Ong again: He notes that some critters (ants, fish) have a social organization of sorts without sound, but argues that for animals that emit sounds, sound signals establish social relations. This is due to the reciprocal character of sound: “Sounds which I produce tend to evoke responses from outside me in a way that very few of my visible or tangible activities do.”
Further, sounds are typically used within a group, forming a sonic community: “animal sound almost always is a signal to others within the species . . . Normally lions roar not to frighten their prey or even other competing carnivores but to signal to other lions [which is why Jesus roars like a lion, and Satan!].” By contrast, “visual and olfactory as well as tactual signals are regularly used to affect other species; for example, to frighten or discourage predators.”
Touch is also reciprocal (the touched is necessarily also touching), but touch requires proximity, and “socialization commonly demands a certain distance” that sound allows.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Rome and the Church in the United States
Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, who confirmed my father, was a pugnacious Irishman with a taste…
Marriage Annulment and False Mercy
Pope Leo XIV recently told participants in a juridical-pastoral formation course of the Roman Rota that the…
Undercover in Canada’s Lawless Abortion Industry
On November 27, 2023, thirty-six-year-old Alissa Golob walked through the doors of the Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic in…
