∎ Download Silence A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives Jane Brox 9780544702486 Books

Silence A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives Jane Brox 9780544702486 Books

Download As PDF : Silence A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives Jane Brox 9780544702486 Books

Silence A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives Jane Brox 9780544702486 Books

Silence is beautifully written. The concept is compelling. But my big problem with this book is that it's not really about silence, nor is it a social history. For the most part, Brox compares two social institutions -- prisons and monasteries. She adds a short section about people who took time off to experience silence. She presents examples and scenarios, with very little analysis or discussion of her examples.

The book seems to confuse silence with isolation. As the author points out, prisons have always been extremely noisy. Even in the notorious Eastern State penitentiary, prisoners could be disturbed by sounds outside their cells. Even in isolation, prisoners hear noise, sometimes from other prisoners who are mentally ill. On the other hand, monasteries offer some degree of genuine silence but not isolation. Even Carthusian monks (who live alone in cells) have periods of enforced interaction.

What's interpreted as silence seems to reflect what Erving Goffman called "total institutions." Indeed, the author could have explicitly contrasted the qualities of silence in voluntary vs involuntary total institutions versus voluntary vs involuntary solitude outside those institutions.

Brox describes at length the cruelty of prisons with examples from Europe and the US. Women in particular have been cruelly punished for speaking out. Important topics -- but they don't help us understand the concept of silence.

The discussion of monasteries draws a great deal on the works of Thomas Merton, with references to St. Benedict, founder of the influential order that bears his name. The nature of monastic silence is completely different from the silence of solitary confinement in prisons. Monastic silence is not only voluntary; it's prescribed in carefully designed rules to achieve a specific purpose.

Brox writes about a prisoner who found a copy of one of Merton's books hidden under the bed of his solitary confinement cell. The book was not supposed to be there. The prisoner was so moved by the book that he read it numerous times, underlining passages and sharing (or shouting them) to fellow inmates. What was the connection? Was it the solitude? The religious component?

Merton died in 1968. The Catholic Church and monastic life have changed a great deal. Monasteries no longer attract the crowds of applicants. Customs have changed. The author could have contrasted Merton with other monastic writers, such as the contemporary Brother Benet Twedten, who wrote View From A Monastery. Henri Nouwen, a diocesan priest who lived with Trappists for awhile, wrote extensively on silence and prayer. Nancy Klein Maguire has written a book about the austere Carthusians - a historical account that would have been contemporaneous with Merton's last decade.

As for women, Rumer Godden's novel, In This House of Brede, rings true to many enclosed nuns. The Nun's Story, based on a true pre-war experience, provides graphic descriptions of the way a particular woman experiences a very strict enclosed order. More recently, former movie star Dolores Hart wrote very frankly about her experience in an American Benedictine order.

Those who chose solitude as a "time out" bring yet another experience to the mix -- something completely different. As the author points out, those experiencing "silence" actually had numerous interactions with the larger community, sometimes even holding a job. What must be necessary for an experience to count as silence?

The book would have benefited from a stronger conceptual foundation, beginning with a definition of silence and then an explicit discussion of the differences in the way people experience solitude depending on their surroundings, voluntariness of their experience and other factors. There's a lot of description but little in the way of interpretation and analysis. There's a need for guiding principles to identify the similarities and differences across these experiences. There are no clear implications for understanding or practicing silence; the book makes it clear that silence isn't necessarily good or bad.


