The Tyranny of Noise

Robert Alex Baron

Part IV — Chapter 10 — It's Up To All Of Us

The Federal government should provide adequate in-house testing facilities. It should fund the expensive laboratories needed by the universities if they are to contribute to developments in architectural and engineering noise control. These research facilities will make it realistic for the scientist to work in the public interest without economic sacrifice. It is unrealistic to expect noise experts to serve as the social conscience of the noisemaker if his contracts are their main source of livelihood.

The human response to noise should be investigated in its totality. We must expand surveys beyond personality and economic class inputs. The absurdity of designing lawn mowers of different noise levels for different levels of income and education should be eliminated.

We must develop a mechanism for evaluating the immediate and long-range impact of innovation. We must, for example, understand the mechanisms by which amplified music turns people on. Can we define a pleasure-level which will permit the desired effect of euphoria or frenzy without hearing damage?

We must perform multi-mix research to determine the effect of noise when other stresses are present. It is one thing to be exposed to noise in the tranquility of a testing lab, and another to be exposed to the same noise in home or office.

Such research requires teams of multi-disciplinary specialists. We must augment the work of the acoustician and the ear doctor with that of the heart doctor, the neurologist, the psychiatrist. Sociologists, anthropologists, artists and philosophers should be working with engineers to define the ideal acoustic environment.

If we are to humanize the cost/benefit ratio, we must know the facts of the costs of noise control and the social and other costs of excessive noise. It should no longer be possible for an educated and respected acoustician to tell me with a straight face that to go beyond the state-of-the-art will bankrupt the nation.

If studies show that a given industry cannot afford noise reduction, and the product is necessary, there is no reason why the principle of subsidy couldn't be applied. We subsidize industry for national security. Why not for human security?

In Dr. Vogt's words: "...We are a practical people and prone to demand that if a thing does not have a cash value it should at least be 'good' for something. What is a sunset good for?

...Or the ringing of tiny bells beneath the ice of a January brook? The quiet of a remote forest when even the insects are still? Isn't it a sufficient good that they delight a man's eye, and nose and ear, quiet the spirit and stretch the mind?"