WARNING: The following article contains references to sexual violence.

The Bessie Coleman Conference Room

I remember where I was standing and the direction I was facing when he told the story and I suddenly realized.

Three of us were standing in a small circle at an event: me as your friendly government man, and two aircraft noise consultants. Location: the Bessie Coleman Conference Room at the United States Federal Aviation Administration (U.S. FAA) Headquarters in Washington, DC. We were within the back half of the room, and I was facing a spot in the left half of the rear wall. Surely I was waxing lyrical about improving community engagement for aircraft flight path implementation projects, since that was what my job (supposedly) was about.

In response, one of the consultants began sharing a 30-second story of his interaction with a “member of the community” at a public meeting. The community member had told him that her experience of aircraft noise was like her experience of being raped, over and over again.

Then he turned his head to the side and laughed.

I still feel severely irritated about that moment, almost ten years later. Why? Is it because I didn't challenge him? (I want to be honest: I did not challenge him.) Is it the sad irony of that moment having happened in a room named after the first American to get an international pilot license — a biracial Black and Indigenous woman who’d moved to France because no American flight school would let her in?¹

Or is it that I suddenly realized what he was saying without saying it:

Now call-out culture has a function, but:

1. I don't remember his name, though I can still see his laughing face

2. He wasn't the only person in the room who thought the way he did. After all, he obviously assumed that I thought like him.

He wasn’t the problem — he was just part of the problem. The problem was the system, my guy... and I was part of the problem too.

Colonial manipulation techniques

This article is Part 1 of a multi-part series where I’ll uncover colonial patterns in aircraft noise management using the lenses of the following manipulation techniques:

1. Milieu control: today’s focus

2. Invisibilization

3. Stereotype

4. Exceptionalism

5. Echo chamber

6. Dehumanization

7. Agenda-setting

8. Undue influence

9. Denialism

I’ll give notional quotes showing each technique in use, based on my experience as a U.S. aircraft noise management practitioner. I’ll also give real quotes for some techniques — including my own words. I’ll then illustrate how these techniques relate to and amplify each other to uphold colonialism in aircraft noise management.

Finally, I’ll leave you with questions rather than answers.

I have no idea how many parts I’ll be writing on this topic; it could be fewer than 9, or more. When I’m finished with this series, I might just have to go beg some university for a Ph.D. Which reminds me: have we talked yet about the colonial underpinnings of credentialing?

Maybe I should start a separate newsletter bringing radical (read: getting to the root) perspectives specifically to U.S. aircraft noise and air emissions management.

I won’t put Part 2 or any further parts online, so be sure to subscribe to this email newsletter if you haven’t.

So umm… what does European colonization have to do with this?

Otherwise known as: “The Holy Roman Empire actually killed people so HOW DARE YOU…”

In the 1400s, the Catholic Church issued a series of papal bulls legitimizing the destruction and enslavement of “Saracens” (Muslims), “enemies of Christianity,” and “pagans” along with the full European appropriation of their “kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods” wherever they may be found. The Church did this under pressure from the Portuguese monarchy, which sought legitimacy (read: the remission of sins) associated with colonial projects it had already intended to undertake around the world.² These papal bulls thus defined and codified an “us” — we European Christians — and a “them” (everyone else) for the purposes of colonization.

Over the centuries that followed, European colonizers created all sorts of ways to identify “them”: their different appearances, different foods, different faiths, and different ways of knowing the universe. “They,” once identified, could be ignored, suppressed, or downright eliminated.

Othering — that is, seeing people through the lens of “us” vs. “them” — thus formed the keystone of European colonization.

The Enlightenment movement in Europe significantly amplified, rather than replaced, colonial mindsets. In fact, the very term “Enlightenment” embodies “us” vs. “them.” That’s “us” as the wise, the superior, the evolved, the… you know… the enlightened. And as for “them,” well… here’s the title of a book by the late Carl Sagan³ :

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Enlightenment narratives solidified colonial boundaries of what counted as “knowledge” — that is, what counted as rational, objective, or otherwise “real.” All “knowledge” outside those boundaries became irrational, subjective, or otherwise unreal — and could be ignored, suppressed, or downright eliminated.

Epistemicide: the killing of ways of knowing. No guns, germs, or steel needed… but hey, those help too.

You don’t even have “epistemicide” in your dictionary, do you?

Coloniality pervades knowing.

Milieu control constrains communication

In July of 2012, the FAA released an 8-page “Aviation Environmental and Energy Policy Statement” providing its high-level approach to environmental management.⁴ The very first paragraph of the Statement dropped this banger of a policy goal:

“. . . environmental protection that allows sustained aviation growth.”

I’d thank the FAA for not burying the lede, but that would be unfair — because in 2012, I was employed by the FAA Headquarters office that wrote the Policy Statement. In fact, I may have even written some of it myself.

The term “milieu control” is typically credited to Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who used the term at least 19 times in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.⁵ This book describes observations Lifton had made on how various communication techniques were used to perpetuate extremism in China during the 1950s. The website languagehumanities.org summarizes milieu control as follows⁶ :

Milieu control serves to amplify knowledge that aligns with the “terms of communication” and ignore, suppress, or downright eliminate knowledge that does not align. That is to say, milieu control supports epistemicide.

In aircraft noise management, milieu control constrains the conversation to only that which supports “sustained aviation growth.” The following table of subtopic-specific notional quotes illustrates this:

You may have observed references to scientific laws, regulations, and policies that you’ve never heard of. Their hundreds of pages aren’t important at the moment; instead, what matters is their use as forms of milieu control. Indeed: laws, regulations, and policies serve to implement the aviation industry’s pro-growth narrative in the United States of America. Thus, there is inherent alignment on the narrative between government agencies, research universities, airport and aircraft operators, and consultants — along with inherent de-amplification of any narrative that is not pro-growth.

In this context, the function of scientific analysis is to support the pro-growth narrative.

The scientific foundation of aircraft noise management

U.S. aircraft noise management practitioners often reference the “Schultz curve” as the scientific foundation of the noise management regime, alluding to the 1978 paper “Synthesis of social surveys on noise annoyance” by Theodore J. Schultz.⁸ This paper does not contain one “Schultz curve”; instead, it shows analysis of numerous surveys of people’s reactions to sound produced by “aircraft, street traffic, expressway traffic, and railroads.” Schultz translated survey data to “day-night average sound level” (DNL) and correlated DNL values to the percentage of people “highly annoyed.” He also wrote — right in the paper abstract! — that an “independent judgment was made, where choice was possible, as to which respondents should be counted as ‘highly annoyed.’”

The next year, U.S. Congressional Representative Norman Y. Mineta introduced what would become the Aviation Safety and Noise Abatement Act of 1979 (ASNA).⁹ I don’t know about the political forces involved in creation of the Act, but I’m guessing that noise-related activism played a role. Section 102 of the ASNA directed the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to “establish a single system of measuring noise . . . establish a single system for determining the exposure of individuals to noise which results from the operation of an airport . . . and; identify land uses which are normally compatible with various exposures of individuals to noise.”¹⁰  

In response to the Act, the FAA promulgated Federal regulations for “airport noise compatibility planning” in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 150 (14 CFR Part 150).¹¹ 14 CFR Part 150 uses DNL for quantifying aircraft noise exposure¹² and mandates a specific process for studying which types of land uses are “compatible” and “noncompatible” with aircraft noise. This process requires airport operators to do extensive outreach to communities near their airport. The regulations also specify a bright-line threshold value, 65 DNL, below which all land uses are considered to be compatible with aircraft noise.¹³  

Airport operators are not required to do 14 CFR Part 150 studies, but they usually have to do them if they want to receive U.S. Federal government funds for noise management (including funds for sound insulation). Studies could take several years to complete.

The noise metric and significance threshold: epistemicide via co-optation of human experience

I want to highlight an important subtlety in the scientific foundation of aircraft noise management — so subtle, it might be nearly invisible: ASNA and 14 CFR Part 150 establish a framework for aircraft noise management, but aircraft don’t actually make noise.

