Speaking Out Or Silence, Which Is Riskier?

​Robert Redford was one the most familiar movie stars from my youth. So last night I paid tribute to his recent passing by watching a familiar movie he starred in 45 years ago: Brubaker.

It's interesting, I remembered Redford being a hero in that movie. The man brave enough to speak up and became a single voice of honesty in a sea of corruption. And even though the years have not diminished the power of that theme, another theme spoke more powerfully to me watching it last night - the price that is paid if silence ever wins.

In the movie, silence is what let cruelty take root. Guards kept quiet, politicians looked the other way, even inmates stayed muted out of fear. Everyone knew something was wrong, but nobody wanted to risk the fallout of saying it out loud. And so suffering went on, year after year, body after body, injustice after injustice.

And that’s not just a prison story. That’s a human story.

For nearly the entirety of my 22 year marriage, I believed silence was the healthy approach. Don’t stir the waters. Don’t invite conflict. Don’t risk losing peace by naming what isn’t working.

I thought silence was my offering of strength. But in truth, it was an offering of absence. And absence corrodes. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if speaking out, risking the confrontation, the discomfort, the truth - might have saved what silence quietly destroyed.

We live in a culture obsessed with the drama of speaking out. Cancel culture debates. Whistleblowers. Journalists. People being “brave” enough to call something wrong. And yes, that deserves attention. But maybe what deserves even more attention is the quiet horror of silence.

Because silence always has a cost. Injustice flourishes in silence. Abuse flourishes in silence. Broken systems, broken families, broken people, they don’t only fall apart because of the noise - they fall apart because of the quiet.

So I wonder when people watch Brubaker, what do they really see? Do they see the cost of one man’s truth-telling? Or do they see the cost of everyone else’s silence? 45 years ago I saw the former, last night I couldn't help but see and feel the latter.

And I wonder the same thing when we watch our culture today. We may applaud or condemn those who speak out, but do we ever stop to ask: what will the ultimate price of silence be?

Silence isn’t neutral. It’s not passive. It’s a choice, and it carries consequences. Sometimes the heavier price isn’t paid by the one who dares to speak, but by the many who choose not to.