Whilst there are at least 9 techniques you can use to shut people up (or that people will use on you to shut you up), perhaps none is more absolute than the desire to wipe out the entire human race altogether.  If achieved, it would at least quieten down those pesky troublemakers in our midst who insist on asking awkward questions at the most inopportune of times.  Rhetorical devices be gone: the only way to shut them / you  up once and for all is to annihilate them.

There are plenty of factual and fictional examples of the desire to annihilate irritating people, but the one that springs particularly to mind considering the context of this campaign, is the case of The Silence: a religious order in the equally feared and loved TV series, Doctor Who.

The Silence had the uncanny knack of being heard through their catch phrase, “Silence Will Fall” in the 2010 series of Dr Who whilst stubbornly refusing to be seen until the 2011 series.   

This capability of being heard but not seen (inverting the usual Victorian maxim of children should be seen and not heard) was made more complex by their ability to keep their existence a secret through the simple device of ensuring that anyone who saw them immediately forgot about them after looking away, whilst retaining any suggestions that the Silence made to them.

They could therefore have a far-reaching influence across all aspects of human history without anyone really knowing what was going on.

We might ask ourselves today in the midst of all the global upheaval that is going on whether the Silence are in actual fact real and not a figment of some wild-eyed script writer’s imagination: but chances are, the moment you ask that question you’d probably forget who you were talking about and ‘silence would fall’.

The Mighty Creatives staff team are going to support the campaign by taking part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on the 5th October. If you want to join us on the day and take a vow of silence, then please check out the campaign here. 

Of if the thought of donating your silence for 24 hours is really too much, then you can donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

So… come and help me to shut up, once and for all. You know you want to.