Attraction: sensual proximity and evocation of engagement

Local Reality of Overcrowding -- Global Unreality of Overpopulation (Part #5)

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Requisite number of senses? Edward Hall showed a negative correlation between the number of senses involved in the awareness of the other and the proxemic distance between the subjects -- with the more senses involved, the smaller the distance (and vice versa). This might be represented as follows.

The question is how this might translate from the distance, which is a preoccupation of proxemics, to engagement of greater range along the local-global dimension -- namely the engagement with distant others elsewhere.

Of some relevance is the management of news -- traditionally "column inches" -- in the news media. There is a widely recognized unwritten law regarding the framing of coverage in terms of "proximity". Thus a single death within a country may evoke headlines for days, with many hours of broadcast media, whereas a 100 or a 1000 deaths elsewhere ("around the globe") may be understood to merit little more than a passing comment, if at all (Josh Greenberg and T. Joseph Scanlon, Old Media, New Media, and the Complex Story of Disasters, Natural Hazard Science, July 2016; Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report, 2005). Especially problematic in this respect is the effort to use individual human tragedy as a means of evoking sympathy when repeated exposure may rapidly engender so-called psychic numbing (Starvation Imagery as Humanitarian Trump Card? Counterproductive emotional blackmail engendering worldwide indifference, 2016; Paul Slovic, Psychic Numbing and Genocide, American Psychological Associations, November 2007; David Hicks and Andy Bord, Learning about Global Issues: why most educators only make things worse, Environmental Education Research, 2001).

As presented in the above table. the senses can be understood as each having a distinctive maximum range of sensitivity -- with that of taste being the most localized. Clearly, via the media, that of sight and sound can be extended -- even globally.

Sense metaphors in policy-making and engagement: What does it then take to evoke global engagement? How might governance be understood as "coming to its senses" -- if that does not include the engagement of the other senses associated with shorter ranges?

One way of exploring this question is through the manner in which each sense is exploited metaphorically in the policy-making process, especially nationally, regionally and globally (Metaphor and the Language of Futures, Futures, 1992). With respect to "sensing the future", the latter distinguishes between the significance attributed to foresight and foretaste, relative to that potentially attributed to "forehearing", "foresmell", and "foretouch".

The conventional tendency, framing policy in terms of vision may well be totally inadequate to global engagement and any understanding of "mobilization".

With its greater range, far greater use is of course made of the vision metaphor, with the questionable assumption that this evokes the necessary imaginative engagement (Metaphors of Vision, Metaphors in American Politics, 20 October 2014). By contrast "hearing" -- of lesser range -- is already somewhat problematic, especially when it is argued that it does not necessarily follow from the process of "listening", notably now widely practiced by authorities through surveillance technology -- a point much stressed with respect to the Yellow Vests uprising in France.

Shock and fear: It is of course the case that public relations uses metaphors associated with the other senses as a means of evoking disgust and the need for action. Gaddhafi was alleged to fart frequently in the presence of visitors (Muammar Gaddafi Farts During Interview, YouTube, 9 March 2011). Similar characteristics were similarly evoked with respect to Saddam Hussein. Standard pattern? Repugnant, but unconstrained by any sense of fake news?

Another way of exploring this question is through the experiential depth of the sense of shock -- as corresponding (potentially negatively) to the engagement of existentially intimate experience.

• Sight: as of horrific displays of dead bodies, of pictures of the starving, of slum conditions, and general ugliness -- all so readily conveyed by the media from anywhere on the globe. There is of course a considerable degree of insulation from any sense of shock and exposure to the sight of fearful others. It is easy to "switch channels". More problematic is the degree to which violence and torture -- evoking such fear -- are such a regular feature of entertainment, if not vital to attracting an audience. It is readily comprehensible that people become inured to horrific conditions, a condition of psychic numbing offering protection from the shock of thousands of deaths -- if not millions. Use of such imagery to evoke engagement is therefore of questionable effect, other than to further reinforce such numbing (Starvation Imagery as Humanitarian Trump Card? Counterproductive emotional blackmail engendering worldwide indifference, 2016; Systematic Humanitarian Blackmail via Aquarius? Confronting Europe with a Humanitarian Trojan Horse, 2018).
  
  
• Sound/Listening/Hearing: There is of course the process through which people are shocked to hear of conditions elsewhere -- and the process through which authorities listen to complaints regarding those conditions. The volume associated with any such distress conveyed by the media can be readily decreased to the point at which it becomes inaudible. The situation is different when the sound is experienced in the local vicinity -- of violence, fear and torture. A different degree of shock may then be evoked, whether or not it triggers engagement. Whether conveyed from around the world by the media, or not, again there is the degree to which people become inured to sounds which might otherwise be considered repulsive -- as exemplified by painful cries, traffic and factory noise, shrieking neighbours, or noisy companions in shared accommodation.
  
