The Lost Skill That Once Held Society Together

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Do you ever scroll through social media and wonder why on earth someone shared that online? A certain AI-generated image from the president leaps to mind. Or have you watched a celebrity talk and wondered where decency has gone? Consider Jimmy Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk or Nikki Glaser’s unhinged interview in which she confessed to enjoying it when her husband cheats on her.

This lack of restraint, especially when it comes to social media, isn’t just inflicting celebrities, politicians, and those in the public eye; it’s endemic to American society.

Consider the endless quantity of Facebook rants, over-sharing personal details online, and the keyboard warrior’s need to counter every differing opinion. It’s clear that moderation and restraint are in short demand these days. I know this on a personal level, as I’m sure most readers can relate, because I, too, have looked back at previous social media posts or recalled scenarios and wished I’d exercised more self control. Gone may be the days of changing our Facebook statuses to reflect our current mood, but we can agree that the American public forum is oversaturated with overly personal outbursts, poorly premeditated commentary, and trivial oversharing.

It’s no wonder though that we struggle with restraint. Instant gratification and the brief fame of a viral social media post bait us to share anything and everything that comes to mind, spurring the kind of impulsive sharing that adds no value to society.

In addition to the opiate-like pull of social media to overshare, self expression is paramount in our society.

Self obsession is so ubiquitous in America that almost no elaboration is needed; the prevalence of personal social media accounts, the advent of “selfies,” the self-love and self-care movements, and the emphasis on self-expression all speak for themselves. From our love of self-care to our social media profiles to our unsolicited opinions, we are everywhere encouraged to “express ourselves” and never taught to hold back. The lack of restraint in society today may be fueled by social media, but it is fundamentally undergirded by the unhealthy amount of value our culture places in self-expression. 

And it’s a self obsession that is passed to the next generation. We value self-expression over restraint, and even our parenting philosophies reflect it. The rise of gentle parenting among millennial parents insists that all emotions are valid, and parenting techniques work to understand and relieve the emotions undergirding the behavior issues rather than correct or discipline the behavior itself.

While this may sound appealing at first, gentle parenting makes it difficult for children to learn restraint and self-control regardless of their emotional state. Consequently, many parents have lost the conviction that kids should be taught to restrain their emotions. We no longer expect children to have age-appropriate levels of self control — and it’s no wonder considering the lack of self-control that many adults display and the way in which culture writ large celebrates self-expression at the expense of moderation.

But it wasn’t always this way. The West, until very recently, had a long tradition of valuing things such as self-control, restraint, temperance, and prudence.  These ideas were codified in stoic philosophy and greatly valued by the giants of Western ethics. Aristotle, often considered the father of Western philosophy, has this masterful quote in the “Nicheomachean Ethics”: “Whatever it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.”

It’s a clever reminder that we shouldn’t do or say anything and everything that comes to mind.  Like most of the great ideas of the ancient philosophers, self-discipline and restraint, especially when it came to speaking, were also highly esteemed by the American founders. George Washington, in his “Rules of Civility,” put it this way, “Speak not when you should hold your peace.” Wouldn’t it be nice to see that maxim employed more often in our online forums today?

Perhaps one of the most profound quotes on the importance of self-control comes from Thomas Jefferson’s translation of Cicero’s “Disputations,” which underscores the importance of restraint, its relationship to personal peace, and its importance to American success. In a now-famous letter to a reverend who hoped to secure Jefferson’s assistance in founding a school, Jefferson paraphrases Cicero, offering the reverend this advice: “Therefore the man, whoever he is, whose soul is tranquilized by restraint and consistency and who is at peace with himself, so that he neither pines away in distress, nor is broken down by fear, nor consumed with a thirst of longing in pursuit of some ambition, nor maudlin in the exuberance of meaningless eagerness — he is the wise man of whom we are in quest, he is the happy man.” (Emphasis added.)

Jefferson appreciated the connection that Cicero underscored between happiness and self-control, and he esteemed it a necessary ingredient in American education and success. One of the reasons we’ve abandoned prudence and restraint in modern times is because we have lost this very realization: that while unrestrained speech and actions may seem liberating in the moment, they sew chaos and discontent, not least of which in our own psyche.

Harmony and peace are cultivated through the exercise of self-restraint, and modern America, unfortunately, has entirely forgotten that connection. Recall George Washington’s rule; there’s a reason that holding your tongue (or typing fingers) was also referred to as “keeping your peace.” 

Despite culture’s obsession with self-indulgence, we have finally reached a point in which we intuitively feel the need for more self-control, specifically in the areas of technology use, online opinions, social media oversharing, and perhaps even the attributes we want to instill in our children. We are so oversaturated and fed up with bottomless self-expression and the general lack of decorum that the return of prudence in the public forum would offer a collective breath of fresh air.

And, as intellectual giants such as Cicero and Washington have pointed out, it’s not just about restoring restraint so that we don’t have to suffer through oversharing, but that the practice of restraint helps instill calmness and harmony in the individual’s life. Self-control builds psychological resilience, and we could all use a little more mental stability these days.

So is the key to happiness really so simple as keeping your mouth shut? Well, it’s a good start. If we think longer before before speaking, listen more than talk, and restrain our ever-increasing technological use, we just might find a degree of harmony that so often alludes us in a self-possessed world.

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Rebekah Bills is a freelance writer and mother of three. She previously served as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.