The fear of thought

Noise,” Friedrich Nietzsche said, “kills thought.”

The story goes that  people were coming to the house of Martin Heidegger, another great philosopher, to interview him. His wife met them at the door and said: “I’m really sorry, but you can’t disturb my husband right now. He is busy. He is thinking.”

Where people are expected to be constantly preoccupied with the production of ideas, the permanent ambience should be one of silence.

Some of the world’s great ideas  emerged from the silence of the forest, the monastery, or even the prison cell. And, of course, the university has long been a place for contemplation.

It is no wonder that university campuses have been designed to mimic the atmosphere of the forest or the monastery. Many Ivy League universities, built around the late 19th century, imitate Gothic architecture, thus looking more like abbeys than schools. In some of these schools, libraries were designed like cathedrals, with high ceilings, pointed arches, and stained glass windows, thus enhancing the ambiance of solemnity that total silence brings.

School buildings have traditionally been built around trees and gardens. Plants are brought indoors to mimic the calm and silence of the outdoors. Ponds, fountains and reflection pools are also placed inside atriums or near benches and outdoor tables so students can read with only the murmur of water for background.

Whenever I wanted to be in a quiet place to read when I was a student, I usually went to the stack rooms in the library or to the university chapel. There were also small prayer rooms where one could go, not necessarily to converse with God but to read—that is, to converse with a writer.

To cultivate the pursuit of “mens sana in corpore sano” (a sound mind in a sound body), physical education programs promote fitness and sports in the campus. Intramural games and other celebrations allow students to have a break from their studies. All these are meant to balance with the more dominant culture of contemplation.

Visiting an art college in Guangxi, China, I was struck by how quiet  the campus was despite its population of about 6,000 students.

Students were quietly working in their studios or seriously reading. The only noise came from the music department, where students played their instruments in empty classrooms or in the hallways. Even campus traffic was generally quiet, with most students commuting by bicycles or electric bikes.

How different it is in our own art college in Cebu where fun and games seem to have become the main preoccupation. Students running around the hallways, laughing and clowning around like kids have become the norm. Practice for dance and field demonstrations have become a daily ritual. Variety shows, pageants, and all sorts of programs that mimic showbiz culture have become more and more frequent as academics take a back seat to extracurricular activities.

As if these are not noisy enough, the public address system in the campus is no longer reserved for the most serious announcements, such as emergency warnings (when it happens). Instead, it blares almost incessantly with the daily round of recorded prayers (to remind you that you are in a Catholic school), emergency procedures, electronic bells to signify time checks, and very specific announcements for this class to proceed to this room or this vehicle owner to move his car in the parking area.

Sometimes, during Valentine’s Day (which can extend to a whole week), a repertoire of popular love songs is played repeatedly over the PA system. Or carols during Christmas. This gives the campus the ambience of a shopping mall.

So lectures or exams are constantly being disrupted by these piped-in or ambient noises. Most teachers have given up complaining. They have since discovered that downloaded YouTube videos are more effective in getting the student’s attention. You just have to pump up the volume of your own speakers because it is likely that the teacher in the next classroom is doing the same.

I thought that I could seek silence in the library. But twice, my readings were interrupted when suddenly the student staff played music on her smartphone. There’s the university chapel but sometimes, when there’s no mass scheduled, the campus ministry band may occupy it to play religious songs that sound more like rock music.

It seems that silence is a terrifying vacuum that we all want to fill. We don’t want our minds to have that vacuum. We fear the mental void so we seek constant distraction. Ours is a generation that is so busy trying to avoid thought.