  
• Odour/Smell: Consistent with the far more limited range of this sense, the media are currently incapable of evoking shock through the experience of odour. This is however obvious in the case of exposure to some forms of pollution, as increasingly experienced in urban environments. It is far more dramatic in its effect through exposure to the stench of slums and refugee camps lacking sanitation. It is only too obvious in the case of exposure to dead bodies, especially those decaying at the roadside for lack of appropriate facilities and resources. The cooking smells of neighbours may be experienced as repugnant, as with body odour. Although significant when used as a metaphor, stench lacks currency, even when associated with that of corruption. However "foetid", this seldom evokes collective shock and engagement -- nor does the "smell of fear". These effects are to be contrasted with the overriding instinctual attraction evoked by pheromones -- unfortunately also recognized in the attraction evoked by any possibility of exploitation
  
  
• Touch: Readily understood as of very limited range, touch is most likely to evoke reaction when experienced as "pressure" which may well be "intangible" -- a form of psychic touch. In collective discourse, this necessarily has little weight and does not readily lend itself to description. People and authorities may claim well not to be "touched" by events otherwise held to be shocking. Reaction may however be evoked when sensitive territorial boundaries are "touched", most obviously as with the provocation of some military exercises. Such sensitivity may however be extended to far more subtle boundaries associated with correspondingly subtle territories -- as with those of status, disciplines and religions, whose encroachment may evoke fear. However the sensitivity to touch has acquired far wider significance through issues of sexual harassment -- notably under conditions of overcrowding in public transport (frotteurs, etc). That said, it far from clear how this translates into engagement with the abstractions of global challenges -- by which people cannot obviously be said to be "touched".
  
  
• Taste: Associated as it is with the most intimate interpersonal relations, the role of taste in a sociopolitical context is curiously constrained by political correctness. The taste of any other group cannot be readily called into question -- even in a local context. This diffidence is notably evident in the arts, despite desperate efforts to distinguish "good taste" from "bad taste". At the same time, however, taste (whatever the preferences) is associated with the highest human values and is held to be fundamental to aspirations to enhanced quality of life -- in contrast to those whose lives are lived with the continuous "taste" of fear. Few would find it in their interest to label the leader of the free world as the epitome of bad taste (Shelley Park, Trump is Gross: Taking Political Taste (and Distaste) Seriously, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 2016). As a possible antithesis to "taste" is is somewhat extraordinary that "gross" should be central to national economic endeavour (Evaluating the Grossness of Gross Domestic Product, 2016).

The examples above highlight problematic experiences offered by the senses. Less evident, given the range of the most personally meaningful, is how these might engender global engagement and mobilization -- despite the shocking nature of their noisome repulsiveness. A contrast could be made between:

• "begging" as a process into which many are increasingly forced, and to which many are increasingly exposed (Confusion in Exchanging "Something" for "Nothing": cognitive implication in the asymmetrical processes of begging and its surrogates, 2015). The global need for aid, and the obvious vulnerability of such assistance, merit reflection in this light.
• "overheating" as the primary feature of climate change is curiously relevant as a metaphor for the increasingly "overheated discourse" both globally and locally (Climate Change as a Metaphor of Social Change: systemic implications of emissions, ozone, sunlight, greenhouse and overheating, 2008)

Global attraction: As implied, the senses also offer attractive possibilities. It is therefore curious to note the extent to which public relations and advertising endeavour to reframe the experiences of the least tangible experiences. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of odour -- when the "stench" of some initiatives is "deodorised" and "perfumed" in metaphorical terms. Efforts are made to ensure that people are "touched" by imagery in order to evoke a desired response to tragedy and opportunity. Initiatives are positioned initiatives as the epitome of "taste". It is however unclear, despite promotional packages, how these can attract engagement to global initiatives.

It can be argued that public relations now endeavours to filter reality such as to construct a "filter bubble" precluding any evocation of a strategic response to the complexity of problematic conditions. This can be recognized in the widely cultivated tendency to so-called cocooning, as documented by Faith Popcorn (The Popcorn Report, 1992). Curiously this recalls the "bubble" within which the father of Buddha endeavoured to protect his son -- as featured in the classic tale of his upbringing. A modern critique is offered by Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-sided: how the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America, 2009).

Protection from a world "overpopulated" with problems is however matched by the increasing degree of exposure to the reality of "overcrowding" -- whether with respect to accommodation and sleeping arrangements, transportation, entertainment, tourism and experience of the environment.

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