Noise and Well-Being

Résumé 0

Listening is, both, the first step in communication, and affects how we move. What we hear defines our life. Our health, quality of life, and social communication depend on what we hear and directly determine the measure of our well-being. Noise is inseparable from questions of power and powerlessness and from questions about conflict, rights, abuse, and usurpation. In the context of spatial justice being is a concept uniting issues of spatial management and social justice and is based on the idea that all social problems and injustices have their representation in physical space, noise represents an indicator of the asymmetry of rights and the state of political culture in the community. Such circumstances lead people to have difficulties in understanding each other, threatening good interpersonal relations. Hence, sustainable noise management as a matter of general interest must meet all community members’ needs. Noise is one of the most acute manifestations of the structural problems of managing spatial resources in a society because it reflects the exclusion of citizens from the decision-making process, the privatization of public space, and the manipulation of public interest. Understanding the numerous aspects of the harmful effects of noise, from health risks to endangering rights, the measure of social disapproval and condemnation is increasing and the requirements for effective noise protection are intensifying. Due to its far-reaching implications for our well-being, noise, and noise protection are expected to become issues of special political interest and the distributional effects of noise mitigating efforts to gain an important place in political processes in society