#5 Cultural Preeminent Darkness

Resistive Silence | Dr. Stephen Phinney: Proxemics reveals that the more direct the communication, the higher the temptation to use resistive silence.

RESISTIVE SILENCE | THE SILENT KILLER

Most of us writers are more than familiar with resistive silence. You know, we pour our blood, sweat and ink to communicate effectively but yet get silence from our readership.

I know this label is new to most, but Proxemics is “the branch of knowledge and behavior that deals with the amount of space people feel necessary to set between themselves and others.” In the end, it kills every relationship in its path.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

(James 5:16)

Well, here is my confession. While I love two-way communication, my flesh struggles with the ideation of writing, podcasting, and preaching to an ambivalent audience - the silence reminds me of permissible suffocation.

God designed the human brain to process all information allowed to enter the mind. When too much information enters repetitively without proper processing time, the brain goes into what is called by most “information overload.” The science world calls it chronemics – “the study of nonverbal communication to allow processing; brain pauses, which force Proxemics.”

While it is true that many people use resistive silence to punish others, researchers are noting such a trend that it has become the talk of the internet. If it is a cultural problem, it is worth reviewing.

My old boss once said, “Silence is the most powerful and effective way to control others.” I tend to agree with him. But there is a more scientific view of resistive silence.

Here are the facts.

The human mind demands social contact rituals, which involve maintaining specific areas of one’s personal space. When outsiders intrude on such space without permission, the mind is obligated to slip into defense mode to protect itself, which is when Proximus comes into play. Proximus includes: how close you stand in a conversation with someone during social interaction, habits in responding to others or not in social networks, face-to-face communications, written content, emails, or generalized texting.

Proxemics reveals that the more direct the communication, the higher the temptation to use resistive silence. When culture shifts into resistance against authority as a norm, the unconscious structure is covertly established in their involuntary response system, which means the reactions of distancing and resistive silence become subconscious. Over time, this subversive behavior places the person in a position of replacing authentic Authority with themselves, resulting in a society that cannot be told what to do. In my terminology, I call this “self-as-God.”

While respecting an individual's private space is important, humanity from the Garden forward requires directives from authority figures to maintain spiritual, psychological, and social growth and guidance. When a society is forced into resistive silence as a norm, it becomes next to impossible to guide them into directive doctrines of transformation, leading others to Jesus Christ for salvation and daily directives for spiritual health. The Church then becomes impotent.

Child development is centered and based on directives. Without these directives, the child is forced to establish their self-perceived book of rules, which typically causes them to be self-centered. By the time they reach the phase of Concrete Operational Formation (7 years of age), their logic becomes deeply flawed. While this is a critical stage, it also serves as an essential transition between earlier and upcoming stages, when kids learn to think more abstractly and hypothetically. For children to understand abstract reasoning, there must be a set of rules pre-established by an external source, as in the Bible. Suppose the child is robbed of these standards. In that case, their inductive logic has no basis for comparing itself, resulting in the formation of their involuntary self-rule system, which advocates a refusal of reversibility.

Reversibility is the most important developmental stage of childhood (teenage years). A child raised by external standards knows that actions can be reversed via a healthy conscience. Remember that the human conscience is formed through an external source of rules. If the child’s ability to reverse actions is flawed, their earlier childhood development stages become the norm for adulthood. For example, they will usher their comic heroes into daily activities as adults and display a grave appearance of never growing up. That is because they don’t.

As a part of the transition between Concrete Operational Formation and adulthood, when authority figures or their directives intrude on the child’s make-believe world, the habit of resistive silence becomes the norm. In the counseling world, we call it “zoning.” Zoning is a subconscious mental system established by the brain to cope with directives that oppose their concrete belief system. While many teenagers use zoning to purposely ignore their parents and other directive authority figures, it doesn’t negate that an involuntary resistance system has been established.

