I have recently discovered (I was shocked) that most people don’t have an “Internal Monologue”. It’s all over the internet. The kind of conversation that runs in the background. If you accept this fact, then the question is: “Can you be a moral person without an “Internal Monologue”?
Can you tell from the outside if a person has the capacity for the “Internal Monologue”? Does it depend on education, or is it innate?
I remember taking a fast reading class once. The premise of the class was to break the pattern of pronouncing words while you read. Even when you don’t read out loud, you're still pronouncing the words. That slows the reading.
Jews, as an older culture, emphasize the opposite, reading while also uttering the words.
My longtime barber recently died of a massive heart attack on the steps of his shop. He said goodbye to his wife when she gave him a lift to the shop that morning. The last two haircuts, I was already worried. He was a perfect listener; he could absorb conversations all day. He sometimes took far too long to do a simple haircut, working on some hidden symmetry. I often forget to put extra in the parking meter. His shop had original art on the walls and unusual music. He played a guitar. You could also ask him to turn the music off; it wasn’t mindless background noise.
So recently, I ventured into a Classic Barber Shop. You don’t see many scissors there but mostly different gauge clippers. It was a Hispanic shop. During the entire haircut, there was an endless conversation in Spanish between the three barbers. How rude. Not going back there for sure (hope Trump deports them). But then I thought this is a “verbal culture”. They do not reflect, they verbalize. Verbalization is like breathing to them. I can’t imagine there is any sort of “Internal Monologue”.
Another example of a “Verbal Culture” is Satmar, etc. You know what I am talking about, I am sure. You see what I am saying.
Is Chabad a “Verbal Culture”? I suppose Itche der Masmid had an “Internal Monologue”, but rank and file? With him, you're never sure if it’s organic or some autistic feature. A casual observer can venture a guess that there is no freaking “Internal Monologue” in a culture, extraverted by design. So the next question is: can a person without an “Inner Monologue” be moral? In a difficult, unexpected situations in life, is the person reading from the scrip or tapping to his inner core? I think you can’t be a moral person without an “Inner Monologue”. There is no science behind my guess, just intuition and experience.