"Silence,
which is uncreated, keeps the property of the eternal."
Ramón
Andrés, No sufrir compañía. Escritos místicos sobre el silencio
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Four twin Washingtonia palm trees in
Plaza de Gracia (Granada-Spain) |
Silence,
Value, and Virtue
In
the historic center of Granada, there is a street named "Silencio"
(Silence) that ends at "Escuelas" (Schools) Street. I do not believe
the convergence of one into the other is accidental, as study requires silence:
"If each of us spoke only of what we know," lamented Don
Manuel Azaña, "a great silence would fall, which we could all use to
start studying".
Both streets neighbor the Faculty of Law, a former 16th-century Jesuit college.
Many other Andalusian cities have paid tribute to silence in their street maps:
Cádiz, Almería, Málaga, and Seville, among others. But today, in these cities
blinded by dizzying illuminations and with streets packed with tourists and
noisy, colorful trinkets, these names sound to me more like a longing or a
forced pose.
"He
went to Granada in search of silence and time, and Granada gave him an
abundance of harmony and eternity," writes Juan Ramón Jiménez in his
beautiful portrait of Manuel de Falla (Españoles de tres mundos –
Losada, 1940). In it, he delights in the peaceful sunset observed from the
hillock of the Antequeruela Alta, the musician's house next to the Alhambra. In
the self-portrait included in that work, the poet from Huelva confesses to
having "begged for silence." But, alas, who could find silence
and quiet today—"the quiet night / alongside the risings of the
dawn"—harmony, and eternity in a tourist-laden city? Silence, like
emptiness and solitude, is undervalued in a society so commercialized and
populated by beings eager to possess objects and live exclusive immersive
experiences—which, nevertheless, reduce down to immersion in ordinary groups of
twenty or more. Experiences that, rather than being lived for oneself, will be
photographed for others and poured into a network already crammed with virtual
garbage: toxic food for an AI that grows increasingly artificial and less
intelligent, less creative, and more servile.
What
does a city like Granada sound like today? Shouts, sizzling rhythms against a
background of an inarticulate and unintelligible voice—fortunately!—the
foot-dragging crowd, speeding engines, packed terraces, squares occupied by
outdoor dining tables... But let us see what happens in its surroundings, to
the east, far from the ring roads, along the Avellano path. How does the dawn
sound here? Beside the centuries-old Royal Canal, perched on the Cerro del Sol,
I take a seat on a promontory. From here, I contemplate the Sacromonte
neighborhood, the Valparaíso valley, and the path that gave its name to the
legendary artistic and literary brotherhood founded by Ángel Ganivet in 1895.
To the west, the geometric roof of the Cathedral’s lantern tower emerges. I
close my eyes to better hear (and smell) this fresh summer morning.
Fortunately, the hill partially muffles the permanent background roar, the
hoarse scream of the city and its hyperventilating ring roads. Beneath the
protective veil of menthol fragrance offered by a small cluster of Aleppo
pines, the soothing murmur of the modest Darro River prevails, rushing from
Jesús del Valle toward the Paseo de los Tristes after winding under the zambras
of Sacromonte. I also hear a dog barking and a rooster crowing. There is the
faint, distant warble of bee-eaters, the discordant cry of a jay answered by
the no less high-pitched screech of magpies. A Scops owl with its monotonous,
regular, melancholy "tiu," a greenfinch, a wood pigeon, and the deep,
resonant whistle of a pair of orioles—whose bright yellow plumage flashes below
among oleanders, hackberries, and black and white poplars shading and
concealing the pleasant riverbank—gradually compose the music of this inhabited
ravine. The morning makes its way, and the abbey bells have just struck eight,
while the flight of a bee buzzes in my left ear. Is this silence? No. In fact,
we are talking about sound intensity between 28 and 34 decibels; yet I
recognize the silent music, the sounding solitude evoked in the famous verses
of the mystic from Fontiveros, written just a few meters from this place at the
Convent of the Discalced Carmelites of the Holy Martyrs, today a visitable carmen.
In
1952, philosopher Max Picard (The World of Silence) defined silence as
continuity and the opening of reality itself. We can affirm that silence is the
original state and acts as a glue for our being and the world—both
fragmented—serving as a bridge between the two. Silence and emptiness
constitute the "substance" wherein sound (a language) and reality can
respectively manifest.
Silence
is also a constitutive element of music, the framework of every musical
composition, in that music begins and ends within it, defining rhythms and
tempo. The presence and intensity of silences give character to the work. In
that same year of 1952, John Cage created 4′33″, an avant-garde musical
piece in three movements. During its performance, the musician remains still
and in absolute silence before the piano and score for those four minutes and
thirty-three seconds. The silent instrument shows the value of silence and, at
the same time, demonstrates that absolute silence does not exist, as
heartbeats, coughs, the audience's murmur, or the wind, patter of rain, or
sudden startle of a horn or roaring, always inconvenient motorcycle are heard.
