Noise Pollution is Contributing to The Destruction of Civilization
By James Donahue
I lived and worked for years in what was supposed to be a "quiet" Midwestern American town of about 4,000 people. The word quiet, when used to identify this place, however, was a misnomer. My town, like nearly every community throughout the world, had become a very noisy place.
That community is the county seat. In Michigan that meant we had three police departments stationed here. We had the town police, the county Sheriff's Department, and the State Police. All three have more officers than are needed, and they spent a lot of time racing through our streets with their sirens turned on. There also seem to be a lot of ambulances. And we have a very active volunteer fire department. I found it hard to believe a town that size could actually generate enough "emergencies" to justify so many sirens and keep so many emergency personnel racing hither and yon. I work for a local newspaper and covered the police and fire departments so I knew how many serious problems occurred. I was lucky if I had one major police or fire story to write about in a week.
I worked in a rural farming area in the Midwest. There were several towns there, but the one I lived in was about as large as they come. A peculiar thing about all of these little towns is that there are sirens mounted on towers in every one of them. They seemed to be a spin-off from the old days, before there were personal electronic notification devices, when town fire fighters had to be called from their jobs to fight a fire. Now, even though they are no longer needed the sirens are still being used as some kind of "town crier." You can literally set your clocks to them. In the town where I live the fire siren was blown four times daily. It went off at 7 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. every day except Sunday. No matter that some people might work nights and want to sleep during the day. The whistle is blown faithfully. I knew that in a nearby town the fire whistle went off every day at noon. I had friends living in another area towns that confirmed that sirens were blown daily where they lived too.
I once inquired at a town council meeting why the whistle had to be incessantly blown. There were blank stares. "We've always done it," one council member answered. I felt as if I was in a room full of zombies. It apparently has never occurred to them that the sirens could be turned off.
The constant noise goes beyond these "official" machines that seem to come with the trappings of modern civilization. The streets are filled with vehicles that either have no mufflers, or the mufflers are modified to make a lot of noise. Drivers enjoy tromping the gas pedal at every corner, making their engines roar and our windows rattle as they pass. The young people can't just be satisfied with loud mufflers. They also seem to need to have stereos blaring in their cars and in their homes. They enjoyed their screaming rock and rap music so much they wanted to share it with the world. Loud speakers were cranked up to the max, and during summer days every car had its windows open. The ground literally vibrates as these vehicles passed. Dishes rattled in our cupboards.
There are gas powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, trucks with loud beepers sounding when they are backing up, chain saws, and noisy garbage trucks.
The noise pollution followed me to my job. There I worked against the sound of humming computers, chattering workers, ringing telephones, running motors, more community sirens and a variety of other sounds that clutter the mind. Studies have shown that too much noise in the work place affects performance of employees. Their ability to do mathematical calculations drops and they have reduced short-term memory capabilities. The noise affects people both mentally and physically. High blood pressure, heart disease and various other illnesses have been linked to noise pollution.
In the apartment where I lived were numerous electronic devices that also make noise. The refrigerator, for example, had an extremely loud motor that was constantly clicking on and off. When turned on the television emited a constant assault on the senses. Turn away from the television for a few moments and just listen . . . not to what is being said, but to the noise in general. The sounds that come out of that box can be very annoying after only a few moments. Radios are no better. Nor are little cassette players with headphones that you can snap on your belt.
There also is a human and animal element as well. Barking dogs. Shouting angry neighbors. Crying children.
There was a time, before steam engines were invented and before electricity was artificially generated from wired machines, when people enjoyed a more tranquil way of living. As we moved through the industrial and more recently the electronic age, the noises have intensified.
Noise pollution crept into our environment slowly. The change was so gradual we didn't notice its effect. People welcomed the light bulb when it arrived. They couldn't wait to get their homes wired for electric power. They loved the Edison phonographs, the radio, the telephones and later the televisions. Each new invention seemed to make our daily lives more wonderful. We welcomed the noises that came with these new inventions, never realizing what it was doing to us on a spiritual level.
