A theme of the age, at least in the developed world, is that people crave silence and can find none. The roar of traffic, the ceaseless beep of phones, digital announcements in buses and trains, TV sets blaring even in empty offices, are an endless battery and distraction. The human race is exhausting itself with noise and longs for its opposite—whether in the wilds, on the wide ocean or in some retreat dedicated to stillness and concentration. Alain Corbin, a history professor, writes from his refuge in the Sorbonne, and Erling Kagge, a Norwegian explorer, from his memories of the wastes of Antarctica, where both have tried to escape.
And yet, as Mr Corbin points out in "A History of Silence", there is probably no more noise than there used to be. Before pneumatic tyres, city streets were full of the deafening clang of metal-rimmed wheels and horseshoes on stone. Before voluntary isolation on mobile phones, buses and trains rang with conversation. Newspaper-sellers did not leave their wares in a mute pile, but advertised them at top volume, as did vendors of cherries, violets and fresh mackerel. The theatre and the opera were a chaos of huzzahs and barracking. Even in the countryside, peasants sang as they drudged. They don’t sing now.
What has changed is not so much the level of noise, which previous centuries also complained about, but the level of distraction, which occupies the space that silence might invade. There looms another paradox, because when it does invade—in the depths of a pine forest, in the naked desert, in a suddenly vacated room—it often proves unnerving rather than welcome. Dread creeps in; the ear instinctively fastens on anything, whether fire-hiss or bird call or susurrus of leaves, that will save it from this unknown emptiness. People want silence, but not that much. | Jedna od glavnih tema ovoga doba, ili u najmanju ruku u razvijenim delovima sveta, je žudnja ljudi za tišinom i nemogućnost pronalaženja iste. Saobraćajna buka, neprestana zvonjava telefona, digitalna obaveštenja u autobusima i vozovima i treštanje televizora, čak i iz praznih kancelarija, su večna šteta i smetnja. Ljudska vrsta iscrpljuje samu sebe bukom dok žudimo za njenom pukom suprotnošću—bila ona u divljini, u velikom okeanu ili u nekom odmaralištu posvećenom tišini i koncentraciji. Tako pišu Alen Korbin (Alain Corbin), profesor istorije, iz svog utočišta koje je pronašao u Sorbon Univerzitetu (Sorbonne University) i Erling Kaga (Erling Kagge), norveški istraživač, koji piše o svojim sećanjima na ogromne nenaseljene delove Antarktika, kuda su obojica pokušali da ostvare svoj beg. Ipak, kao što gospodin Korbin ističe u ,,Istoriji tišine” (A History of Science), buke verovatno nema više nego što je i inače bilo. Pre pneumatskih guma, gradske ulice su bile pune zaglušujućeg zveketa guma oivičene metalom i udara konjskih potkovica o kameno tlo. Pre svojevoljne izolacije u mobilnim telefonima, autobusi i vozovi su odzvanjali razgovorima. Prodavci novina nisu ostavljali svoju robu u nemuštim gomilama, već su vikali iz petnih žila da ih prodaju, kao što su to radili i prodavci trešanja, ljubičica i sveže skuše. Pozorište i opera su bili puni urlika odobravanja i negodovanja. Čak i na selu, seljaci bi pevali dok su radili teške poslove. Oni, sada, više ne pevaju. Ono što se promenilo i nije toliko taj stepen buke, o kom se ljudi žale već vekovima unazad, već stepen smetnji koje zauzimaju onaj prostor koji bi mogla ispuniti tišina. Ovde se nazire još jedan paradoks, zato što kada tišina ispuni taj prostor—u dubini borove šume, u ogoljenoj pustinji, u najednom ispražnjenoj prostoriji—često se pokaže da je ona uznemiravajuća više nego što je dobrodošla. Strah se ušunjava; uho se instiktivno usredsredi na bilo šta, bilo to šištanje vatre ili ptičije vabljenje ili šuštanje lišća, što će ga spasiti od ovog nepoznatog ništavila. Ljudi žele tišinu, ali ne baš toliku. |