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| Our Polluted Senses | Our Polluted Senses |
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| People who live in densely populated areas are all too familiar with sensory bombardment — the continuous light and noise pollution that has come to practically define the urban environment. Over time, most city dwellers grow so accustomed to this intense stimulation that they cease to notice it. Their perceptual thresholds, we might say, shift upward. | People who live in densely populated areas are all too familiar with sensory bombardment — the continuous light and noise pollution that has come to practically define the urban environment. Over time, most city dwellers grow so accustomed to this intense stimulation that they cease to notice it. Their perceptual thresholds, we might say, shift upward. |
| Others, though, see the need for a bulwark against this sensory pollution. In Idaho, where a good amount of pristine earth and sky still exists, officials are proposing the first “dark sky reserve” in the United States (a few smaller areas are already certified as dark sky parks and sanctuaries). If approved, it will strictly limit the use of artificial light to preserve the unique conditions that make the interstellar dust clouds of the Milky Way visible in Central Idaho on a clear night. | Others, though, see the need for a bulwark against this sensory pollution. In Idaho, where a good amount of pristine earth and sky still exists, officials are proposing the first “dark sky reserve” in the United States (a few smaller areas are already certified as dark sky parks and sanctuaries). If approved, it will strictly limit the use of artificial light to preserve the unique conditions that make the interstellar dust clouds of the Milky Way visible in Central Idaho on a clear night. |
| Of course, vision and hearing aren’t the only senses vulnerable to pollution; so are smell and taste. Just as the glow of city lights causes twinkling stars to recede from sight, so sugar- and salt-laced foods prevent the palate from experiencing subtler flavors, and strong scents can also overwhelm and confuse our olfactory register. | |
| Even touch, which philosophers since Aristotle have typically treated differently from “distance senses,” can be compromised. Consider that we drastically narrow the field of what can or should be touched, as we spend much of our time caressing the smooth and glassy bodies and touchscreens of our cellphones. It remains to be seen (or touched upon) what this phenomenon might do to our sense of touch. | Even touch, which philosophers since Aristotle have typically treated differently from “distance senses,” can be compromised. Consider that we drastically narrow the field of what can or should be touched, as we spend much of our time caressing the smooth and glassy bodies and touchscreens of our cellphones. It remains to be seen (or touched upon) what this phenomenon might do to our sense of touch. |
| I don’t mean to depict our sensorium — the entire range and capacity of our sensory experience — as a pure state that has been defiled by light, noise, flavor and scent pollution; that would just be another version of the original-sin-and-fall narrative. I would argue rather that we have managed to turn the senses against themselves by pitting overwhelming light against lights, overpowering sound against sounds, intense flavor against flavors, penetrating aroma against aromas. In each case, the result is a marked simplification in the field of possible experiences — one or two stimuli will outshine, outsmell or outshout the rest. We thus become subject to not sensory overload but sensory underload — when incomparably strong sensations muscle out those that lay a weaker claim on our capacity to attend to the world. | I don’t mean to depict our sensorium — the entire range and capacity of our sensory experience — as a pure state that has been defiled by light, noise, flavor and scent pollution; that would just be another version of the original-sin-and-fall narrative. I would argue rather that we have managed to turn the senses against themselves by pitting overwhelming light against lights, overpowering sound against sounds, intense flavor against flavors, penetrating aroma against aromas. In each case, the result is a marked simplification in the field of possible experiences — one or two stimuli will outshine, outsmell or outshout the rest. We thus become subject to not sensory overload but sensory underload — when incomparably strong sensations muscle out those that lay a weaker claim on our capacity to attend to the world. |
| Our bizarre predicament, then, is that of impoverishment through surplus. | Our bizarre predicament, then, is that of impoverishment through surplus. |
| In fact, it is the very receptivity of our senses, open to either the finest discernments or bombardment by the crudest stimuli, that converts them into a receptacle, a trash-bin of sensory experience. More and more, the stuff of our senses becomes garbage when too much of something translates into too little of something else, a contraction in the field of what our bodies meaningfully receive from the outside world. “Junk food” is a term that corroborates the general logic of pollution. The overwhelming presence of sugar and salt in junk food assaults the palate and masks other flavors. Light, sound and scent pollution, too, result from tremendous discharges dumped upon all those in their vicinity, all those whose sentient bodies are refashioned into living-breathing dumping grounds. | In fact, it is the very receptivity of our senses, open to either the finest discernments or bombardment by the crudest stimuli, that converts them into a receptacle, a trash-bin of sensory experience. More and more, the stuff of our senses becomes garbage when too much of something translates into too little of something else, a contraction in the field of what our bodies meaningfully receive from the outside world. “Junk food” is a term that corroborates the general logic of pollution. The overwhelming presence of sugar and salt in junk food assaults the palate and masks other flavors. Light, sound and scent pollution, too, result from tremendous discharges dumped upon all those in their vicinity, all those whose sentient bodies are refashioned into living-breathing dumping grounds. |
| As on a dump, stimuli falls on us indiscriminately and haphazardly, with few basic distinctions between the sweet and the salty, the loud and the quiet, the illuminated and the obscure, the aromatic and the odorless surviving the onslaught. Every subtle thing either grows imperceptible or reaches us as pure matter void of form, an ill-shapen piece or a clumsy lump at the etymological root of “dump.” | |
| It bears mentioning that reflections of this kind are not merely aesthetic complaints; they speak directly to issues of public health. The illnesses noise and light pollution induce, from insomnia and depression to hypertension and ischemic disease, impair our well-being and restrict the range of bodily possibilities; the conditions caused by industrially processed food lead to poor health, lower quality of life and the expense of enormous resources required to treat them. All in all, the impoverishment of the senses by means of a dumped surplus limits our awareness and diminishes the scope of experience itself. | It bears mentioning that reflections of this kind are not merely aesthetic complaints; they speak directly to issues of public health. The illnesses noise and light pollution induce, from insomnia and depression to hypertension and ischemic disease, impair our well-being and restrict the range of bodily possibilities; the conditions caused by industrially processed food lead to poor health, lower quality of life and the expense of enormous resources required to treat them. All in all, the impoverishment of the senses by means of a dumped surplus limits our awareness and diminishes the scope of experience itself. |
| There is a social and economic factor in the tendency I am describing as well. Some among us might be privileged enough to seek refuge from the inner and outer dump, be it in the quiet of meditation classes or the pleasures of gourmet dining. But these niche solutions, reliant on the upscale market of experiences, do almost nothing to change the overall embodied meaning of being human in the 21st century — of being dumped (on). | There is a social and economic factor in the tendency I am describing as well. Some among us might be privileged enough to seek refuge from the inner and outer dump, be it in the quiet of meditation classes or the pleasures of gourmet dining. But these niche solutions, reliant on the upscale market of experiences, do almost nothing to change the overall embodied meaning of being human in the 21st century — of being dumped (on). |
| Rather than look for private escape routes, we should recognize the full extent of our planetary and existential dump, of the biomass that we all have become. A reckoning like this, difficult as it may be, might be the beginning of the arduous work we as a species urgently need to undertake — forging a greater solidarity with our natural environment and with all those forms, human and nonhuman, of what still remains of life. | Rather than look for private escape routes, we should recognize the full extent of our planetary and existential dump, of the biomass that we all have become. A reckoning like this, difficult as it may be, might be the beginning of the arduous work we as a species urgently need to undertake — forging a greater solidarity with our natural environment and with all those forms, human and nonhuman, of what still remains of life. |