Michael Moynihan: Why is it that noisy people show no consideration for others?

It shows the ultimate flex of the solipsist; everyone must accommodate me rather than the other way around, writes Michael Moynihan

'One call was conducted at full-throated, resonant volume on behalf of the gentleman present in person in the coffee shop, and at tinny, piercing resonant volume by the other participants on the call.'

Some things stay constant in this business no matter what happens, and the decline in standards of behaviour remains one of the still points in a changing world, an ever-reliable topic for columnists everywhere.

And in every time: hundreds of years ago embattled pamphleteers, struggling in Elizabethan London for a topic that would generate a few ducats, would snap their fingers as they realised it was time to rewarm a screed on the decline of standards.

Even then it was well-established. Half a millennium ago those lads could reach back for inspiration to the man who said of the younger generation in his own time: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” Socrates, speaking around 440 BC.

Fascinating, you say, but how does that affect the Leeside flaneur or flaneuse?

Easy: because standards have now declined so far that they may bottomed out. I’m not talking specifically about the kids, easy targets though they provide, but Socrates was definitely onto something when he mentioned chatter in the place of exercise. Or in the place of silence.

Paradise lost

Scene one: on the boardwalk along the riverside, near one of Cork’s many excellent cafes a week or so ago. Just after eight in the morning, the optimum part of the day for the first hit of caffeine as one gathers oneself for the challenges of the day. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation, according to Hopper from Stranger Things.

Contemplation is nowhere to be found, however, when one of the coffee shop customers decides he wants to listen to Morning Ireland with his breakfast. I know he wants to listen to Morning Ireland because this man wishes to keep his ears free of devices, instead preferring to perch his smartphone on the table with the volume loud enough for him to hear.

Loud enough for everyone within a 20-yard radius to hear, in fact.

Full volume

Scene two, set in one of the several Cork branches of a famous international chain of coffee shops, though not the same day as scene one. The precise time is not as germane in this case, which relates to a three-way FaceTime call.

This call was conducted at full-throated, resonant volume on behalf of the gentleman present in person in the coffee shop, and at tinny, piercing resonant volume by the other participants on the call.

If I got less value from this intervention it was because I was unfamiliar with the language the call was conducted in, though not because I couldn’t hear everything that was said, and a good deal of the background sighs and inhalations, such was the quality of the connection.

Sun, sea, and shouting

Scene three, set on one of Cork’s magnificent beaches west of the city over the weekend.

The time? Time to learn all about one woman’s travails with building her house. Foundations, scaffolding, window installation, all aspects of construction outlined in minute detail for anyone in earshot, if earshot can be said to consist of about 1,600 square metres.

I won’t go into details about specific tradesmen who were in for a land on Tuesday morning when they were back on site after the bank holiday weekend, but not for fear of a libel action. 

If the wind was blowing from the right direction on Sunday, then the complaints carried to them on the breeze even if they were living in Castletownbere 

This lady’s ability to project her voice was the exact opposite of what the late lamented Tommy O’Brien used to refer to as ‘microphone tenors’*.

(Don’t feel bad if you don’t get the reference.) As a metric showing the erosion of manners, inflicting noise on people in a public setting is as good as any. The attritional conflict between cyclists and motorists is sometimes instanced as the archetypal modern confrontation, but playing your music/holding a lengthy meeting/braying your house-extension requirements at a high volume is a better example. It shows the ultimate flex of the solipsist: everyone must accommodate me rather than the other way around.

In other words, I don’t adjust my behaviour for the greater good, the greater good suffers because of me. I am not what I appear to be

To the undiscerning eye, I may appear to be a fully grown adult functioning in society. In reality, however, I am a six-month-old Red Setter who happens to be wearing a lifelike human-being costume: how else can my need for instant gratification at all costs be explained?

These are not victimless crimes, even if you’re not a person whose teeth are set on edge by the tinny frequencies relayed by phones or computers (though I believe there are more of us — sorry, those — than we realise).

Emotional consquences

Some years ago the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper identifying the emotional effect on people of environmental sounds such as “human actions, animal calls, machinery, or natural phenomena”.

 The Australian media outlet ABC reported that “Intrusive music — whether it is being played directly through someone's digital device, or so loudly through headphones it can be heard by those nearby — can have an array of emotional consequences for listeners, including increased aggression, irritability and an inability to concentrate.” 

Help is at hand. If you’re in Japan at some stage soon make sure to pick up a noisejammer, a small electronic device that looks like a police radar gun. If you’re on a train or in a room with someone, or some electronic device, destroying your concentration, then you point your noise jammer in that direction.

The device records the irritating voices or music of those individuals and then plays it back to them almost immediately in a rush of gibberish, overriding their own contributions with a flood of their own words

There’s a delicious symmetry to this which has an immediate appeal — how often do you literally get to stuff someone’s words down their own throat, or ears? — but it only obscures the real question temporarily.

Why is this even necessary? When and how did people begin to believe that they didn’t owe any consideration to those around them? Where is the mechanism for dealing with these beasts (steady on — ed), because if there isn’t a mechanism mere anarchy will be let loose upon the world.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

This is not idle talk. Back in 2017 there was a fracas on board a London train between London Bridge and Peckham Rye. A passenger was angry that another passenger was speaking too loudly on his mobile phone, words were exchanged, and the passenger angered by the noise bit another passenger’s ear — a friend of the one using the phone.

This is the kind of incidental colour someone like Carl Hiaasen would relish, but the most persuasive detail came in an aside from witnesses about the biter: “When he eventually stopped biting the man, he casually returned to his seat and sat down.” 

If you can’t identify with the feeling of satisfaction which accompanied that return to the seat, maybe you’re part of the problem.