FASCIST NOISE

FASCIST NOISE

The image of twentieth century fascism is Hitler, at his microphone, in Nuremberg. The volume is—for its time—incredible. In a sense, the amplification of sound was a key to fascist success. Nobody could escape from hearing Hitler. They might not listen, but they had to hear.

We live, now, in a world of fascist sound. Rock concerts with noise machines, boom-boxes, cars with high-decibel sound systems, home sound-systems that re-define the idea of home: they are all fascist.

Power is anti-social. Power is ego. Microphones and amplifiers made Hitler’s rise to power possible. In more modern times, amplified sound has made other demagogues powerful. It has made late adolescents powerful, too: “We will rock you.” Kids wanting attention, power. Noise is power. The world belongs to the noisy.

I can turn away from, refuse to look at, things I don’t want to see. That may not always be wise, but sometimes it may be appropriate: I don’t have an obligation to look at ugliness.

I can refuse to go to places where I don’t want to be, but still be somewhere.. I don’t have to touch things I don’t want to touch—and still touch the things I like. I can avoid tastes that I don’t like, without giving up my sense of taste.

But the fascists with their noise? Either I give up my ability to hear, or I hear them.

When attention-getting noise-making was in its early stages among adolescents, the city of Ann Arbor made it a misdemeanor to make noise that went across your property line at above a certain decibel level. That made perfectly good sense, and for the most part made life bearable for Ann Arbor’s citizenry.

The law made an exception, however, for the University of Michigan’s football stadium; and at my house, twenty-four blocks away, for five Saturday afternoons each fall I had to hear—whether I listened or not—to 101,500 screaming football fans and worse, to a Hitler-style “public address” system that might well have been audible on the moon.

So Ann Arbor’s law was biased. Basically, it was aimed at young people. It could have been aimed at Jews.

I don’t want to give up Mozart, the sounds children make playing, the mooing of cattle and the purring of cats, human voices of all kinds, birds chirping, thunder, an autumn breeze rattling leaves, a voice reciting lovely poems. I don’t want to give up singing, either. And I don’t want to surrender the world of sound to fascists.

But sometimes—like tonight, when my neighbor explained that ten o’clock was much too early to ask him to turn down the noise that was shaking our apartment building—I think I might rather be deaf.