FREE ESSAY ON SILENT VOICE

SILENT VOICE

Janet Hoffman -1-
Sociology
July 10, 2000
SILENT VOICE
When I read the chapter on The De-Voicing of Society, I have to say that I was not
surprised. I saw this coming back in the 1960's. But I
never really believed that as we grew and evolved that it would escalate to the point
where people would become obsolete in many areas. Certainly we
have advanced greatly in technology, but I think that we may have gone to far. People
must never be replaced by machines. I have always had a voice,but just didn't use it when
at critical periods of my life. 
I advocate free speech at every turn. Machines should enhance it, but certainty not
replace our right to use our collective voices. If we can advance in technology, then we
must advance as humans right along with it, and not allow ourselves to be a faceless,
voiceless being. We must never ever depersonalize ourselves from society. In recent
times, and
using my own experience , I can now look back and understand just how isolated one can
become when one is locked away in a cubicle or a room
for years at a time, using only a television or radio as a source of human voice. Or
using a phone for that much needed contact. 
My reaction to our silenced voices it that of genuine concern.Every human being needs
personal contact. We are not meant to live a life
of isolation. I suppose if we choose to do that on our own accord, while not healthy, it
is our choice. However, when technology gets to the point where
we are being replaced by machines, then I for one have a problem with it. If I had to
equate a silent voice, then I would start with my own life. The last
two years of my marriage, I had totally isolated myself from any human source. Not
because I wanted to, but because it was a means to survive. I
was so isolated. The only voices I heard was from the television or the radio and
sometimes the phone. Sometimes calling an eight hundred number just to hear another
living breathing person. 
It was during this time, that I purchased a computer. Which ultimately became my life
line. While I could not hear the voice of those I chatted with, there came a time when I
for some unexplainable reason
became very close to someone, and would actually reach out and touch the computer screen
at the same time he did. Neither of us know what it would`
serve, but both of us knew that our isolation had to end. We both realized the need for
human contact. Conversation, laughter. I might have gone on to look back at this and
laugh and think how stupid how naive we both were. But that never happened. Our isolation
from humans came to us because we had been hurt by others. Yet both of us were still
human and
both very vulnerable. Today we are both very dear friends, and we often remind each other
that via this media, it showed us that even through the
written word we could communicate, but we needed to hear the voice of another. We both
recognized the world had changed so much. 
Writing then became paramount to me. It enabled me to see things that perhaps I never
would have before. The Internet was a God send for me, and a definite life line to so
many others that I have since
gotten to know and have helped. Today all of us have moved beyond that time in our lives,
and none of us is isolated at least from ourselves. We
vowed to be vocal and not be silenced for any reason. Through my experience with this, I
have come to know and understand that while we have advanced in so many areas from the
time we were babies, we have lost the all important thing. Togetherness.
I don't need to live in anyone's pocket and surely there comes a time when we want our
quiet moments to reflect, yet I will always want to
hear a voice. I won't let a day go by without expression of my thoughts. Making the
decision to return to school, has enabled me to talk aloud
everyday. While I may not be right in my assessment of things, it is my right to voice my
opinion to other human beings. The inner part of me has
always been the voice of reason. It took me years to understand that I needed to express
myself with my "voice" not just with pen and paper or
keyboard to keyboard.
I remember growing up knowing all of my neighbors. Going on picnics or to a fair and
running into people I knew, no matter where I went. Always engaging in conversation, not
matter how trite it might have been at a young age. Even then we had the instinctive need
and desire to communicate. I think that when one advances into a new time, with new
things to try out, we become intrigued with the things that went on to change the course
of the world. Everything seems so simple now. When in
fact I think that given the things we have, like radios, televisions, answering machines,
computers, we get so caught up by them, that we have lost the
all important meaning of true verbal communication. When they come up with computerized
sex, and I don't mean in the world of cyber space, then I will know that we have reversed
our advancement to total isolation. We may as well be clones if we are to be isolated
from society, even our friends and family. It is really scary to know that one can sit in
front of a computer screen for hours and chat with someone, yet not hear a voice for
hours on end. We have virtually every piece of equipment that enables us
to communicate without using our voice. It is no small wonder that some children today
begin to speak at a later age. They can hear the voices on the television. And in so many
homes today, the television is a comfort zone and company. It enables us to listen
freely, but not to talk back with
anyone. Is this healthy? 
Our thoughts now are easily reduced to writing or faxing. It just is not healthy for us
to go day by day without human interaction and voice. I am guilty of calling eight
hundred numbers just to hear a voice. That in and of itself is frightening. It is not
that easy to do now, because rarely do real people answer the phone. Most people, because
they don't have to
confront someone, can say whatever they want via a computer, yet they might not be able
to do that face to face. That is not what we as human beings are all about. When in the
course of human nature, we are suppose to reach out and touch a life, lift up a spirit,
give comfort with our words of
wisdom. 
I have wondered if email one day might cause the United States Postal System to become
obsolete? I remember waking up as a child knowing right from wrong. Knowing where I stood
and knowing that there
was that line you never crossed, or the morals or values that we would never betray. When
we look around today, do we see those people we knew all our lives? Have we advanced so
much in technology that we lost sight of all that we hold dear? 
I don't want to give off the impression that I know all the answers when in truth I am
not ever close. I don't wish to give a false impression that I am confident and secure
with the things that we have before us, knowing that with the De-Voicing of America, we
have lost not just our voices, but humanization. 
We must never loose site of the traditions we were raised on. we must never loose site of
the fact that we our human and we need human contact on a regular basis. There is a
passage that I find comforting and makes sense to me.
If One Advances
Confidently in the direction of his dreams
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined he will meet with a Success
unexpected in common hours
If you have built castles
in the air,
your work need not be lost;
now put the foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau