There was a time when silence was an option.
You could sit in a room, listen to a conversation, and decide—consciously or otherwise—not to have an opinion. It wasn’t required.
Now? Not having an opinion is the greatest sin of all.
The world has changed. Today, you are expected not just to have a take on everything, but to communicate that take—loudly, confidently, immediately. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp groups, office Slack channels—every space is an arena for discourse. And every discourse is a battleground.
It started as empowerment. Everyone had a voice. More voices meant more perspectives. More perspectives meant richer conversations. But somewhere along the way, the algorithm got greased with outrage, and the nature of conversation changed.
The scope and channels for dialogue increased.
The tolerance for different dialogue decreased.
In the past, polite society had unspoken agreements: certain topics were off-limits unless spoken in hushed tones among the trusted. Politics, religion, sex—these were the fault lines best avoided at dinner tables and water coolers.
Now, those lines don’t exist. Everything is on the table. Every workplace, every friend group, every family gathering is a potential site of ideological warfare. Silence is decreed as Complicity by those who have made shouting their daily jobs.
The flip side of activism is exhaustion.
Righteousness fuels movements, but it also breeds fatigue. It creates trenches where there were once bridges. It demands that everyone pick a side—every time, on every issue. And what’s worse, it assumes that the side you picked last year is the side you must hold forever.
In this brave new world, changing your mind is weakness. Nuance is betrayal. Saying “I don’t know enough about this to comment” is an abdication of duty.
So we keep shouting.
We keep planting flags.
We keep losing patience.
And somewhere in the noise, an old way of thinking—one that valued reflection over reaction—fades into obscurity.
Because in this world, silence isn’t golden anymore. It’s just another battlefield.