Ihde Response...addition

I have an addendum to my response to "In Praise of Sound." At the end of the piece, Ihde mentions that there has been a “suspicion of the voice, particularly the sonorous voice.” (pg. 14) There seems to be a fear of sound undermining the reason and rationale of the visual. The timbre of sound has the ability to go beyond the mere words of the speaker and convey much more than the mere words - it conveys emotion, it galvanizes the masses. Being Martin Luther King Jr Day earlier this week, I heard two old MLK speeches. It was not the words he said, although those were powerful as well, but his passion within his voice, and the sound of the crowd cheering along with him that drives the message home. Arguments have been made that point to Obama’s baritone when he orates to be the factor that draws people in, conveying his message more readily than if his voice did not sound as such (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2008/02/28/obama_clinton_voices). Likewise, good sound in a film will go largely unnoticed, helping buoy the audience up in inspirational and happy moments, while providing a space for melancholy when the story calls for it. Bad sound, on the other hand, will ruin even the most beautiful visual composition in a movie. So is sound a powerful force in guiding and nudging how people think? Absolutely. What can be dangerous about sound is because it is linked so closely to our emotional states, it possibly overrides rationalization or cognitive thinking in epistemological processes, handing the reins over for people to base decisions and actions on their emotions, creating social and conditioned norms that the Powers That Be that wield the sound we hear can later exploit and control.