Western civilization spent 2，500 years trying to get people to shut up. The armies of Alexander the Great were amazed to see their leader read a letter from his mother silently-because he alone knew how. After the dawn ofChristianity， centuries upon centuries admired the ability not tovocalize， not to talk? Silence was an achievement. It signaled anintensifying inwardness of belief， a world of individual privacy， a different mode of thought. Thus humans were gradually quieted-as part of the civilizing process.