging when one decides to speak. This, under the name of tolerance and intelligibility. I reconfirm now, as it was “… an insistence on self-consciousness that included awareness of the shaping power of publicness, without which the actions … would be meaningless.”58 I made no claims in the published text. I withheld judgement. I reached no resting point. As for gaining a completeness in understanding of what I know for this movement—as I was craving for it before start speaking—I am now aware that I never had it and I will never acquire it, as it is beyond myself and, for that matter, beyond any oneself. As for my responsibility to speak, that previously felt rather a need instead of an obligation, I reappraise and see its value now, not in the correctness of the interpretation, but in calling for questioning. Openly, as if I am participating in a public dialogue. To this, I add Karen Barad’s words, “According to agential realism, ‘responsibility’ is not about right response, but rather a matter of inviting, welcoming, and enabling the response of the Other.”59

As for any argument made and expressed in public, while it might be invalidated sooner or later, I know that it cannot reside in omni-temporality, but it stays in the state of iteratively changing and unfolding, and thus it should not be feared of, but simply well thought, in terms of acknowledging and speculation on the possible future implications. At this point, my tutor comes to my rescue, by indicating that taking part or opening a dialogue in public can indeed break the monolithic hierarchy of the medium, the media, and the receiver. That is, no doubt, a comforting step.

Figure 7 Instagram post published on the beater.gr acount on June 2, 2020.

It took me 24 hours to further understand what “taking part” in this social media movement meant. Naturally, within these hours, the need to resort to the ideas of trusted journalists was particularly excruciating. So, I delved into the relevant published articles that were posted by those I trust. It was not out of remorse for not understanding in advance. It was, rather, out of retrospect and inner speculation. It was “… the better to act when time comes, or for no reason, and you soon find yourself powerless ever to do anything again.”52 It was an escalating new imperative; a need to speak that forced me to continue with a further publication.

I chose to submit my perplexity regarding the subject on a text that I published in the same blog, the following day.53 Ironically enough, while I let my sincerity lead my truth in my thoughts, when I articulated them in the article, I was more careful than daring on the things expressed. Ironically enough, the article remained unsigned, and instead of having a name (my name) holding the responsibility for the written thoughts, I let the underlying opinions be sheltered by the protective shield of the blog itself. I avow now that an act of speaking is simply an act of moving ahead. “… as it happens I am speaking, am only 61