chrz@ihuxe.UUCP (p. chrzanowski) (10/14/85)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR *** I ORIGINALLY POSTED THIS ON NET.FLAME: I didn't much care for pop music when I was a teen, and I still don't. I am FED UP with having others musical preferences forced on me. This flame is about *NOISE* : * At work * Around here people play portable radios, car radios with 12v. power supplies, home stereos, etc. in offices and labs. Most turn it down when asked -- but (1) I really don't want it down, I want it OFF, and (2) I'm fed up with constantly having to ask. * At play * Around here, all the city owned swimming pools are equipped with metal horn loudspeakers -- the better to blare top 40 MOR music with. The park district people respond "but most people using the pools like it". Maybe so, but it is my pool too - I pay taxes to maintain and operate it. * At home * My city gov't thinks it's a great idea to allow the merchants assoc. to hire rock bands to play in city parking lots -- LOUD, you can hear it over a mile away. I don't LIKE being forced out of my home by city hall. This is some of the dialog which ensued: > I didn't much care for pop music when I was a teen, and I still don't. > I am FED UP with having others musical preferences forced on me. >> Are you suggesting that you want your musical preferences forced on others? I guess that blaring noise at you in front of your home, at your workplace, or at publicly owned facilities might get you to quit subjecting me to YOUR noise but actually no, I was not trying to tell you what you *should* listen to anymore than I would try to tell you what you *should* read. > The second complaint involved a public place, where > the first poster complains about the use of Muzak (tm, by the way) > at a swimming pool. (s)He details the results of a complaint > to the management. While the management's position is supportable, The pool is not a privately owned public accomodation, it is owned by the city in which I live. This is very different from my telling the owner of a private club what I would like to hear. As a resident I am forced to pay the maintenance and operating costs of this pool. Furthermore, the pool is a community resource; it belongs to me, too. BTW, it is not Muzak (tm) that blares from the metal horn, pole mounted speakers that rim the pool but (what else ?) top-40 radio. > The first [complaint] was involving work, where the use of personal > stereos, etc, was creating a work environment that was [difficult for me to work in] Actually I think "personal stereos" ("walkmans") are a real good idea (the music here at work comes from large, high powered amplifier) as is the idea of holding loud concerts a LONG way from where people live (there are quite a few such areas around here) or at the least having them in indoor facilities with appropriate soundproofing. Even so, I think most of the responsibility for finding solutions rests with those who are making the noise -- it's pretty offensive for you to create a very annoying nuisance and then tell me that since I'm bothered it must be my problem. The issue is, as a number of netters said, minority rights -- or, as I put it, respect for human diversity (the issue is moral and social as well as legal and political). Indeed, the U.S.A is becoming more homogenous than ever before: the food, the music, the architecture, look pretty much the same in Portland, OR as in Portland, ME.; one chain newspaper, bookstore, pizzahouse, moviehouse looks/sounds pretty much like another. It is indeed difficult to march to a different drummer (in my head) while being assaulted by the percussion booming out of your noisebox, but the issue does go beyond pop music or even pop culture (whatever that is). While this is not even close to being a fair comparison, I think it is worth noting that Herr Hitler came to power legally in the Weimar Republic of Germany, a democratic state, and although he abolished the democracy nonetheless His Mustached Majesty almost certainly retained the support of a very large majority of Germans. It is not "the system" that makes democracy work (or not) but the participants. When considering whether you want to force your (admittedly) popular music on me today, consider that the wheel turns and tomorrow it may be you who is the minority: would you prefer to live in a society where anything goes as long as it is sufficiently popular, or a society that respects the right of an individual to be different up to the point where that difference infringes on the rights of others?