Now we can't escape noise pollution. My wife and I lived for a while with a Navajo medicine man in a remote high desert area of northeast Arizona, where you can drive for miles and never see a house. They also lived with noise pollution. The Navajo had electric wires strung all over the reservation. The government built homes for the younger families that contained television sets, radios, microwaves, water pumps, refrigerators and all of the other trappings of modern life. Every household kept several dogs that liked to bark at every moving thing. When I would go for a walk down one of the lonely dirt trails leading across the reservation, my senses were assaulted by passing pickup trucks, and jet aircraft flying overhead.
The tragedy of all this is that the human race has inadvertently found a way to go into self-destruct. Humans no longer have the ability, the will, or even the thought of seeking a moment of peace for purposes of meditation and personal reflection. Without this, it is impossible for us to ever look within ourselves and find the real God.
Much easier to fall prey to the addictive trap of loud music and fast paced living, letting the senses be constantly excited for personal gratification on every level. Easier to ignore the nagging warnings from the subconscious that we need to stop and get our bearings. Let the church, with its false promise of an ever-loving external god who watches over us, voluntarily take care of our spiritual needs. Heaven forbid that we might be expected to do the work on our own.
Most societies, and especially the Christian church, share a belief in a pending judgment on the human race. The Christians call it a seven-year tribulation, during which two-thirds of the people in the world will be destroyed. As the end of the millennium draws close, talk of a possible world calamity now makes the daily news. People were concerned about Y2K. That didn’t happen. Now they worry about sun flares, global warming, the chances of a meteor striking the planet, and they look with alarm at the growing number of serious storms from a heating planet, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The FBI, in a recent report to police agencies, predicted trouble from religious extremist groups because of their belief in either an apocalypse, or a plot by the United States government to plunge the world into a New World Order. The onset of “Trumpism” under a radical right-wing group of legislators has split the nation into a civil-war type of group hatred. The police appear to be making plans to handle anarchy. As more and more people believe in an impending doomsday scenario, the chances increase that such a disaster will actually happen. Everybody is expecting something to happen. They probably will not be disappointed.
If and when it happens, the survivors will make it because they had their spiritual affairs in order. They will have done the work. And the work does not mean trusting a superficial god of mercy to save us at the last moment. Those who are still alive when the trouble is over will be there because they saved themselves.
An important first step toward spiritual revival is just turning off the noise.
By James Donahue
I lived and worked for years in what was supposed to be a "quiet" Midwestern American town of about 4,000 people. The word quiet, when used to identify this place, however, was a misnomer. My town, like nearly every community throughout the world, had become a very noisy place.
That community is the county seat. In Michigan that meant we had three police departments stationed here. We had the town police, the county Sheriff's Department, and the State Police. All three have more officers than are needed, and they spent a lot of time racing through our streets with their sirens turned on. There also seem to be a lot of ambulances. And we have a very active volunteer fire department. I found it hard to believe a town that size could actually generate enough "emergencies" to justify so many sirens and keep so many emergency personnel racing hither and yon. I work for a local newspaper and covered the police and fire departments so I knew how many serious problems occurred. I was lucky if I had one major police or fire story to write about in a week.
I worked in a rural farming area in the Midwest. There were several towns there, but the one I lived in was about as large as they come. A peculiar thing about all of these little towns is that there are sirens mounted on towers in every one of them. They seemed to be a spin-off from the old days, before there were personal electronic notification devices, when town fire fighters had to be called from their jobs to fight a fire. Now, even though they are no longer needed the sirens are still being used as some kind of "town crier." You can literally set your clocks to them. In the town where I live the fire siren was blown four times daily. It went off at 7 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. every day except Sunday. No matter that some people might work nights and want to sleep during the day. The whistle is blown faithfully. I knew that in a nearby town the fire whistle went off every day at noon. I had friends living in another area towns that confirmed that sirens were blown daily where they lived too.
I once inquired at a town council meeting why the whistle had to be incessantly blown. There were blank stares. "We've always done it," one council member answered. I felt as if I was in a room full of zombies. It apparently has never occurred to them that the sirens could be turned off.
The constant noise goes beyond these "official" machines that seem to come with the trappings of modern civilization. The streets are filled with vehicles that either have no mufflers, or the mufflers are modified to make a lot of noise. Drivers enjoy tromping the gas pedal at every corner, making their engines roar and our windows rattle as they pass. The young people can't just be satisfied with loud mufflers. They also seem to need to have stereos blaring in their cars and in their homes. They enjoyed their screaming rock and rap music so much they wanted to share it with the world. Loud speakers were cranked up to the max, and during summer days every car had its windows open. The ground literally vibrates as these vehicles passed. Dishes rattled in our cupboards.