Tags : Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives [Jane Brox] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><B>From the author of the “dazzling epic”* <I>Brilliant, </I>a compelling history of silence as a powerful shaper of the human mind—in prisons,Jane Brox,Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,0544702484,Criminology,Modern - 20th Century,Monasticism,Europe - History,Montasticism and religous orders - History,Pennsylvania - Prisons - History,Silence - History,Silence - Social aspects,Silence;History.,Silence;Social aspects.,20TH CENTURY WORLD HISTORY,CRIMINOLOGY (GENERAL),GENERAL,General Adult,HISTORY Europe Great Britain General,HISTORY Modern 20th Century,HISTORY United States State & Local Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA),HISTORY United States State & Local New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT),History,HistoryEurope - Great Britain - General,HistoryUnited States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA),HistoryUnited States - State & Local - New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT),HistoryWorld,History: World,Modern - 20th Century,Monasticism,Montasticism and religous orders - History,Non-Fiction,Pennsylvania - Prisons - History,RELIGION Monasticism,ReligionMonasticism,SOCIAL HISTORY,SOCIAL SCIENCE Criminology,SOCIAL SCIENCE Women's Studies,Silence - History,Silence - Social aspects,Silence;History.,Silence;Social aspects.,Social ScienceCriminology,Social ScienceSociology - General,Social ScienceWomen's Studies,United States,history of silence; Philadelphia history; 19th century history; prisoners; prison system; monastic tradition; monastic silence; southern france; prison reform; history of prison labor; corporal punishment; female prisons; female incarceration; modern monasteries; Cistercian monks; Cistercian nuns; Trappists; Thomas Merton; Stalin; Soviet prisoners; Solitary confinement; meditation; Eastern state penitentiary,history of silence;Philadelphia history;19th century history;prisoners;prison system;monastic tradition;monastic silence;southern france;prison reform;history of prison labor;corporal punishment;female prisons;female incarceration;modern monasteries;Cistercian monks;Cistercian nuns;Trappists;Thomas Merton;Stalin;Soviet prisoners;Solitary confinement;meditation;Eastern state penitentiary,HISTORY Europe Great Britain General,HISTORY Modern 20th Century,HISTORY United States State & Local Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA),HISTORY United States State & Local New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT),HistoryEurope - Great Britain - General,HistoryUnited States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA),HistoryUnited States - State & Local - New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT),RELIGION Monasticism,ReligionMonasticism,SOCIAL SCIENCE Criminology,SOCIAL SCIENCE Women's Studies,Social ScienceCriminology,Social ScienceSociology - General,Social ScienceWomen's Studies,History,History: World

Silence A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives Jane Brox 9780544702486 Books Reviews

This is a very thoughtful book, but how it deals with "silence" is at times more conceptual than I was expecting. It isn't so much 'silence' as 'contemplation that may or may not happen if you're silent, and in what situation that silence is created,' which would be a more difficult title.

I felt like this was an interesting guide through a lot of slightly connected aspects of how human's react to external and internal pressures. I didn't feel the same cohesive connection that other reviewers did. Even now writing these comments I'm not sure what I really read - was it about solitude? Contemplation? I can't put into a few sentences what my takeaway was supposed to be.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued. If you are interested in Thomas Merton, I think you'd like this.
Silence A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives by Jane Brox is really two books loosely tied together. In the first book Jane gives us a close look at what solitary confinement looked like in the United States at Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, envisioned a prison where inmates lived alone in their own small cell in complete silence for the duration of their imprisonment. Today we know that solitary confinement can result in visual and auditory hallucinations, hypersensitivity to noise and touch, insomnia and paranoia, uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear, distortions of time and perception, increased risk of suicide, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In fact, all these effects of solitary confinement were seen and noted at the Eastern State Penitentiary. Additionally, when prisoners were released, often they were unable to resume a normal life in society.

That sad story is compared and contrasted with the silence sought by Thomas Merton and described so well in his famous autobiography The Seven Story Mountain, published in 1948 but still well worth reading today. Merton published his memoir five years after he entered the Trappist monastery Gethsemani Abbey located near Bardstown, Kentucky. Merton was an extraordinary individual and Jane Brox does a good job describing his pursuit of silence and the great challenge he faced as he turned from the world to discover his God and himself. Very early Merton realized that “The usefulness of silence is supremely necessary in every religious institute.” Without it we “cannot speak of the religious life at all, for there can be none.”

Even though silence was absolutely necessary for Merton in his search for God, he realized that turning away from the world had its dangers and that monks were responsible for making a difference for good in a world filled with pain and suffering. Sadly, Merton died when he was staying near a Red Cross center near Bangkok. He had taken a shower and his feet were wet. When he reached for a fan the electric shock killed him. He was 53 years old.

Jane Brox concludes at the end of her book that if she wants silence, she has to “make a space for it…. every decision in favor of silence is profound, even if it involves no more than deliberately turning away other things for hours or days in a week.” We American are uncomfortable with silence. Our world is filled with noise and confusion. The television fills up the quiet time we need for thoughtful reading and reflection. We don’t need to commit to a life in a Trappist monastery like Thomas Merton, but we do need to turn away from mindless entertainments and begin to get comfortable with our true self, and that happens best in those silent moments when we turn off the endless chatter in our heads and listen instead to what silence brings to us.

