DI CARLO SABBATINI
ABSTRACT – In the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, the noise of the modern city is something new and shocking for people used to complaining (as Schopenhauer did) about the cracking of whips, the passing of carts, or the chatter in the streets. Trams, automobiles, factories, sirens, gramophones, and even telephones subject the ears to an epochal stress test, which for many results in the typical illness of the time: neurasthenia. At first, the noise and nervous diseases seem to be a typically bourgeois and intellectual affair, from which the masses of workers living and working in hellish conditions are excluded. It will take more time to acknowledge the true extent of the problem. The essay addresses this ‘acoustic turn’ in the Germany of the Wilhelmine Empire through some works on noise written by Theodor Lessing (1872-1933), trying to illustrate their relationship with the parallel development of his philosophy and his activism for social reforms.
KEYWORDS – Theodor Lessing – Noise – Social reform – German Law