As beings of the “logos,” it would be good for us to read and speak words. So then it would be good to read books and talk about them with friends and family, to move away from sitting and scrolling, watching videos on sundry lit devices, flickering figures endlessly moving on the walls of the cave.

If reason and speech are constitutive of who are, it would not be surprising that less talking with one another would have to do with the dumbing down of ourselves, even a diminished humanity.

We are talking less these days. The noise generated by AI slop may be on the rise, but we humans are speaking less to each other, our conversations replaced by digital technology. One psychology professor wonders whether it does not bode ill for our flourishing that we, who are social animals, are now less verbal, less social, than ever before.

In C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan the Lion touches his nose to the noses of some animals in the newly created land of Narnia. Those who receive this touch from Aslan become Talking Beasts, separated from the rest of the beasts. One is reminded of the account in the book of Genesis, of how the Lord God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life. There is something wonderful in how Lewis depicted what it means to be made in the very image and likeness of God.

The word logos means reason, speech. God is the Logos, and we humans are made in His image. The psalmist says that “we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.” Talking sheep à la Narnia would not be far off. Reasoning animals we are, animals endowed with speech.

If reason and speech are thus connected and constitutive of who are, it would not be surprising that less talking with one another, less of this activity with its intrinsic variegated and rich human connections, would have to do with the dumbing down of ourselves, even a diminished humanity. There would be less conversation, less connection with others. We’d sharpen each other less, navigate difficult settings less, reflect less. We’d find it harder to know how to build and repair friendships, not having practiced the art as much. Conversing less, we’d be less versed in each other’s needs, our complexities. We’d celebrate and encourage each other less—love less. This is a more impoverished life, a lonely one, loveless.

To be sure, there are famous moments in which talking less, even silence, takes over—consonant with how, in the fallen world, sin is not lacking in the multitude of words. Cordelia in King Lear, refusing to play the game of ostentatious love through speech for vulgar transactional ends, says to herself, “What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.” There was also silence ordered for the children of Israel as they marched around the city of Jericho, as well as silence imposed on the priest Zacharias upon receiving the news that he and his wife, old and barren, would conceive a child, who was to be John the Baptist.

One could read these as discipline—self-imposed in the case of Cordelia, whose name means heart and who actually loves her father the king best out of all her siblings, refusing to cheapen that love by acquiescing in his game. Or in the case of the children of Israel and Zacharias, discipline imposed from without, by Joshua as leader of the Israelites and by the Angel Gabriel who had borne the news to Zacharias, lest the blessing awaiting each recipient be marred by murmuring or lack of trust. In these instances, then, the observation of the wisest man, Solomon, rings true: “He who restrains his lips is wise.” But in none of these cases was silence a default, a degenerative state, acedia for our times. It was a discipline so that one could stand up straighter and truer at the end.

Read More