At the beginning of this review I mentioned that Silence was two books, one about solitary confinement, and the other about what Thomas Merton learned about his need for silence and what it meant for him. I must confess that I was more interested in Merton than the prison system in the United States, sad as it is. That said, I do recommend this book for those readers who want to take a close look at silence and what it means in our lives.
This is a well-written and interesting book about silence, especially as it it used in catholic monasteries and in penitentiaries. The author creates an unusual book on Silence using an odd mix that includes a history of criminal justice, with special emphasis on the use of long-term incarceration and solitary confinement, and biographical material about Thomas Merton that she uses to discuss catholic monasteries, though In my opinion there is too much material on Merton and not enough on monasteries.

The subtitle of this book is "a social history" but I think it would be more appropriate to call it "a meditation." This is somewhat ironic as one of the gaps in this interesting book is that silent retreats, such as at meditation centers, are not mentioned at all.

Brox writes, "... silence will not present itself unbidden amid the noise of the world." This fine book is a good starting point for inviting more silence and pleasures of solitude into your life.
Silence is beautifully written. The concept is compelling. But my big problem with this book is that it's not really about silence, nor is it a social history. For the most part, Brox compares two social institutions -- prisons and monasteries. She adds a short section about people who took time off to experience silence. She presents examples and scenarios, with very little analysis or discussion of her examples.

The book seems to confuse silence with isolation. As the author points out, prisons have always been extremely noisy. Even in the notorious Eastern State penitentiary, prisoners could be disturbed by sounds outside their cells. Even in isolation, prisoners hear noise, sometimes from other prisoners who are mentally ill. On the other hand, monasteries offer some degree of genuine silence but not isolation. Even Carthusian monks (who live alone in cells) have periods of enforced interaction.

What's interpreted as silence seems to reflect what Erving Goffman called "total institutions." Indeed, the author could have explicitly contrasted the qualities of silence in voluntary vs involuntary total institutions versus voluntary vs involuntary solitude outside those institutions.

Brox describes at length the cruelty of prisons with examples from Europe and the US. Women in particular have been cruelly punished for speaking out. Important topics -- but they don't help us understand the concept of silence.

The discussion of monasteries draws a great deal on the works of Thomas Merton, with references to St. Benedict, founder of the influential order that bears his name. The nature of monastic silence is completely different from the silence of solitary confinement in prisons. Monastic silence is not only voluntary; it's prescribed in carefully designed rules to achieve a specific purpose.

Brox writes about a prisoner who found a copy of one of Merton's books hidden under the bed of his solitary confinement cell. The book was not supposed to be there. The prisoner was so moved by the book that he read it numerous times, underlining passages and sharing (or shouting them) to fellow inmates. What was the connection? Was it the solitude? The religious component?

Merton died in 1968. The Catholic Church and monastic life have changed a great deal. Monasteries no longer attract the crowds of applicants. Customs have changed. The author could have contrasted Merton with other monastic writers, such as the contemporary Brother Benet Twedten, who wrote View From A Monastery. Henri Nouwen, a diocesan priest who lived with Trappists for awhile, wrote extensively on silence and prayer. Nancy Klein Maguire has written a book about the austere Carthusians - a historical account that would have been contemporaneous with Merton's last decade.

As for women, Rumer Godden's novel, In This House of Brede, rings true to many enclosed nuns. The Nun's Story, based on a true pre-war experience, provides graphic descriptions of the way a particular woman experiences a very strict enclosed order. More recently, former movie star Dolores Hart wrote very frankly about her experience in an American Benedictine order.

Those who chose solitude as a "time out" bring yet another experience to the mix -- something completely different. As the author points out, those experiencing "silence" actually had numerous interactions with the larger community, sometimes even holding a job. What must be necessary for an experience to count as silence?

The book would have benefited from a stronger conceptual foundation, beginning with a definition of silence and then an explicit discussion of the differences in the way people experience solitude depending on their surroundings, voluntariness of their experience and other factors. There's a lot of description but little in the way of interpretation and analysis. There's a need for guiding principles to identify the similarities and differences across these experiences. There are no clear implications for understanding or practicing silence; the book makes it clear that silence isn't necessarily good or bad.