The Tyranny of Noise

Robert Alex Baron

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

When I protested the money the United States and the Soviet Union are pouring into space exploration, a well-read, intelligent executive explained to me that nations must express the need to compete, and that mankind is much better off if that need is expressed in trying to get to the planets first rather than on the battlefield. Fine. Let us introduce this sense of competitiveness into the environmental arena. In 1966 I suggested to the IVth International Congress for Noise Abatement that the various nations form a Decibel Olympics. A competition would be held to determine who has developed the least polluting construction techniques, transportation modes, appliances, and so forth. Awards and bonuses from both private and governmental sources should be plentiful.

This Olympics would include other than physical objects. One section would be devoted to the best in noise laws and regulations, industrial standards, legal concepts, public relations, and educational techniques.

As I write this I am thinking of an elderly woman living alone in a public housing project. The tenant above her, a drummer in a rock'n'roll group, not only practices at random but stages full dress rehearsals in his home, and his downstairs neighbor has no recourse but to endure.

There are untold thousands of similar cases across the country, involving the sick as well as the elderly. They are helpless, whether in hospitals or isolated in their individual apartments or homes. It is essential for them to have somebody to turn to. Neighborhood urgency squads should be created to explore the possibilities, bring moral pressure, and at least figuratively hold the victim's hand.

Members of such a squad should include a doctor, a psychologist, a lawyer, and a clergyman. They should bring the victim's plight to the attention of the community and publicize the names of city officials who refuse to intercede. These squads could be useful in alleviating the strain when noise victims are afraid to deal directly with noisy neighbors. There is no reason why the clergymen members could not bring these noise cruelties to the attention of their congregations. Given the moribund state of today's noise laws, the well-publicized reports of such specialist squads could do much to effect change.

Women should play a key role in these urgency squads, taking the lead in ostracizing neighborhood and commercial noisemakers. Perhaps they could come up with an American version of the technique reportedly used in Swaffham in Norfolk, England, where noisy neighbors are warned that if they don't mend their ways they will be moved into an old army hut in the country without running water and electric lights.

Women should demand that the National Commission on Product Safety investigate noisy toys, and lead in a boycott of potentially harmful toys.

Women must assume part of the responsibility for noise abatement. Not only is their own well-being at stake, but the responsibility for protecting their husbands from occupational noise falls squarely on their shoulders. It is evident that government will not voluntarily move to effectively preserve even the sense of hearing. Women can help arouse public opinion against an industry that makes deafness the price of progress. The labor movement would be indebted to women if they interceded with management.