When Silence Becomes Normal:

When Silence Becomes Normal: How Acceptance Becomes the Problem

The Silent Majority/ by Alonzo Kahalic/ alkahalic6801@gmail.com

Dear Editor,

There’s a famous psychological experiment involving a dog placed on an electrified floor that delivered a mild but persistent shock. At first, the dog would jump and whimper, trying to escape the pain. But when the experimenters placed a barrier so it couldn’t flee, something tragic happened: the dog stopped trying. It simply laid there accepting the shock. Even when the barrier was removed later, the dog no longer moved, it had Learned Helplessness. The pain became part of its normal.

This is not just a story about a dog. It is the story of our society.

In Palau, and across many island nations, we have slowly begun to accept what we once resisted. We grumble about low salaries, high costs of living, poor public services, and leaders who seem more American in style than Palauan in spirit. But we do not act. We do not speak publicly. Maybe it’s cultural a Palauan thing? So instead, we whisper our complaints over drinks or during funerals. That’s when the truth spills out, after the ceremony, after the toasts, when the burdens of life temporarily loosen our tongues.

Our silence, however, has become the new normal. And those in power interpret it as approval. There is an old truth in politics: those who control the situation define the situation. If leaders do not hear resistance, they assume consent. If people don’t speak, they believe everything is fine. Especially when we follow the American system.

This is why leaders pushed for the Palau Government Stress Tax, allow customs fees to ballon out of hand, and neglect to adjust for cost-of-living increases. All the while citizens are drowning under debt and inflation while leaders promote culture as a product rather than a foundation. They do not ask how culture sustains life; they ask how it can make money. And when that is the only lens, culture becomes a commodity, not a compass.

The reality is clear. Two-thirds of Palauans make under $15,000 a year, placing them near the international poverty line when adjusted for our cost of living. Yet we do not complain in ways that matter, we do not mobilize, organize, or confront power. Instead, we internalize the shock. We get used to it. We adapt. And in that adaptation, we lose something vital: our belief that we deserve better.

This is how Learned Helplessness works on a societal level. Our lands go unused, while imported goods eat away our wages. Our schools teach obedience more than resilience. Our youth, untrained in how to live from the land or sea, turn instead to alcohol and drugs, not out of weakness, but because something vital has gone missing. Purpose. Identity. Connection. The result is addiction, not just to substances, but to silence, to systems that do not serve us, to a politics of survival instead of a politics of dignity.

So, when will we stop accepting the shock?  When will we rise, not just in anger, but in collective clarity that this is not the life we want for our children?  We need leaders who understand that governance is not management, it is stewardship. That education is not about filling heads but awakening hearts. That culture is not to be sold, but to be lived. We need a public that refuses to be quiet until justice is not only promised but practiced.

Until then, nothing will change. Because nothing changes until we say something. Until we believe again that it is not enough to complain when drunk or grieving but to speak while living, while working, while voting, while raising the next generation.

Palau deserves better. But first, we must believe that we do.

And then, we can stop laying on the floor.

Your Humble Servant

Al Kahalic