Silent Means Consent Quotes

Silence does not mean yes. No can be thought and felt but never said. It can be screamed silently on the inside. It can be in the wordless stone of a clenched fist, fingernails digging into palm. Her lips sealed. Her eyes closed. His body just taking, never asking, never taught to question silence

Silence does not always imply consent. Sometimes it simply means that the silent one has opted out of a discussion with idiots.

The decent man and the lover holds back even when he could obtain what he wishes. To win this silent consent is to make use of all the violence permitted in love. To read it in the eyes, to see it in the ways in spite of the mouth's denial, that is the art of he who knows how to love. If he then completes his happiness, he is not brutal, he is decent. He does not insult chasteness; he respects it; he serves it.

A: The unkind things these girls are saying about your friend Ashley are based on jealousy and have nothing to do with Ashley herself. I understand why you feel it might be right to tell Ashley about these attacks. Life Principle #1, “Do No Harm,” sometimes means that we have to get involved and prevent harm to others. In this situation, however, the right thing to do is to speak up when you hear these insults—and leave it at that. Here’s why. First, the reason many of us get away with doing or saying things we shouldn’t is because no one else tells us to stop. You may have heard the saying, “Silence is consent.” Even if you’re not actively joining in on the “fun” the other girls are having, remaining silent and not challenging them sends the message that what they’re doing is okay with you. But it’s not, and that’s why you should speak up. Second, Ashley almost certainly would not want to know that a few people are speaking ill of her, so telling her wouldn’t honor your duty to treat her with respect (Life Principle #3). In fact, repeating the slurs would hurt her feelings and thus violate Life Principle #1, “Do No Harm.” Of course, if Ashley has told you that she would like a full report whenever anyone talks trash about her, that’s one thing, but most people with any degree of self-respect have no interest in hearing the petty things that are said about them. So how should you handle the situation? It would be both self-defeating and a violation of Life Principle #1 to respond with the same kind of mean remarks you’re hearing or to post negative comments on your social networking site. As tempting as it might be to take the low road, you’re much better off taking the high road and leading by example. Saying something like, “Ashley is my friend, and I wish you wouldn’t say those things about her,” is a good way to stick up for your friend and not add to the nastiness. Dealing with the problem this way will show that you’re a person of integrity, and you’ll have every reason to feel good about that.

In my discipline, we affectionately refer to this sort of box (culture) as a zeitgeist, which literally translates to 'time ghost.' Unfortunately for any of you expecting spooky surprises, a zeitgeist doesn't refer to a literal ghost but is better understood as the 'spirit of the age,' although even this doesn't quite pin down its meaning. Think of any stereotype of any decade in the last century-from the Roaring Twenties, Flower Power of the sixties-any of these could certainly be said to illustrate the zeitgeist of that era. But zeitgeists can also be more specific than this, and its the SSDC that ends up developing a decent portion our zeitgeists, the sorts of zeitgeists that can be doubly hard to see outside of because they define more than just lifestyle practices. They define everything we think we know about our collective identities and our collective realities. Of relevance here is the zeitgeist of 'I know best about my body.' It's a lesson we teach people from almost before they can talk: 'You know your body,' 'Listen to your body,' and so forth. And while these are great truisms to teach our children about consent and empowerment as they grow older, they do come with blinders as they become our culture's zeitgeist. How can we really expect people to do a 180 on this logic all of a sudden in 2021?...It would be more productive of us to ask the broad cultural reasons that people resist such mandates, rather than scolding individuals for not conforming. Only then, I think, can we slowly begin to change our collective zeitgeists to those that encourage ownership and empowerment of our own bodies and also add in a healthy dose of 'Sometimes the body is silent' or 'Trust one's own body in collaboration with trusted experts' or something of the like. Ironically enough, the very denial of any shared realities that I mentioned in Lesson 20 is its own zeitgeist that has been gaining momentum for the last five years or so. I worry that this only allows the virus-or any other pathogen in our future-a foothold. Our divisions are their smorgasbord. How can we plan and strategize if we can't agree that we need to plan or strategize to begin with? This is one of the biggest hurdles we'll need to overcome to ensure humanity's long-term survival. It's possibly one of the most terrifying threats to humanity that I've seen in my lifetime-for if our only shared belief is that there is not shared beliefs, where do we go from there?

Taking a Vote by General or Unanimous Consent General consent is a very effective way to take care of noncontroversial issues or motions for which it looks like there will be no objection. General consent does not mean that everyone is in favor of the motion; it means that the opposition feels that discussing or voting on the issue is useless and therefore decides to keep silent, accepting the results. Do not confuse general consent with a unanimous vote in which all the votes are the same, whether in favor of or in opposition to some issue.