(the) American (Novel of)

108 Brian Schroeder
arguably constitutes the very seat of nonviolence itself? But can this
passivity be known? Can it be articulated? If so, what would a speech
about silence be? A silent speech? Is that not a nonsensical oxymoron,
a paralyzing paradox? “Concerning that about which one cannot speak,”
writes Derrida, “isn’t it best to remain silent?” 5 Derrida writes elsewhere,
“A speech produced without the least violence would determine
nothing, would say nothing, would offer nothing to the other; it
would not be history, and it would show nothing: in every sense of the
word, and first of all the Greek sense, it would be speech without
phrase. . . . Predication is the first violence.” 6 It would seem, on this
account at least, that if anything were exonerated from participation in
violence it would be silence, and not just any silence, but absolute
silence, insofar as such silence would not belong to “being” proper.
Silence only has meaning in relation to that which it is not, that
is, language as speech, but it is only through language that the enigmatic
signification of the silence of silence is expressed. This is the paradox
of silence. We can only understand and interpret the polyvalent paradox
of silence by speaking of it and, moreover, out of it. “In brief,” states
Merleau-Ponty, “we should consider speech before it has been pronounced,
against the ground of this silence which precedes it, which
never ceases to accompany it, and without which it would say nothing.
Moreover, we should be sensitive to the thread of silence from which
the tissue of speech is woven.” 7 By itself a thread barely constitutes
anything, nevertheless it is the stuff that intertwines the inaudible with
the audible, much in the manner of his celebrated ontological chiasm
of the invisible and the visible.
The line demarcated by this thread conjoins, confuses, both the
speaker and the listener. The rhythmic power of speech, indeed of all
language, lies not only in its utterance but also in its reception. For this
a certain silence is required, a silence that originates not from within
but from without. Blanchot writes, “In the silent outside, in the silence
of silence which by no means has any relation to language for it does
not come from language but has always already departed from it—in
this silent exteriority, that which has neither begun nor ever will finish
keeps watch.” 8 Blanchot here alludes to an often noticed relation between
silence and sight, characterizing it as a type of vigilance. But
toward what or whom is this watchfulness directed?
The ancient Achaeans, among others, understood the sacrality of
ritualistic silence, its rhythm, and thus the reason for and orientation of