Falsehood and Silence
“What I feel like telling you today is that the world needs real dialogue, that falsehood is just as much the opposite of dialogue as is silence.” ALBERT CAMUS · RESISTANCE · REBELLION · AND DEATH
Camus names two ways to kill a conversation, and one of them usually escapes notice.
Silence is the obvious one. If a person refuses to speak, nothing can happen between you. But Camus puts lying in the same category, and that is the sharper half of the observation. A room full of talk can be as empty as a room full of silence if the talk is not true. People can exchange words for years and never once make contact.
He was writing about propaganda and ideological argument, where positions get recited rather than thought. The same failure happens at kitchen tables. The pleasant answer that avoids the subject. The agreement offered mainly to end the discussion. Everybody is talking and nobody is present.
This connects to persistence more than it first appears. Staying in a difficult relationship, or a difficult institution, over many years is only worth something if the staying is honest. Otherwise you are maintaining the appearance of a connection, which costs the same effort and buys nothing. Real dialogue is harder than either lying or leaving. It is also the only version that repays the years you put into it.
Today, in one conversation, say the true thing you would normally smooth over.
