4/11/2014

Arthur Schopenhauer: On Noise

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Arthur Schopenhauer: On Noise

Kant wrote an essay on the living forces; but I would like to write a
dirge and threnode thereon, for their excessively frequent use in
knocking, hammering, and banging has been throughout my life a
daily torment to me. There are certainly those, quite a number in fact,
who smile at such things because they are not sensitive to noise. Yet
they are the very people who are also not sensitive to arguments,
ideas, poetry, and works of art, in short, to mental impressions of
every kind; for this is due to the toughness and solid texture of their
brain substance. On the other hand, in the biographies or other
accounts of the personal statements of almost all great authors, such
as Kant, Goethe, Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, I find complaints about the
torture which thinkers have to endure from noise. If such complaints
are not to be found in some authors, this is merely because the
context did not lead up to them. I explain the matter as follows. A
large diamond cut up into pieces is equal in value to just so many
small ones; and an army dispersed and scattered, in other words
disbanded into small bodies, is no longer capable of anything. In the
same way a great mind is no more capable than an ordinary one, the
moment it is interrupted, disturbed, and diverted. For its superiority is
conditioned by its concentrating all its powers, as does a concave
mirror all its rays, on to one point and object; and it is precisely here
that it is prevented by a noisy interruption. This is why eminent minds
have always thoroughly disliked every kind of disturbance,
interruption, and diversion, but above all the violent disturbance
caused by din and noise. Others, on the contrary, are not particularly
upset by such things. The most sensible and intelligent of all European
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Arthur Schopenhauer: On Noise

nations has even laid down an eleventh commandment, the rule never
interrupt! Din is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption, for
it interrupts, in fact disrupts, even our own thoughts. However, where
there is nothing to interrupt, din will naturally not be particularly felt.
At times, I am tormented and disturbed for a while by a moderate and
constant noise before I am clearly conscious thereof, since I feel it
merely as a constant increase in the difficulty of thinking, like a weight
tied to my foot, until I become aware of what it is.
Passing now from the genus to the species, I have to denounce as the
most inexcusable and scandalous noise the truly infernal cracking of
whips in the narrow resounding streets of towns; for it robs life of all
peace and pensiveness. Nothing gives me so clear an idea of the
apathy, stupidity, and thoughtlessness of men as the toleration of this
whip-cracking. This sudden sharp crack which paralyzes the brain,
tears and rends the thread of reflection and murders all thoughts,
must be painfully felt by anyone who carries in his head anything
resembling an idea. All such cracks must, therefore, disturb hundreds
in their mental activity, however humble its nature; but they shoot
through a thinkers meditations as painfully and fatally as the
executioners axe cuts the head from the body. No sound cuts through
the brain so sharply as does this cursed whip-cracking; one feels in
ones brain the very sting of the lash and it affects the brain as does
touch the mimosa pudica, and lasts as long. With all due respect to the
most sacred doctrine of utility, I really do not see why a fellow,
fetching a cart-load of sand or manure, should thereby acquire the
privilege of nipping in the bud every idea that successively arises in
ten thousand heads (in the course of half an hours journey through a
town). Hammering, the barking of dogs, and the screaming of children
are terrible, but the real murderer of ideas is only the crack of a whip.
It is meant to crush every good moment for meditation which anyone
may at times have. If to urge on draught animals there existed no
means other than this most abominable of all noises, there would be
some excuse for it, but quite the contrary is the case. This cursed
whip-cracking is not only unnecessary, but even useless. Thus the
intended psychic effect on the horses is entirely blunted and fails to
occur because, through constant abuse of the whip, they have grown
accustomed thereto. The horses, accordingly, do not go any faster;
and this is also seen especially in the case of cabmen who are on the
look-out for a fare and incessantly crack their whips while driving at
the slowest pace. The slightest touch of the whip has more effect. But
assuming that it were absolutely necessary constantly to remind the
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Arthur Schopenhauer: On Noise

horses of the whips presence by sounding it, then a sound a hundred

times quieter would suffice for the purpose. For it is well known that
animals notice the slightest scarcely perceptible indications, both
audible and visible, the most surprising examples being furnished by
trained dogs and canaries. Accordingly, the matter proves to be a
piece of pure wantonness and in fact an insolent disregard for those
who work with their heads on the part of those members of the
community who work with their hands. That such an infamy is
tolerated in towns is a crude barbarity and an iniquity, the more so as
it could very easily be stopped by a police order to the effect that every
whip-cord should have a knot at the end. There can be no harm in
drawing the attention of the proletarians to the mental work of the
classes above them, for they have a mortal dread of all such work. A
fellow who rides through the narrow streets of a populous town with
free post-horses or on a free cart-horse, or even accompanies animals
on foot, and keeps on cracking with all his might a whip several yards
long, deserves to be taken down at once and given five really good
cuts with a stick. All the philanthropists in the world, and all the
legislative assemblies which on good grounds abolish all corporal
punishment, will not persuade me to the contrary. But something even
worse can often enough be seen, namely a carter who, alone and
without horses, walks through the streets and incessantly cracks his
whip. This fellow has become so accustomed to the crack of a whip,
thanks to inexcusable leniency and toleration. With the universal
tenderness for the body and all its gratifications, is the thinking mind
to be the only thing that never experiences the slightest consideration
or protection, to say nothing of respect? Carters, porters, messengers,
and the like are the beasts of burden of the human community; they
should certainly be treated humanely with justice, fairness,
consideration, and care, but they should not be allowed to thwart the
higher endeavors of the human race by wantonly making a noise. I
would like to know how many great and fine thoughts have already
been cracked out of the world by these whips. If I had to give an order,
there would soon be established in the heads of carmen an indelible
association of ideas between cracking a whip and getting a whipping.
Let us hope that the more intelligent and refined nations will make a
start in this direction and that, by way of example, the Germans will
then be made to follow suit. Meanwhile, Thomas Hood says: For a
musical people, they are the most noisy I ever met with. That they are
so, however, is not due to their being more inclined than others to
make a noise, but to the apathy and insensibility (with the result of
obtuseness) of those who have to listen to it. They are not thereby
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Arthur Schopenhauer: On Noise

disturbed in their thinking or reading for the very reason that they do
not think, but merely smoke, such being for them a substitute for
thinking. The universal toleration of unnecessary noise, for example
the extremely vulgar and ill-mannered slamming of doors, is simply a
sign of mental bluntness and a general want of thought. In Germany it
seems as though it were positively the intention that no one should
come to his senses on account of noise; pointless drumming, for
example.
Finally, as regards the literature that deals with the subject of this
chapter, I can recommend only one work, but it is a fine one, namely a
poetical epistle in terze rime by the famous painter Bronzino entitled
De romori, a Messer Luca Martini. Here a detailed and amusing
description is given in a tragicomic style of the torment that one has to
endure from the many different noises of an Italian town.
Copyright 2011 Internationale Schopenhauer-Vereinigung.

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