We are blessed with an acutely capable sensorium and our five senses are designed to serve us in the battle for survival. Four of our five senses are in direct control of what we will react to and each of the four can be directly moderated by us. If we don’t want to see, we close our eyes; taste is controlled by our diet choice to consume or not consume. If we reject touching, we avoid. Smell can be curtailed by holding one’s breath. One sense is a bit different. Our hearing is -by nature non-discriminating…if we don’t employ external, mechanical devices such as ear plugs or our index fingers the sounds of the world will come to us in a continuous flow.
Many tales are told by the soldiers of the American Civil war about the phenomena of acoustic shadows. The stories include the reports of soldiers stationed in close proximity to massive artillery barrages who heard… nothing. This physical conundrum can best be described as, ” sound waves that fail to propagate.” The play of the land and other obstructions cause us to miss what would otherwise be a cacophony of sound. It seems we are experiencing a societal acoustic shadow today, with many of us unable to hear the cries of truth that roil all around us.
The sound waves of pain and loss often fail to propagate. In order to restore our hearing we must change position and clear obstructions.
Other forces are at play that limit our otherwise vital ability to hear the ambient sounds in our environment. Noise is artificially created by some to muddle the message that should be clear. News organizations bombard us with sound (sound bytes) and voices are raised on both sides of the barricades. This is how the king was killed in Hamlet: “and in the porches of my ears he did pour the leprous distillment.” Leprous distillments are everywhere in the form of counter-narratives, alternative facts and outright prevarication. No wonder our most reliable sense is compromised.
When Custer was killed at the Little Big Horn battle he was not mutilated… other than the fact that his ear drums were pierced to improve his hearing.
Acoustic shadows and willful non-hearing must be corrected for our own survival. We must change our positions, clear obstructions and LISTEN. This will go a long way to save us. Our acoustic shadows must be corrected, as Marlee Matlin once observed, ” the handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind.”
Black Lives Matter.
Olio Folio 