Our Indefensible Ears

A Response to Hillel Shwartz's "Indefensible Ear"
First Paragraph Summery by Thomas Benoit.

At the end of last century, understanding of the ear sifted from a passive and indestructible organ to a sensitive, complex and active organ. There had been a reassessment of the ear in many fields like science, medicine, psychology and even fashion. Hearing became central to human experience with innovations of the 20th century (gramophone, radio, telephone). At the same time, the ear was overexposed to the noise of all this new inventions (machinery, subway...) although the ear is the most indefensible perception organ - we cannot shut our ears as we do for our eyes -, its vulnerability has been much considered. As the faculty of hearing reduces with age, it has been commonly thought that there is no reason trying to protect an organ, which is bound to degenerate. The author is an anti-noise advocate. He proposes to fight surrounding noises endangering our faculty of hearing by studying our sonic environments and make people aware of the threats of bad sonic vibrations.

The author draws our attention towards the dissimilarity of hearing as an involuntary phenomena and Listening as voluntary, and demonstrates how some notions like noise are bound to this difference. The question that raises here is: does noise loose its meaning if it is heard voluntary? (i.e. if noise is “listened” to is it still noise?)


As a consequence of modern technology the variety of the noises produced is wide. The sounds produced by us, as a result of unfamiliarity with the technology (ex. raising our voices over telephone). The sounds that the technological devices produce, And finally the sounds of commercials, public announcements, shopping mall radios… which most of us does not pay slightest of attention to them and yet they exist. Therefore we are living in an atmosphere where our ear, which is our most indefensible perception organ, is “overtaxed”.