Pretty girls, pretty boys,
have you ever heard your mummy scream ...?
I. The Case of Schopenhauer and the Seamstress
As everyone knows, the German philosopher and arch-pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer was found guilty in 1820 of assaulting a seamstress, whom he'd pushed down a flight of stairs after she disturbed him with her incessant chatter on the landing outside his room.
Having experienced noisy neighbours who just don't know when to shut the fuck up, or simply don't care about respecting the silence that others may find necessary for their own happiness and wellbeing, I can certainly sympathise.
Inconsiderate bigmouths, or those who bray with laughter like asses in every sense of the word, deserve some form of comeuppance for the irritation they cause to those with heightened sensitivity to noise and/or the base stupidity that so often accompanies it.
II. Hyperacusis, Phonohobia, and Misophonia
Whilst hyperacusis is usually regarded as a debilitating disorder, I would suggest that most highly intelligent and thoughtful people tend to find repetitive noises intolerable and perhaps even painful on the ear. This can understandably result in phonophobia or even misophonia - a term coined by audiologists Margaret and Pawel Jastreboff in order to discuss individuals who are triggered into reacting by certain hateful sounds.
These noises can be mechanical in origin, such as car alarms and ringtones, or made by animals; the incessant barking of a dog, for example. But they can also include the sound of the human voice; an idiot singing along to the radio; a baby wailing its head off. Indeed, one study found that around 80% of trigger sounds were made orally by people; coughing, snoring, slurping, chewing loudly, expressing satisfaction after taking a drink by going aaah! ...
These, and many additional noises, can solicit murderous thoughts or provoke actual aggression, particularly when performed habitually by a loved one over many years (and again, I'm speaking from experience here).
II. Hyperacusis, Phonohobia, and Misophonia
Whilst hyperacusis is usually regarded as a debilitating disorder, I would suggest that most highly intelligent and thoughtful people tend to find repetitive noises intolerable and perhaps even painful on the ear. This can understandably result in phonophobia or even misophonia - a term coined by audiologists Margaret and Pawel Jastreboff in order to discuss individuals who are triggered into reacting by certain hateful sounds.
These noises can be mechanical in origin, such as car alarms and ringtones, or made by animals; the incessant barking of a dog, for example. But they can also include the sound of the human voice; an idiot singing along to the radio; a baby wailing its head off. Indeed, one study found that around 80% of trigger sounds were made orally by people; coughing, snoring, slurping, chewing loudly, expressing satisfaction after taking a drink by going aaah! ...
These, and many additional noises, can solicit murderous thoughts or provoke actual aggression, particularly when performed habitually by a loved one over many years (and again, I'm speaking from experience here).
Note: unlike phonophobia, misophonia is neither classified as an auditory or psychiatric condition. Thus there are no standard diagnostic criteria and little research on how common it is or what can be done to help.
Musical bonus: Buzzcocks: Noise Annoys - B-side to the single Love You More (United Artists, June 1978): click here. This post is in memory of singer/songwriter Pete Shelley.
"...an idiot singing along to the radio" ? Does that mean smart people singing along to the radio are not causing phonophobia ? As a part-time idiot myself, I would have thought the quality of the singing along would have had more influence ? I know questions, questions, questions - annoying too !
ReplyDeleteSmiled at the distinction you make between idiots and smart people, as if there's nothing in between and as if the latter cannot behave idiotically.
Delete(Smiled also at your self-description as a part-time idiot; better that than a part-time punk).
Not sure the quality of the singing voice makes a difference; even if Pavarotti was living next door, if he kept me awake every night rehearsing Nessun Dorma, I'd still be pissed off.
But I'm not casting aspersions on your dulcet tones KV - it's the fat lump who parks outside my house everyday to pick up her child from the local school, caterwauling along to the car radio in a style that suggests drunken karaoke. She may well be a Dancing Queen or even Every Woman but I still want to cut her head off with a carving knife.
What a wonderfully cerebral way to honour Mr Shelley!
ReplyDeleteI think Freud may argue somewhere that increased acoustic sensitivity may be indicative of depression - or, presumably, just increased sensitivity in itself (which may make us depressed in itself). Either way, it's something I observe in my ageing parents in noisy restaurants (now in their mid 70s) and also in myself (or the part of myself that is ageing, like my parents, and might even be frighteningly turning into them).
In cultural terms, there is an inescapable feeling that we are becoming more insulated in our technoacoustic worlds behind earphones and screens, and paradoxically, also ever more indifferent about what bleeds out of them into the domain of others.
Sometimes one longs, as in Kate Bush's eerily marvellous 'Experiment IV', for 'a sound that could kill someone' . . .
Thank you S ...
DeleteI think Pete Shelley - whom you once memorably described as the punk descendant of Percy Bysshe Shelley - deserved some kind of mention on TTA after his death earlier this month.
But the post was also an attempt to challenge the idea that it was his misogyny that drove Schopenhauer to throw the old woman down the stairs - I'm saying it was his misophonia.
Also, I should point out that the post is invested with the spirit of Larry David; for it's LD who can't stand the sound of the human voice and suggests that being deaf wouldn't be so bad; and it's LD who essentially wants the world (not just Sammi) to shut the fuck up.