I’ll say it again: aircraft do NOT make noise.

Nor do cars, or trains, or walking pedestrians.

They make sound, a physical phenomenon. The word “noise” is a label for a negative response to sound, which is a physiological phenomenon. Hell — some people call the sounds from aircraft “music.” But, those same people might call those same sounds “noise” if they occurred during bedtime. Sound requires a physiological context before it becomes noise.

Aircraft noise management practitioners might justify calling DNL a “noise metric” because it’s based on data correlating sound levels to human annoyance — that is to say, it’s a quantifiable expression of human experience. But the “noise metric” of DNL distills some people’s historical experiences into specific numbers. Then government laws, policies, and regulations pair that metric with a bright-line significance threshold of 65 DNL. That leads to a binary outcome: your house is either inside the 65 DNL contour, or outside of it. This aircraft noise metric and threshold have been used across the United States for decades (helloooo Federal preemption!), even though Schultz himself said that “independent judgment was made” as to whom “should be counted as ‘highly annoyed.’”

The noise metric: a co-optation and subsequent over-simplification of complex (and highly varied) human experience into a quantity fit for technical management, in a system that promotes “sustained aviation growth.” Expressions of human experiences that align with the noise metric and threshold are amplified, while expressions of experiences that do not align are ignored, suppressed, or downright eliminated.

Observe the following notional conversation, which I’ve heard numerous real versions of:

• Them: “The aircraft noise is so loud, I can’t even think!”

• Us: “I understand that you’re upset about the noise, but your house is well outside of the 65 DNL contour.”

Translation: “Your house is compatible with aircraft noise, so there’s probably not much we can do to help you.”

That’s milieu control, grounded in science. That’s epistemicide, grounded in science.

Some of you are aware that the FAA is currently undertaking a “Noise Policy Review” process in response to new survey data about people’s experiences of aircraft noise.¹⁴ To contextualize the Noise Policy Review, look at the following excerpt from an FAA document describing the “foundational elements” of U.S. aircraft noise policy.¹⁵ Can you describe how the excerpt manifests milieu control?

Go away and solve Rubik’s cubes: how busywork supports milieu control

We’ve now taken a peaceful stroll through the prairie land of structures manifesting milieu control in aircraft noise management. All this stuff is awful technical, huh? Sheesh.

A big part of my function as an aircraft noise management practitioner was to explain the terminology, the laws, the regulations, the policies, the models, and the methods to people unfamiliar with them — which, really, is most people. That’s why practitioners place this kind of education at the beginning of every 14 CFR Part 150 study process. Because… you have to know all that stuff to be taken seriously, right?

I’ve seen multiple instances where members of noise-impacted communities bring noise measurement data for discussion, or they wish to do their own noise studies because they don’t trust the airport operator and its consultants. Let’s walk through a notional “community engagement” conversation within that context:

1. Them: “I measured the airplane noise with my phone mic, and the phone shows it’s louder than 65.”

2. Us: “Your phone doesn’t measure aircraft noise consistent with 14 CFR Part 150, Appendix A, Section A150.5. You need a proper noise monitor.”

3. …

4. Them: “Okay, so the airport operator gave me a proper noise monitor. Here’s proof that there was this really loud flight over my house.”

5. Us: “We describe noise using DNL, which is a cumulative metric. The noise from one flight is single-event noise, not cumulative.”

6. …

7. Them: “Right, so I’ve just finished measuring the noise from a whole year of flights and calculated the DNL from the measurements.”

8. Us: “Did you use AEDT to make the noise contours? That’s the FAA-approved noise modeling software. We don’t make noise contours using measured data because the data can be contaminated with non-aircraft noise from sources like trucks, motorcycles, barking dogs, rustling leaves in the trees…” (Side note: I was a co-manager of the AEDT development program.)

