The Industrial Revolution destroyed one culture and replaced it with another, in the name of economic necessity. Modern technology is destroying livability for the same reason. The problem of noise is seen as a balancing of business interests against the interests of a suffering public, except that business is identified with "the public," and ordinary people, the victims, are left out in the noisy cold.
Noise abatement is presented not as an essential, but a luxury. "Our most troublesome noise problems carry price tags," states acoustic authority Leo Beranek, Ph.D.. "Economic considerations must be weighed against people's desires for culture and the 'good life.'"
The rights of the individual must give way to the new interpretation of public interest. Karl Kryter emphasized this in relation to community reaction to jet noise, when he stated: "It is obvious that air transportation brings benefits to the community at large and that air transportation is an important part of our economy and way of life. Perhaps the annoyance and disturbance suffered by some is the price that must be paid."
When towns outside of New York City fought a fourth jetport, The New York Times considered them selfish. It editorialized, "Sympathetic as we are to the desire of local residents everywhere to escape the battered eardrums that go with a nearby jetport, one must be built for the welfare of the entire metropolitan complex of 17 million people."
To protest against large chunks of desirable living space being pre-empted by noisy "progress," is deemed reactionary. Aviation Week takes a dim view of those who oppose center-city aviation: "The attempt to bring a V/STOL type of air transport even deeper into the heart of communities than existing airports will certainly encounter formidable opposition of citizen groups, city councils, county boards, state legislatures and federal agencies bristling with reasons to stop the clock of airline progress." (I wish I were as certain as this editor that government would be on the side of the public.)
We are now living in a world where to object to excessive noise is to get oneself labeled unpatriotic. When Manhattan residents complained of late-hour parade noises, the veterans' organization sponsoring the event questioned their patriotism. Mayor Lindsay had to make a personal appearance to soothe ruffled feathers when the indignant veterans resolved never to convene in New York again.
New York City Councilman Robert Low received an unexpected response when he stopped the operator of a noisy cement mixer to speak of his interest in construction-noise legislation. He was rebuffed with an angry outcry: "You trying to lose me my job? You some kind of a Communist nut?"
According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, "Anyone who objects to the SST's noise is left feeling somehow unpatriotic and provincial." The story went on to quote the Director of the FAA's Office of Supersonic Transport Development, Air Force Major General J. C. Maxwell: "Americans must recognize that the airplane will benefit not only the people of the United States but the entire world as well."
The FAA is aware of the power of belief in the "price of progress" doctrine to win jet noise acceptance. Its propaganda stresses the benefits of an airport as a revenue-producing commercial center generating millions of dollars in payrolls, thus making the interests of the airport and the community mutual. The Port of New York Authority, operator of four jetports, warns that New York City's position as the financial and economic center of the world depends, in part, upon making it convenient for business executives to travel between New York and other cities.
To counter critics of round-the-clock flights, the FAA painted a dark economic picture of what would happen if restrictions were applied: "Banning night flights would be one sure way of eliminating some aircraft noise (but)...it would retard the normal growth of business; put a great many people out of work; seriously cut local payrolls; and otherwise adversely affect the welfare of the very community which seeks to impose the restrictions."
In 1961 the FAA published a brochure, "Sounds of the Twentieth Century." To make the public think the government cared, this brochure stated: "The Federal Aviation Agency, the aircraft and engine manufacturers, airlines, pilots, and airport operators are keenly aware of the disturbance that aircraft noise may cause to the people who live close to airports." It further added that the "independent" National Aircraft Noise Abatement Council was going to work hard to find "an acceptable solution to this difficult and complex problem."
Aware that many persons are frightened by jet noise, the FAA offered the reassurance: "...A lack of understanding of how aircraft operate causes many people to be alarmed when they see and hear aircraft land or take off. This in turn, like many things that are strange to us, can easily arouse fear. By its very nature fear causes resentment and stress. This can be alleviated, however, by a better understanding of modern aircraft which are larger and often appear to be closer than they are to an observer on the ground. Modern jet aircraft...are remarkably reliable."
