From noisy neighbors to construction crews, from power washers to leafblowers, noise is an ever-present thunder in urban environments. If you're not living next to a highway, train-tracks, or a busy intersection, you're under a highly trafficked flight path to the local airport, forced to endure the repetitious din of hundreds of planes coming and going on a daily basis. For most of urban history, the growl of modern machines was tolerable, confined to roads and airways and the occasional lawnmowing on a Saturday afternoon. But since the advent of affordable power tools, escape into quiet is now impossible and no neighborhood is free of daily double-digit decibel ratings. Silence is golden. but more importantly, it's disappearing.
In Pursuit of Silence is an investigation into the rise of urban noise and the impact it has on humans and nature, physiologically and psychologically. After spending a million years evolving in a much quieter environment, human beings now find themselves bombarded by auditory stimulation they are ill-prepared for. This has lead some scientists to posit that noise pollution not only disrupts complex thinking, it may be a root cause of autism, literally re-wiring the infantile brain which is defenseless against the thunder that begins the moment the baby is born.
From birds who have their mating calls drowned out by passing cars to the horn and engine-filled clamor of New York City streets, Mr. Prochnik points out that the world is not only getting noisier, there's been only a token effort to keep the growing din in check. Noise pollution has historically been avoidable, but with the rapid rise of Earth's human population, finding silence is getting harder and harder. And yet, whenever society adjusts to a new phenomenon, subcultures are spawned to welcome and service those who find the new developments disturbing. From Buddhist temples to Japanese xen gardens, Mr. Prochnik profiles these sacred spaces, describing the physical and psychological responses to the total absence of noise.
But while spaces are being developed to shelter noise-avoiders, noise-revellers have staked out their own ground. Mr. Prochnik spends time, here, with Boom Car aficionados, men and women who gut their cars in an effort to pack so much stereo equipment inside their hollowed-out shells that the power of the sound produced literally distorts the air in and around the car, packing a punch capable of shattering windshields.
Mr. Prochnik has done justice to an under-discussed and overlooked externality of modern society. In highlighting the ways in which noise changes our world, he's brought attention to an issue that ought to be legislated and controlled. Millions of people spend a premium on their homes to live in nice, peaceful neighborhoods that have been graffitied by suburban noise. One should not have to go to a Japanese xen garden for silence. One should be able to walk out of ones own front door to locate peace and quiet. Now that science is beginning to detail the impact of noise, perhaps something will be done to curb the thunder and restore some semblance of peace to our world.
This is a thoughtful read. And though Mr. Prochnik makes his own feelings felt on this issue, he is much less inflammatory than I am on this subject and that is to his credit. (4/5 Stars)
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