Public ideas
Stan Grant on the US midterm elections
For all those who are relieved that the US midterm elections did not produce a “red tsunami” of far-right Trumpist political victories, Stan Grant has a sobering assessment of America’s situation: The US midterms showed more than a weakened Trump and a relieved Biden. Are the prophets of doom right about America?.
The United States is still a country in decline he writes. “Inflation is rampant, the economy is shrinking. The poor are getting poorer. Life expectancy is decreasing. Americans have less faith in democracy, not more”.
Although the extreme isolation and protectionism associated with the Republican party is in abeyance, Biden’s administration is a long way from openness to the world. And Trump “speaks to the dying heart of the country. His vision is American carnage, not American dreams”.
The pointless burden of sensory overload
Why do shopping centres and restaurants play music that no-one asked for? Why do commercial interests assault our eyes with gaudy images promoting products and services that we neither want nor need?
There is evidence from behavioural economics that when people are subject to sensory overload their capacity for analytical thinking is overtaxed, and they are likely to engage in impulse buying or to accept unfavourable contracts. That may work for merchants, but many people avoid entering shopping precincts because the experience is just so unpleasant.
Eduardo de la Fuente of the University of South Australia and Michael James Walsh of the University of Canberra have looked at how people have reacted to “quiet hour” shopping, a practice where, in order to attract customers put off by gratuitous noise, businesses reduce the sensory load of their establishments, mainly through eliminating unnecessary noise, and also through reducing unnecessary visual and olfactory stimuli such as strong perfumes.
They summarize their research in a Conversation contribution: “A kind of meditative peace”: quiet hour shopping makes us wonder why our cities have to be so noisy. Their conclusion: they don’t have to be so noisy. “Sound intensity matters if cities, buildings or public spaces are to foster hospitality and support people in their activities by facilitating their stay.”