Not only did the FAA try to eradicate fear, it tried to inculcate a favorable attitude toward jet noise: "The sound of our own aircraft engines can be as reassuring to us as they were to the people of West Germany during the Berlin Airlift. America's air power...includes our air traffic control system, our network of Federal airways...and all of civil aviation...We must never lose sight of the importance of civil aviation to our national defense."
The FAA has made strong emotional appeals for nighttime flights, such as: "Many people have rushed by air at night to the bedside of seriously ill friends and relatives when other transportation would have been too slow. Lives have been saved because a surgeon could fly at night from one part of the country to another..."
Though years have passed since this public relations program was started, and complaints keep escalating, the belief in the efficacy of public relations to minimize complaints continues. When the FAA conducted tests of public reaction to sonic booms in Oklahoma City, the complaints were substantial. Part of the negative reaction is blamed by the FAA not on the sonic boom but on a poor public relations job. Major General Maxwell, then the FAA's SST program director, is quoted as saying: "We [shall] need to do a much better job of selling the SST story in the years ahead."
Faced with mounting protests, and with the expected increase of complaints from the larger jets and the sonic boom, a new Federal interagency aviation noise committee is urging a new and stronger public relations program. It is recommending that steps be taken to mitigate opposition to jet noise at the grassroots level. It further advises that preparations be made to counter the expected reaction to noise when the government releases "noise contours" which will show the noise levels at various distances from the major airports. The substance of the counterattack is to be an educational program enumerating all the "positive" things being done to tackle the problem of jet noise.
In all fairness to the FAA, it must be said that the aviation industry, too, is preparing to squelch complaints with public relations. In 1968 the international association of airline operators called a special public relations conference in Rio de Janeiro. The aviation industry was told that public relations was the best strategy for dealing with the jet noise problem. Not hit-or-miss public relations, but a thorough, full-scale continuous campaign that would try to nip complaints in the bud, or, if that failed, to de-fuse any explosive buildups. The airline representatives were told to be on the alert for murmurings of discontent in local communities and prepared to move quickly before unrest became organized and vocal. Organized action was to be forestalled by evolving a scheme for paying attention to individual complaints. If that failed, there should be an industry community council which would enable the community leaders to sit down with the airlines and be told what was being done to alleviate the problem. The community leaders would also be invited to explore with the airlines ways of improving the situation.
Public relations can make a temporary and unavoidable intense noise somewhat more bearable, but should not serve as a propaganda device to justify and continue a policy of unlimited noise. As when former Secretary of Transportation Alan Boyd said we must accept jet noise because we have accepted, having failed to silence them, trucks and railroads. Or when L. M. Tondel Jr., a lawyer member of a Federal jet noise alleviation panel, states: "The airport noise problem is not unique. Noise is also an unfortunate concomitant of garbage collection, trucks, pile drivers, riveters, pneumatic drills, sirens, sound trucks, heavy trucks and buses, small sports cars, freeways, even radios, television sets and garbage disposal units."
To implement the "complaint squelch" program, aviation has prepared color motion picture films and elaborate colored slides and charts. "Why It Must Be Noisy" programs are available through local FAA noise abatement offices. These offices are listed in the telephone book, and the public can complain any day of the week. It can also complain to an electronic answering service on weekends and at night.
To sap your will to fight a new noise source, developers seek to create a feeling of inevitability. Road builders and public officials who route new roads next to people's homes cut down complaints by telling the community how important the road is, and at the same time reduce their will to fight it with the pronouncement that the road will be built no matter what. Paul Borsky, a leading noise survey specialist, spells out the effectiveness of such brainwashing: "If he feels the noise is inevitable, and unavoidable, and that the road is important and necessary, he will want to ignore the noise and continue about his business."
Not all brainwashing is conducted by the giants of transportation and construction. A trade association of private garbage collectors wants the public to know it cares. It adorns the sides of 100-decibel trucks with the slogan: "Shh. People are sleeping."