#Complicity

What We Tolerate Quietly Becomes Our Standard

Shifting to the individual level, walking past a low standard often erodes self-respect. Accepting chronic lateness from others, letting a partner dismiss your feelings, or repeatedly underpricing your work can teach you—subtly but persistently—that your time and needs are negotiable. A common anecdote illustrates this: someone says yes to “one more” unpaid task to be helpful, then finds it becomes an expectation. The moment wasn’t dramatic, but the pattern it created was. Hurley’s line highlights how boundaries are maintained not by what we believe, but by what we refuse to normalize. [...]

Silence Under Tyranny Erodes the Human Spirit

Silence functions as consent in the arithmetic of power. Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) shows how ordinary people helped sustain atrocities not through sadism but through unthinking compliance—the “banality of evil.” When injustices meet only shrugs, they harden into policy and custom, acquiring a false aura of inevitability. Even well-intentioned neutrality can, in effect, grease the gears of oppression. Moreover, fear multiplies in the gaps between voices. Each person waits for another to speak first, reinforcing a “spiral of silence.” Thus, the absence of dissent becomes self-fulfilling: people mistake enforced quiet for consensus. To break this cycle, history suggests that one clear voice can make silence audible—and therefore breakable. [...]

The Unintended Power of Silent Approval

Expanding on this idea, organizational culture often hinges on unspoken norms. If inappropriate conduct goes unaddressed, it can quietly permeate the environment. Harvard Business Review (2016) documented cases where lack of intervention in minor rule-breaking led to larger ethical breaches, demonstrating how what is tolerated becomes woven into the fabric of a group’s standards. [...]

The Silent Endorsement: Neutrality and Oppression

Throughout history, neutrality in the face of injustice has repeatedly played a pivotal role in enabling oppression. For instance, in Martin Niemöller’s post-Holocaust reflection—'First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out...'—the dangers of inaction become tragically clear. Niemöller’s words, much like Tutu’s, highlight how failing to take sides permits oppression to flourish unchecked, illustrating the costly consequences of silent consent. [...]

Your Silence Gives Consent – Plato

In debates or discussions, failing to respond might signal agreement or a lack of counterarguments, reinforcing the notion that silence has communicative power. [...]

In the End, We Will Remember the Silence of Our Friends - Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a pivotal figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. This quote reflects the challenges he faced in garnering support from individuals who were otherwise passive or indifferent. [...]