Likewise,
silence today is the luxury of libraries. I like to visit them, to see so many
humans there—mostly young, mostly women—silent and absorbed in a book, notes,
or, increasingly, a screen. A beautiful sight that restores my optimism! A book
inherently demands silence. Anyone staring at an open book demands it without
uttering a word. The same does not happen with a screen; while the book is
often an open window into our inner selves, screens generally possess a
centrifugal force that throws us outward and unseats our focus. My dreams are
usually silent too—an unmistakable sign of my brain's acoustic exhaustion.
There
is a negative physical silence that is merely the absence of noise. And there
is also a silence imposed as a gag: the one expressing the cry of "Silence,
silence I said! Silence!" with which Bernarda Alba closes Lorca’s
tragedy. It is the sad silence caused by fear and absence: "And silence
grows larger in silence", whispers a verse by Mari Luz Escribano. Not
the desired, conquered, and joyful silence, but that born of pain over the
tragic absence of victims of intolerance, or that which was imposed upon them
as a renewed disgrace after the Spanish Civil War. Alongside this, a toxic,
cowardly, and complicit silence often nests, acting as an enabler and
bystander.
Yet
silence is also fullness and presence—of reality, and of oneself within it. The
Navarrese poet and musicologist Ramón Andrés argues that it is, above all, a
creative substance. He adds that villages open up the space of inner silence
better because, unlike cities, they have plenty of scene and very little set.
The
Benedictine Pedro Ponce de León (1506–1584)—creator of the first sign language
for deaf-mute individuals and founder of the first school for them at the
Monastery of San Salvador de Oña (Burgos-Spain)—bears witness to the creative
value of silence in our tradition. Ponce drew inspiration from the sign codes
used in his monastic order to avoid breaking the silence imposed by the Rule of
Saint Benedict, establishing the earliest known foundation for an international
sign language system. However, it was not until 1620 that Juan de Pablo Bonet,
from Zaragoza-Spain, published the first surviving work on the education of the
hearing impaired: Summary of the Letters and Art for Teaching Dumb People to
Speak.
Nevertheless,
it seems that—in the opinion of many, though I do not know if it is
sufficiently verified—we Spaniards are the noisiest people in Europe, or at
least among the top. One of Venice's greatest charms is that no engine roars in
the extensive network of canals irrigating its historic center. Furthermore, in
its bars as well as most of its alleys and squares, using sound amplifiers is
prohibited. For me, it is one of the main attractions of that city. This
silence grants it an atmosphere of recollection that it still preserves despite
tourist overcrowding. The contrast is brutal when moving from Venice to
Florence, a city overwhelmingly occupied by internal combustion engines.
I
believe that, without denying the serious harm caused by noise in Spanish
cities, it is a global problem. Identifying it strictly with Spain stems from
another stereotype pinned on us (like punctuality issues or low labor
productivity), born of the easy network spread of hoaxes that particularly
affect countries that, like ours, have been global tourist destinations for
decades. Rigorous studies debunk these cliches time and again, yet they
continue to echo among us and even more among our visitors.
The
noise pollution ravaging our streets, private homes, schools, and hospitals
forms part of a totum revolutum alongside air pollution that sickens our
lungs, light pollution that muddies our night skies, and visual pollution that
exhausts our gaze with colorful, luminous advertisements of every kind
cluttering squares, streets, or stations, as though empty space were a true
curse. This follows Aristotle's belief that nature abhors a vacuum—an
exceptional sage who left behind profound truths alongside some major nonsense,
such as asserting that people born deaf lack ideas and are therefore incapable
of thought (History of Animals).
Neighborhood
associations against the plague of noise are emerging in cities—the case of
Granada is notable—but our mayors usually ignore them. They favor distraction
and dizzying civic amusement, expressed through thunderous parties and
celebrations ("events", as they are now called) or noisy restaurant
terraces with minimal regulatory oversight.
How
different that May 5, 1929, must have been! A banquet was being held at the
Hotel Casino Alhambra Palace for the premiere of Mariana Pineda at the
Cervantes Theatre in Granada, starring Margarita Xirgu. Manuel de Falla,
Fernando de los Ríos, Antonio Gallego Burín, Ángel Barrios, José María
Rodríguez Acosta, Manuel Fernández Montesinos, Hermenegildo Lanz, and Gómez
Arboleya attended. In his speech, Federico said: "Now, more than ever,
I need the silence and spiritual density of the Granada air to sustain the duel
to the death I am fighting with my heart and with poetry." It was a
different Granada, where silence constituted a precious trait of its urban
identity.
Mysticism
and metaphysics of silence
In
Spanish philosophical, mystical, and poetic traditions, there is also intense
reflection on mental silence, which is necessary to achieve a human existence.
Beyond physical silence lies silence as origin, as inner void or emptying, as
stillness, openness, pause, and rest—with no further intended purpose—but also
as a necessary condition for an attitude of listening toward others (one's
neighbor), toward the other (the non-human), and toward oneself. There is,
then, an inner silence that is absolutely unproductive, awaiting nothing,
without object, and even lazy—therein lies its very excellence—but also a
proactive silence, no less necessary: a silence of listening.
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