Social Screaming

Of all the lash-ups for entertainment in this accordant globe the "Fashion Show" is the most inventive, and would in all probability most excite the wonder of an angel sent down to audit our social life. If he should stop at the entrance of the hall where party is in progress, he would be surprised. The noise that would greet his ears is different from the deep constant roar in the streets, it is unlike the hum of millions of seventeen-year locusts, it wants the musical quality of the spring conventions of the blackbirds in the chestnuts, and he could not compare it to the vociferation in a lunatic asylum, for that is really subdued and infrequent. He might be incompetent of analyzing this, but when he caught sight of the party he would be forced to accept it as the noise of our ultimate civilization. It may not be accurate, for there are limits to human ability of endurance, but it is the best we can do. It is not a chance affair. Here are selected, picked out by special invitation, the best that society can show, the most intelligent, the most accomplished, the most beautiful, the best dressed persons in the society--all fashion shows have this character. The angel would note this immediately, and he would be amazed at the number of such persons, for the rooms would be so full that he would see the frustration of trying to edge or wedge his way through the throng without tearing off his wings. An angel, in short, would stand no chance in one of these brilliant parties on account of his wings, and he in all probability could not be heard, on account of the low, heavenly pitch of his voice. His inference would be that these people had been selected to come together by reason of their superior ability of screaming. He would be wrong.

These people are selected on account of their intelligence, agreeableness, and ability of entertaining one another. They come together, not for exercise, but pleasure, and the more they crowd and jam and struggle, and the louder they scream, the greater the pleasure. It is a kind of competition, full of good-humor and excitement. The one that has the high pitched voice and can scream the loudest is most powerful. It would seem at first that they are under a singular hallucination, imagining that the more noise there is in the show the better each one can be heard, and so every one continues to raise his or her voice in order to drown the other voices. The rule of the game is to pitch the voice one or two octaves above the normal tone. Some throats cannot stand this strain long; they become rasped and sore, and the voices break; but this adds to the entertainment and enjoyment of those who can scream with less inconvenience. The angel would note that if at any time silence was called, in order that an announcement of music could be made, in the awful hush that followed people talked to each other in their normal voices, and everybody could be heard without difficulty. But this was not the purpose of the fashion party, and in a moment more the screaming would start again, the voices growing louder and higher, until, if the roof were taken off, one vast shriek would go up to space.

This is not only a fashion, it is an art. People have to train for it, and as it is an unique entertainment, it is worth some trouble to be able to succeed in it. Men, by reason of their stolidity and heavy voices, can never be proficient in it; and they do not have so much practice--unless they are stock-brokers. Women keep themselves in training in their regular calls. If three or four meet in a living room they all start to scream, not that they may be heard--for the higher they go the less they understand one another--but simply to acquire the skill of screaming at parties. If half a dozen women meeting by chance in a parlor should converse quietly in their sweet, normal home tones, it might be in a certain sense agreeable, but it would not be fashionable, and it would not strike the existing note of our culture. If it were true that a group of women all like to speak at the same time when they meet (which is a slander invented by men, who may be just as loquacious, but not so limber-tongued and quick-witted), and raise their voices to a shriek in order to dominate each other, it could be demonstrated that they would be more readily heard if they all spoke in normal tones. But the purpose is not conversation; it is the social exhilaration that comes from the wild exercise of the voice in working off a nervous energy; it is so rare that in her own house a lady gets a chance to scream.

The dinner-party, where there are ten or twelve at table, is a suitable chance for this exercise. At a recent dinner, where there were a dozen uncommonly intelligent people, all capable of the most exciting conversation, by some chance, or owing to some nervous condition, they all started to talk in a high pitched voice the moment they were seated, and the result was that of a dynamite explosion. It was a cheerful babel of mixed noise, so loud and shrill and constant that it was absolutely impossible for two people seated on the opposite sides of the table, and both screaming at each other, to catch an intelligible sentence. This made a lively dinner. Everyone was animated, and if there was no conversation, even between persons seated side by side, there was a glorious clatter and roar; and when it was over, everybody was hoarse and exhausted, and aware that he had done his best in a posh social function.

This topic is not the selection of the Drawer, the province of which is to note, but not to criticise, the higher civilization. But the inquiry has come from many cities, from many women, "Cannot anything be done to reduce social screaming?" The question is referred to the scientific branch of the Social Science Association. If it is a mere fashion, the association can do nothing. But it might institute some practical experiments. It might get together in a small room fifty people all let loose in the normal screaming competition, measure the total volume of noise and divide it by fifty, and ascertain how much throat power was needed in one person to be audible to another three feet from the latter's ear. This would sift out the persons fit for such a contest. The investigator might then call a pin-drop silence in the assembly, and request each person to speak in a normal voice, then divide the total noise as before, and see what chance of being heard an ordinary individual had in it. If it turned out in these circumstances that every person present could talk easily and hear perfectly what was said, then the order might be given for the talk to go on in that tone, and that every person who raised the voice and started to scream should be gagged and removed to another room. In this room could be collected all the screamers to enjoy their own powers. The same experiment might be tried at a dinner-party, namely, to ascertain if the total hum of low voices in the natural key would not be less for the individual voice to overcome than the total scream of all the voices raised to a shriek. If scientific research demonstrated the feasibility of speaking in an ordinary voice at receptions, dinner-parties, fashion parties and in "calls," then the Drawer is of opinion that intelligible and enjoyable conversation would be possible on these occasions, if it becomes fashionable not to scream.

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