No talking on the quiet carriage. No boom box on the subway. No conversation in the queue.
Is this capitalist isolation or is this western “decorum” or what? Why do I have to shake off the instinct to cringe when I hear someone playing music through their phone speakers? Why do I worry if anyone can hear my music through my headphones? What the fuck is this pathetic silence masquerading as a “culture”
When did I ever say I engage in that behaviour? In my post I’m specifically questioning my own fear of ever creating any noise in public, lest I interrupt our most precious silence. I’m pondering why we value this so highly. I have on many occasions worn headphones playing nothing, just so nobody engages with me. I’m questioning what the fuck it is in our society that makes that a thing someone would do.
Because people have their own thoughts to keep them occupied? Because they've already been acoustically assaulted all day at work? Because wherever you go in a city it's constant noise, whether ads, shitty pop music or traffic? The isolation, alienation, the fear of others is a real thing in capitalist society but in terms of day to day life it's the absence of silence, not its enforcement that's ubiquitous.