When these teens enter full-on adulthood, their ability to logically function within the final stage becomes impossible. God created a phase in humanity for all humans, saved or not, to share and give up one’s personal space to others. Since the Concrete Operational stage has imploded on self-rule, their ability to be non-egocentric is lost, as is their ability to let authority figures rule them. In other words, these adult children cannot start thinking about how other people view and experience the world, but they also lose their ability to assimilate governing rules when making decisions or solving problems. Each one becomes an individualized island.

So, why are our adult children socio-centric?

Suppose the child was raised in an environment of external rules established by a bible of sorts, hopefully, the Word of God. In that case, they can understand that others who adhere to a guide/standard outside of themselves might be correct. At this point, the child is aware that other people have a unique perspective, but they are also aware that this perspective might be absolute and transforming, while their self-rule might be flawed. In other words, they can be evangelized and made new by the standards of the Living God. This is only done through the conversion process of receiving the indwelling Life of Jesus, who once was an external source but now becomes a Life for internal living.

Since non-compliant adult children grow in their ability to manipulate information to match their now innate belief system mentally, they seek a place for their efforts – as in the internet’s social platforms. While this appears to be a healthy arena for their mission, it is a one-way street, meaning they have no intention of learning or changing their depraved thinking but only collecting ideas, methodologies, and ideologies that match their beliefs. When others front them with the complexities of absolutes, they're not only void of how to respond, but each one slips into resistive silence to cover their ignorance.

Before Eric Erikson (a fond supporter of Piaget's Cognitive Development) died, I had the privilege of spending time with him.

In our conversation, he said something interesting. Erickson noted that each stage of Cognitive Development is critical. Further, he stated that if a child skips or is forced to miss any of the stages, they cannot experience constructive adulthood. People actively construct their worldview knowledge based on the interactions between their ideas and experiences based on external influences, such as parents, schoolteachers, and spiritual leaders. After he confirmed that he was a born-again believer, I asked him if he would change any of his theories about child development after his conversion. He said, “Absolutely not!” He shared that the reality of his conversion was heavily influenced by early childhood teachings, which he didn’t assimilate until the later phase of his life. I asked if he believed there is a direct connection between schemas (formation of an intellectual framework) and a person’s conversion probability. He assured me that early childhood directives and mental frameworks also cause us to include pertinent adult information, which confirms our pre-existing beliefs and ideas formed through our early childhood external influences. Conversion to external sources is next to impossible without pre-existing teachings and directives. It would require a miraculous intervention.

Erikson & Piaget maintained their belief that a society without proper Cognitive Development would cause the world to implode in and upon itself. I doubt Erikson would have viewed himself as a prophet, but his words became prophetic. We now live in an era where two generations have missed out on proper child development. As we gaze into culture today, people's pride levels are so out of control that they comfortably slip into resistive silence when fronted with external absolutes – a mode of covering ignorance.

Welcome to the culturally neutral society, but be on your guard because the devil roams about seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). The whom is all of us! 

Review authentic Salvation HERE.

These questions are not mere words; they are the keys to chambers where wisdom resides. So, my reader, prep your fingertips to type your answers:

• How much of your Christian life do you practice resistive silence?

• Do you tend to reconcile the sin of resistive silence with others?

• Do you practice resistive silence with Christ in you? Explain.

• What circumstance would cause you to slip into resistive silence?

Please pick one question and comment on this post with your answers. Your comments will help others in the battle against adopting cultural darkness.

---

The End Times Cultural Preeminent Darkness Series tackles demonic doctrines and movements that rise against Christianity head-on. While you would think Christians would be the example of battling the enemy's tactics, research proves they are not. Most integrate demonic doctrines into their lukewarm faith, resulting in a compromised testimony, causing the believer to fade into a social gospel. We are dedicating the year 2024 to battle such challenges. Join us every other Tuesday. On the off Tuesday, Dr. Phinney’s wife, Jane, will host her “My Heart Undressed” series.