Dealing with Censorship Through Using Indirect Approaches
In There is a card in the tarot called The Tower. It is the card of collapse, the moment when a structure built on a shaky foundation falls in one strike of lightning. At first glance it looks destructive, but its deeper message is about truth: if we want what we build to endure, we must set it on solid ground.
Lately, I’ve been feeling like we are all living in a Tower moment. The foundations of our culture, including media, politics, even technology, feel unstable. New laws, new tools, and AI-driven enforcement seem to press us into a painful double bind:
- If we speak out, we risk censorship or backlash.
- If we stay silent, we risk complicity with systems that do harm.
It’s a trap that weighs on the conscience.
The Burden of Complicity
Remaining quiet can feel like safety, but it also stirs guilt. To watch injustice without raising a voice feels like a form of agreement. Yet speaking up carries its own risks, such as lost opportunities, lost friendships, even legal or social repercussions.
This is the burden many carry in silence: the sense that whatever we do, it is wrong. Either we are punished by the outside world for speaking, or we are punished inwardly by our own conscience for saying nothing.
Silence or Speech?
The truth is that not all silence is cowardice. Sometimes silence is wisdom, such as if we are waiting for the right moment, protecting ourselves until we can act in ways that truly matter. And not all speech is courageous; sometimes it is reckless, spoken without thought for timing or impact….
This is part of a larger article on Substack: The Tower and the Double Bind of Silence