There are gas powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, trucks with loud beepers sounding when they are backing up, chain saws, and noisy garbage trucks.
The noise pollution followed me to my job. There I worked against the sound of humming computers, chattering workers, ringing telephones, running motors, more community sirens and a variety of other sounds that clutter the mind. Studies have shown that too much noise in the work place affects performance of employees. Their ability to do mathematical calculations drops and they have reduced short-term memory capabilities. The noise affects people both mentally and physically. High blood pressure, heart disease and various other illnesses have been linked to noise pollution.
In the apartment where I lived were numerous electronic devices that also make noise. The refrigerator, for example, had an extremely loud motor that was constantly clicking on and off. When turned on the television emited a constant assault on the senses. Turn away from the television for a few moments and just listen . . . not to what is being said, but to the noise in general. The sounds that come out of that box can be very annoying after only a few moments. Radios are no better. Nor are little cassette players with headphones that you can snap on your belt.
There also is a human and animal element as well. Barking dogs. Shouting angry neighbors. Crying children.
There was a time, before steam engines were invented and before electricity was artificially generated from wired machines, when people enjoyed a more tranquil way of living. As we moved through the industrial and more recently the electronic age, the noises have intensified.
Noise pollution crept into our environment slowly. The change was so gradual we didn't notice its effect. People welcomed the light bulb when it arrived. They couldn't wait to get their homes wired for electric power. They loved the Edison phonographs, the radio, the telephones and later the televisions. Each new invention seemed to make our daily lives more wonderful. We welcomed the noises that came with these new inventions, never realizing what it was doing to us on a spiritual level.
Now we can't escape noise pollution. My wife and I lived for a while with a Navajo medicine man in a remote high desert area of northeast Arizona, where you can drive for miles and never see a house. They also lived with noise pollution. The Navajo had electric wires strung all over the reservation. The government built homes for the younger families that contained television sets, radios, microwaves, water pumps, refrigerators and all of the other trappings of modern life. Every household kept several dogs that liked to bark at every moving thing. When I would go for a walk down one of the lonely dirt trails leading across the reservation, my senses were assaulted by passing pickup trucks, and jet aircraft flying overhead.
The tragedy of all this is that the human race has inadvertently found a way to go into self-destruct. Humans no longer have the ability, the will, or even the thought of seeking a moment of peace for purposes of meditation and personal reflection. Without this, it is impossible for us to ever look within ourselves and find the real God.
Much easier to fall prey to the addictive trap of loud music and fast paced living, letting the senses be constantly excited for personal gratification on every level. Easier to ignore the nagging warnings from the subconscious that we need to stop and get our bearings. Let the church, with its false promise of an ever-loving external god who watches over us, voluntarily take care of our spiritual needs. Heaven forbid that we might be expected to do the work on our own.
Most societies, and especially the Christian church, share a belief in a pending judgment on the human race. The Christians call it a seven-year tribulation, during which two-thirds of the people in the world will be destroyed. As the end of the millennium draws close, talk of a possible world calamity now makes the daily news. People were concerned about Y2K. That didn’t happen. Now they worry about sun flares, global warming, the chances of a meteor striking the planet, and they look with alarm at the growing number of serious storms from a heating planet, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The FBI, in a recent report to police agencies, predicted trouble from religious extremist groups because of their belief in either an apocalypse, or a plot by the United States government to plunge the world into a New World Order. The onset of “Trumpism” under a radical right-wing group of legislators has split the nation into a civil-war type of group hatred. The police appear to be making plans to handle anarchy. As more and more people believe in an impending doomsday scenario, the chances increase that such a disaster will actually happen. Everybody is expecting something to happen. They probably will not be disappointed.
If and when it happens, the survivors will make it because they had their spiritual affairs in order. They will have done the work. And the work does not mean trusting a superficial god of mercy to save us at the last moment. Those who are still alive when the trouble is over will be there because they saved themselves.
An important first step toward spiritual revival is just turning off the noise.