Problem Practices | The Perfect Response

Play your uncle Fred’s old vinyl copy of a Cream album, and years of dust caught in the grooves can make it seem like Eric Clapton was a tap dancer as well as an awesome guitarist.

Engineers measure the quality of audio and video equipment partly in terms of its signal to noise ratio. Older analogue forms of media—records, amplifiers, AM radio, and almost anything else along this sonic chain—often contributed significant amounts of their own noise: unwanted intrusions against the ideal of perfect silence. Hiss from audio tape and tube amplifiers were a common problem before the new century, as was an audible hum from a circuit picking up stray noise from other electrical sources. Even playing your uncle Fred’s old vinyl copy of a Cream album can let you re-live those days. Years of accumulated dust and scratches across the groves can make it seem like Eric Clapton was a tap dancer as well as an awesome guitarist. Listening to vinyl recordings of Debussy could be even worse. Clicks, hiss, pops and needle jumps were never part of the French minimalist’s musical vocabulary. Hearing them under his music is the equivalent to pouring coffee on a white rug.

These days music comes to us on a mostly clean canvas. Digital platforms and better equipment have mostly eliminated noise intrusions that older Americans remember from the early days of “stereophonic sound” and homemade Heathkit amplifiers. Even a humble MP3 player hardly produces an audible hiss.

Alas, a problem that good technology and engineering has mostly solved has remained as a common environmental nuisance. Too often the settings we inhabit impose a constant din.

I work on a bucolic campus with roads relegated to its edges, and it can still be hard sometimes to make myself heard over gas leaf blowers, jackhammers digging up water leaks, and all forms of construction and maintenance vehicles. Overhead, planes heading into local and distant airports narrow the gap between signal and noise.

Silence is especially an unsatisfied need in cities such as New York, where residents routinely retreat to headphones or the use of “white noise” to mask the cacophony of sound coming from the street and nearby neighbors. (See George Prochnik’s In Pursuit of Silence (2010) for a discussion of the range of intrusions).

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And then there are the effects of too many evenings at concerts, where volume levels can equal the roar of planes arriving in the Caribbean’s notorious at St Maarten airport. Tinnitus is not just a condition of the old, but of many younger Americans who have racked up more decibels than miles. Sometimes the result of inner-ear nerve damage, Tinnitus affects about 1 in 5 residents of the United States.

If you have a one-note concert in your ears for long periods of time, you can match the frequency of the sound here, and more precisely, if wearing good headphones:

There is no shortage of studies connecting environmental noise to stress, lack of concentration, insomnia and irritability. With age we also seem less able to tolerate dense sound. For older adults, what was once the fun of being in a noisy restaurant with friends can begin to seem less festive, like trying to meditate on the beach directly under that Caribbean airstrip.

To be sure, we should celebrate the pristine audio landscapes we can now create. This is the age of complete music emersion. Technically speaking, musicians have never had a less cluttered acoustic to play against. But in spite of our successes with audio software, the idea of the signal to noise ratio is a reminder that we now have to contend with a world that is aurally more intrusive. As a solution, earphones not only transport us to to a paradise of music in its own study acoustic, they also help shut out the disordered noise of the places we occupy. That can be good. But the earwear that is part of the uniform of a commuter or jogger can also reduce our access to others nearby. We used to routinely greet strangers passing through our personal space with our eyes and maybe a simple hello. But the common sight of earphones on individuals in public spaces now sends a less welcoming vibe of unavailability.

Comments: woodward@tcnj.edu

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Nearly all Americans can be provoked into political engagement if they suspect their identity interests are threatened by governmental bodies.

These days our public rhetoric includes a lot of angst about slights and insensitivities to individual communities under the big tent of American life. On one hand, many Americans believe other members in the society have become too sensitive to language that only seems to demean or degrade others. The view from this mostly conservative side of the ideological divide sees “political correctness” as “liberal” overreach that verges into censorship. They argue that the once-worthwhile idea of inclusiveness has run amok.

Other communities see these problems as all too real, noting that it’s wrong for outsiders to appropriate another group’s cherished symbols, as when a sports team calls themselves the Redskins. Most social progressives argue that it’s equally a mistake to mislabel or ignore others if the effect is to place a community on the margins of American life, as we’ve seen in recent complaints that Academy Award nominations feature too few Hollywood professionals of color.

Sometimes the offenses committed against groups are blatant and criminal, demanding a response. Police shootings of unarmed suspects and the treatment of women in parts of Africa and elsewhere only hint at what is a long list of justifiable grievances. More subtle are complaints of how affinity groups are named in the media, along with concerns about who gets to tell their stories. Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall street, native American groups, veterans organizations and countless others are tuned to pick up linguistic slights they see as representing deeper animosities. Were the occupiers of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge “felons,” or freedom-loving “militiamen?” What does it mean at Princeton that the name of Woodrow Wilson is attached to one of it’s prestigious schools? Should the former president be known primarily as a “political progressive” or a “racist?” And there is even one American college that is embroiled in a mini-controversy over whether their food court should be permitted to serve “General Tao’s Chicken.” Is the kitchen’s botched attempt to serve a dish with apparent Chinese roots a case of “cultural misappropriation?”

As these questions swirl through the culture it seems that our collective nerve endings have become raw. Americans seem to hear slights from their neighbors rather than empathy. More than a few observers of our national scene wonder if the middle will hold, whether the United States is still sufficiently united to be a functioning culture, let alone a “great society.”

There are no simple answers. Especially on this subject, individual perceptions matter. The charges of “inquistic colonization” or offensive omission are the prerogatives of any wounded party to at least express.

From a communication perspective it is important to note that we are all affected by status issues: those topics in a culture that provoke ordinary citizens to ask if their interests are adequately acknowledge and protected. Politicians sometimes call these hot topics—abortion rights, equal access to good schools and a decent job, respect for religious beliefs, respect for gender differences—the “third rails” of American politics. In a subway the third rail is the train’s power source, carrying upwards of 1500 volts that can instantly fry any human that touches it.

Status issues arise and dominate our public discourse when enough Americans believe their cultural legitimacy is being put at risk by the hostile actions of a political institution.

I find it helpful to remember that a secure place under the umbrella of a state is part of any citizen’s birthright. We expect to have our legitimate interests respected if not honored by others. It is sometimes easier to accept claims of marginalization if we understand this fact. Here’s the point: fears expressed in a rhetoric of anger may lead us to overlook the simple need of every citizen and their tribes to feel acknowledged.

Comments: woodward@tcnj.edu

The Perfect Response

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IN A DISTRACTED AGE

Category Archives: Problem Practices

The Signal to Noise Ratio

The High Voltage Language of Status Issues