Chapter 2
Stomach Rhythms Not All Rhumbas
2Contrast the confusing, soul-disturbing morning and evening treks of Murphy in a humpty-dumpty world, wasting a precious lifetime because of the patent inadequacy of the architectural mentors of that world, with the following coolly deliberated incident in the scientific world.
3 On the basis of experimental proof that noise is one of the two stimuli which will bring out an overt fear reaction in babies, a number of students in a prominent American university cooperated with Dr. Donald A. Laird in the following experiment:
4 To determine the fear-reaction effect of noise stimuli upon gastric motility, a thick rubber balloon attached to a tube was swallowed by the students, after which it was inflated to a uniform pressure of 10 cm. of water. Contractions of the balloon in the stomach forced the contained air into a second balloon in a sealed flask, from which a tube led to a water column on which a piston attached to a counterpoised writing point was floated. Contractions of the stomach increased the air pressure in the balloon in the flask, altered it, and caused the water column to rise, thus lifting the writing point so that it might record the movement on a revolving marked drum.
5 Having swallowed the balloons, the students reclined quietly for twenty minutes and then were subjected to various degrees of sound.
6 It is well known that there exists a unique directional rhythm of the digestive tract, that is, unique as differentiated from the rhythm of respiration or of heart pulsation. In the course of this experiment, all of the students showed an immediate frequency change in gastric peristalsis when subjected to sounds even of low intensity. When the sounds were intense, for instance the sound of a pneumatic drill, the contractions were not only altered in character but were 50% slower than before the sounds were made.
7 People with headaches, digestive cramps, gastric overloading, et cetera, quite evidently cannot be either as receptive or effective in their internal or external world relationships as persons not so disturbed. Certain degrees and types of sound have, then, due to their retarding influence on the digestive process, a wide effect on the social relationships of man. Sound, therefore, is a primary social factor. Man progresses in spite of such frictional conditions, not because of them. Flowing in the direction of least resistance, the progression in the myriad of cases of over-sounding must be ‘‘down hill.’’
8 Noise is only one of many important human behavior conditioning mechanical factors known to exist, with the knowledge of that existence recorded and measured, which are as yet popularly unconsidered (beyond the area of the unscientifically phrased ‘‘very annoying’’). These many known factors are but fractionally included in the obviously most important field of application,—controlled environment or shelter design romantically known as ‘‘architecture.’’
9 Murphy’s physician had cautioned him against paving the way for a peptic ulcer by bolting his meals in restaurants that were noisy, overlighted, and fearfully upsetting. So Murphy, by buying a home in a suburb, substituted the noise of the subway for that of the restaurant. No rest for the weary!
10 Mrs. Murphy did not understand why Murph’ suffered so much from noise. Julia was one of the lucky few who do not experience inconvenience from it. In fact, she rather liked the roaring rush into town by subway. She had found the rural silence very oppressive when she was first transplanted to Jamaica Gardens from noisy Herald Square. Murph’s doctor told him, confidentially, that Julia was a ptupophilic, meaning fond of noise, and cautioned him that if she did not turn off the radio for at least a few minutes every day she would become ptupomanic. ‘‘Toofy,’’ Murph’ called her, especially when he had to shout to be heard above ‘‘WOR.’’
11 When he tried to tell Julia penitently that he had lost his temper coming home, he found it impossible to compete with station announcers. Instead of turning off the radio Julia tried to shut up Murph’. But ‘‘the old man’’ had something on his mind.
12 ‘‘Even if those auto drivers had heard me,’’ he persisted, ‘‘it would not have done any good.’’ It is unlikely that either was a bastard, and whether ‘God’ could damn them is only mystically debatable,—was the gist of Murph’s thought.
13 Julia merely smiled and suggested, ‘‘Timmy, why not eat your supper?’’
14 ‘‘Damn supper!’’
15 ‘‘I thought you were wishing you could control your temper?’’
16 ‘‘How can I, with that thing incessantly grinding out meaningless words and croonings?’’ Murph’ rose abruptly and went upstairs to the bathroom, where he dissolved some baking soda in water and drank it preparatory to retiring. He recalled disconsolately Edison’s prediction that noise will grow ever greater and that the city man of future generations may be deaf.
17 The vast majority of the causes of abnormal human behavior, which modern psychologists and psychoanalysts, like yesterday’s astrologists and alchemists attribute to ‘‘intangibles’’ in a patois used with mesmerizing and profitable skill, can be traced quite unromantically to mechanical maladjustments in the environment of the individual: bad plumbing of house or self-mechanism, bad sound or light control, unsatisfactory mechanics of sex equation. ‘‘Personality’’ talk to excuse uncontrolled behavior is vain, self-important nonsense. Unhappily the failure to recognize real causes and to utilize known remedies is preventing man’s understanding of his fellow being and of the myriad of phenomena to which all men are continually exposed. Few, if any, crimes of misunderstanding, single or multiple, would exist if a small degree of latent understanding were allowed by environment to come ‘‘alive’’ and penetrate man’s consciousness.
18 There are scientifically discernible potentials at hand for the solution of such crises as Mabels fight with her boy friend, Mussolini and Hitler vs. Great Britain, or Julias staying up while Murph’ falls asleep.
19 If factors already ascertained were to be applied to living, it would become possible not only to prevent misunderstandings that separate members of the spoilt older generation, but to avoid—and this is far more important—breaking up the unity of the potentially unspoilt new generation of millions of children by preventing their being over-noised and under-nourished or starved in full view of bounteous surpluses which, instead of satisfying every need, have been and are being burned or plowed under. For what? ‘‘Recovery!’’ ‘‘Recovery’’ of inefficient ways of living and special privileges for individuals and groups.
20 There is a wider chasm between the understanding of the scientist and that which uncomprehending, groping Murphy would confess to be his understanding than there is distance between the earth and the farthest known star, Murphy’s conscious ‘‘world’’ is perforce limited to his utterly unscientific shelter environment. He is forced to exist in shelters which mechanically prevent his adjustment to understanding, and it is fallacious to blame Murphy directly for his inability to see, hear, and understand.
21 Politicians and the privileged have realized that to keep Murphy environment-ignorant would be to control him. So long as Murphy could be so controlled, even though he might be ‘‘educated,’’ their apple-cart concessions would not be overturned by science.
22 But science has no regard for ‘‘concessions,’’ and ideas are pervasive. Murphy is on the verge of awakening to the fact that there is an ‘‘out,’’ namely, the service of scientifically designed and industrially mass-produced shelters within the means of all. Such a service, however, cannot be had merely for the political asking. Neither political convention nor legislation ever brought a potato into being.