Recently I attended a “noise” music symposium in which the discussion turned to the meaning of noise in today’s political landscape. This being an academic, “progressive” environment, all noise arrows pointed solely to Trump, Trumpers, and nationalists and the fascism they allegedly represent.
Later I pondered how I would have answered that question. What I see as “noise” is the current breakdown of political philosophies and social alliances, almost to the point of incoherence, that has resulted from a shifting of power globally.
Some examples from my recent past:
Attending a lecture panel by academics and activists on art galleries as Trojan Horses of gentrification that was interrupted by a group of local protesters who “occupied” the small, nonprofit lecture space during the introduction, claiming that the space was gentrifying Chinatown. Once they vacated, the organizer lamented, “I don’t know what they are so angry about. The only event we hold here is a Marxist book club.”
Attending a corner protest in Beverly Hills against vaccine mandates that was comprised mainly of TV executives and their supermodel wives but also attended by an older, working-class organizer from Venice who stood in the street with a bullhorn. The passing firemen and policemen gave us honks of approval. Later we gathered around an old school, masculine-presenting-but-not- male-identifying, lesbian who told us that a prominent County health official was a “lesbian witch doctor” and that she should know because she has “dated a few.”
Attending a libertarian lecture about “ending the drug war” that featured a county sheriff from the Arizona border who identified himself as an anarchist. When members of the libertarian audience somewhat sheepishly chimed in with questions about the urban problems resulting from lax law enforcement, the sheriff answered, “Law enforcement is not the answer.” He sounded much like a current progressive until he made the statement that welfare was one of the primary causes of the problem.
The libertarian meeting with the sheriff had been proceeded by one in which a Native American man travelled down from the reservation to discuss gun ownership. The meeting following that one was on herbal tinctures.
I have also recently met both a man who is a conventional conservative and a man who is a nudist and former porn actor who follow Pam Popper’s “Make Americans Free Again” movement.
Now THAT is noise. Even the definition of fascism is noisy. RFK, Jr.’s candidacy promises to make things noisier still.
In this environment, any attempt to move the profession into a specific, progressive direction is likely to fail, while the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and Freedom to Read Statement expertly position libraries to absorb the noise.
Top image: ISO 7010 W038 warning; sudden loud noises.svg/ Wikimedia Commons
Based on your comment I just read it. I agree. It is amazing - particularly being that it was written so long ago. (Coincidentally, 1953 was my birth year. I wonder if it was drafted in response to McCarthyism?)
It really is an amazing document and although I was required to be familiar with it my entire career it wasn't until recently that I realized its timeless brilliance, just as I occasionally hear others in the profession suggesting it needs to be updated.
I've been thinking more about the way you are using the word "noise". In information theory (part of my background), noise is usually random. But often not. Trying to have a conversation in a noisy bar involves signals being noise to each other, whereas a jet taking off is generating random noise. Strategies for communicating in the presence of noise usually involve reducing signal bandwidth, like talking slower, or in extremis using phonetic alphabets to spell out words. But what you are describing seems more like jamming, an electronic warfare tactic. Countermeasures are interesting and have led to the technologies that produced cellphones. One, called frequency hopping, involves breaking the message up into short pieces and transmitting them sequentially through different channels whose order is predetermined. An analogy for your situation might be moving meetings to different locations. The strategy I find most interesting is called CDMA (code division multiple access), which is how modern cellphones work. Using pseudorandom noise you encode the message in noise itself, which is spread out over a wide spectrum, then broadcast your whitened "noise". Receivers that know the pseudorandom sequence can decode it perfectly. In the presence of lots of similar signals (a crowded cell) retrieval can require error correction, which is a little bit like having to repeat yourself when the protestor is bull-horning you.
Too bad you weren't at that symposium to participate in the conversation! Are you familiar with the noise music genre? Most of the music is made electronically although other instruments as well as voice are used as well.
In this piece I was thinking of "noise" as being confusing and disruptive and something that makes things hard to decipher. It is not something I had thought much about intellectually before this symposium though-- you are ahead of me!
I've never heard of that. Interesting. White or pink noise are used to mask conversations. A friend who is a therapist bought one that she runs in her waiting room to keep waiting patients from hearing what goes on through the wall.
S. Anderson, you are an interesting person. I have yet to read one of your posts I didn't enjoy.
I do get around, but even more so now that my typical haunts have gotten so narrow in focus.
The Freedom to Read statement is amazing and inspiring, but given our times I'd like to know that it had been reviewed after 2004.
I know some people think it should be reviewed "given our times" but IMHO it is the ideal document for our times.
Based on your comment I just read it. I agree. It is amazing - particularly being that it was written so long ago. (Coincidentally, 1953 was my birth year. I wonder if it was drafted in response to McCarthyism?)
It really is an amazing document and although I was required to be familiar with it my entire career it wasn't until recently that I realized its timeless brilliance, just as I occasionally hear others in the profession suggesting it needs to be updated.
At this point I would fear an update, much as I fear them to our Constitution.
Ditto!
I've been thinking more about the way you are using the word "noise". In information theory (part of my background), noise is usually random. But often not. Trying to have a conversation in a noisy bar involves signals being noise to each other, whereas a jet taking off is generating random noise. Strategies for communicating in the presence of noise usually involve reducing signal bandwidth, like talking slower, or in extremis using phonetic alphabets to spell out words. But what you are describing seems more like jamming, an electronic warfare tactic. Countermeasures are interesting and have led to the technologies that produced cellphones. One, called frequency hopping, involves breaking the message up into short pieces and transmitting them sequentially through different channels whose order is predetermined. An analogy for your situation might be moving meetings to different locations. The strategy I find most interesting is called CDMA (code division multiple access), which is how modern cellphones work. Using pseudorandom noise you encode the message in noise itself, which is spread out over a wide spectrum, then broadcast your whitened "noise". Receivers that know the pseudorandom sequence can decode it perfectly. In the presence of lots of similar signals (a crowded cell) retrieval can require error correction, which is a little bit like having to repeat yourself when the protestor is bull-horning you.
Too bad you weren't at that symposium to participate in the conversation! Are you familiar with the noise music genre? Most of the music is made electronically although other instruments as well as voice are used as well.
In this piece I was thinking of "noise" as being confusing and disruptive and something that makes things hard to decipher. It is not something I had thought much about intellectually before this symposium though-- you are ahead of me!
I've never heard of that. Interesting. White or pink noise are used to mask conversations. A friend who is a therapist bought one that she runs in her waiting room to keep waiting patients from hearing what goes on through the wall.
It's definitely difficult to have a conversation during a noise music performance, I will say that.
All the noise on social media could be another analogy.
As could "the fog of war."