"In political as in individual life, anxieties which can be expressed are far less important than those which cannot.” - Gustave Le Bon

 "In political as in individual life, anxieties which can be expressed are far less important than those which cannot.” - Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931). Aphorisms of Present Times, 4.7, 1913, tr. Alice Widener, 1979

- What is most painful and difficult to talk about is that which is most important to us. How easy it is to speak of the present moment, our opinion of a TV show, or our ideas on the best way to make a sandwich, compared to our wishes for the future, our memories of the past, and our fears in the present? It is not something we accomplish in a quick or efficient fashion, those talks we have about things which are really important to us. We need help, real help, deep help, then we do not ask for it. When we are sad, or angry, or hating, or despairing, then we do not say that we are. Rather, we speak in an oblique fashion, we insinuate, we suggest, we say in between our words, or with the tone of our voices., the look in our eyes. 

In politics we don't often dare to say what we are really afraid of, that our civilization may be destroyed, our way of life decimated, or our concerns declared unimportant. We are afraid to say, straight up, that our opponents are liars, crooks, or fools. Instead of saying that this or that political opponent, or this or that political position, is stupid, short-sighted, ignorant, and hypocritical, we say that it is unfounded. Instead of saying that our political opponent was bribed, we say that they were unduly influenced. Instead of calling them liars, we say that they gave statement unsubstantiated by the evidence. I think we do this for several reasons. The first is simple politeness, the decision to give the benefit of the doubt. Another reason is politeness again, but this time for the sake of not making them too angry to work with you. Another reason might be to avoid escalation, so that the entire disagreement about what action to take doesn't just devolve into a fire and counter-fire series of news and fake news. Yet another reason may be because we want to guard the entire political system, because we don't think people can handle the truth. There are many possible reasons we might decide to act like this, but the reasons for these reasons, the causes of our silence, do not go away. The purpose of our words, the causes of why we chose those words and not other words, don't go away just because we present that they don't. 

As in political life, which is really just an outward form of our inner mental life, so to for us. We say angry things all the time, or act in happy, sad, melancholy ways - often, we forget, sooner or later, what the actual words we said were, and instead all we can recall, upon thinking back, is a vague sense of right and wrong, anger and gladness, acceptance and rejoinder, disappointment and pride. That is, the words are often not important. We have many words. What is important is what the words show, what the words tell us about what the other person is thinking and feeling. Words can, so easily, be used to hide intentions. It is only when we can really recognize someone's intentions that we are able to actually trust them.