What to Expect

The Power of Silence

The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal famously wrote: 'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.'

If that was true in the 1600s, what does it mean for us today? It appears we’ve essentially engineered silence out of human existence.

For tonight’s Questions that Matter we won’t just be talking about peace and quiet.
We’ll be looking at some of the dynamics of contemporary silence, such as why can long pauses between two strangers feel agonizing?
Have we lost the capacity to sit with our own thoughts? And in a world screaming for our attention, what might it mean to choose to be silent?

As usual, the goal of the night isn’t simply to agree, disagree, or learn.
It’s also to connect through genuine, lively, interactive discussion and, potentially, to go to some of the unexpected and uncharted places
that deep and free conversation can take us.

See you on Wednesday.