9. …

10. Them: “Yeah, so I paid someone (?) a whole lot of money to run AEDT and make this noise exposure map.”

11. Us: “That map shows that your house is well outside of the 65 DNL contour.”

That’s the type of notional “community engagement” conversation that takes years — and aircraft keep flying throughout. Therefore, I hereby dub that form of community engagement the “go away and solve Rubik’s cubes” approach to aircraft noise management — what some folks call the “busywork” approach or the “bring me a rock” approach.

Relationship of milieu control to other colonial patterns

I’ll be elaborating on each of the patterns below in future newsletter issues that I’ll only send to my email subscribers… so have you subscribed yet?

The Bessie Coleman Conference Room: A recap

Let’s revisit that unnamed man with the laughing face (I promise to make this quick), who was saying without saying it:

We can now see what else he was saying without saying it, based on what we’ve learned about milieu control:

• “They’re irrational. In fact, they’re downright offensive! They have feelings… but we have data.”

• “The stuff they say is just opinion; they’re not being objective.”

• “Their complaints aren’t based in reality. Our methodology captures human experience, and the data show we are in compliance.”

Coloniality pervades knowing.

Here are my questions for you

• Did you feel defensive at any specific points while reading this article? Which points were those, and why?

• Did you feel seen at any specific points while reading this article? Which points were those, and why?

• Do you feel a rush to the thought, “so what’s your genius solution, Chris?” If yes: why?

• If you were to center those most harmed in the context of aircraft noise management, what would you see?

I’m not saying you should center those most harmed, though I certainly have my views. I’m asking you exactly what I just asked you: If you were to center those most harmed in the context of aircraft noise management, what would you see?

Press the “reply” button in your email app and share with me your answers if you like. I’d love to talk to you.

Where to find the sustainability perspectives you’ve been missing

FIRST: Forward this issue to people you know in aircraft noise management — they’ll probably say a thing or two in response!

SECOND: Follow on LinkedIn:

• Heather Luna of keduzi: workshopping pro-connectedness and anti-oppression as a way of life

• Lavinia Muth: deconstructing the (un)sustainable fashion industry

• Dr. Vidhya Shankar, Ph.D: decentering whiteness in evaluation of non-governmental organization projects

THIRD: Subscribe to the “We Are LaCH” podcast that Heather and Lavinia and I host on decolonization — particularly in the context of the sustainability industry.

Got something to say to me?

I’m Chris, the Principal of CJSC, LLC, and I’m (un)learning along with all of you — so hit the “reply” button and give me a piece of your mind!

Introductory image: Lucasfilm Ltd. “Cloud City | StarWars.com”. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

1  Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Bessie Coleman". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 July 2024, link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

2  Sayson, C. M., Suppiah, S., Denardin, A., Oliveira, L., Maldonado-Torres, N., & Mhlahlo, A. (2024). Colonial Sustainability: Tracing the Sustainability Industry’s Ecocidal Lineage from the Doctrine of Discovery. Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, 11(1), Article 6. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

3  Sagan, C. (1997). The Demon-Haunted World. United Kingdom: Random House Publishing Group.

4  Federal Aviation Administration (2012). “Aviation Environmental and Energy Policy Statement”. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

5  Lifton, R. J. (1989). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. United Kingdom: University of North Carolina Press.

6  McMahon, M. "What Is Milieu Control?". languagehumanities.org, 23 May 2024, link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

7  City of Santa Monica. (2023, December 20). Santa Monica takes key step forward in the future of its airport. [Press release]. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

8  Schultz T. J. (1978). Synthesis of social surveys on noise annoyance. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 64(2), 377–405. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

9  Aviation Safety and Noise Abatement Act of 1979. Pub. L. 96-193, Feb. 18, 1980, 94 Stat. 50. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

10  That’s a “single system” — not a “single metric”!

11  Airport Noise Compatibility Planning. 14 C.F.R. pt 150 (1984). Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

12  14 C.F.R. §150.7 (2024).

13  14 C.F.R. §A150.101 Table 1 (2024).

14  Federal Aviation Administration. "Noise Policy Review | Federal Aviation Administration". 30 July, 2024. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.

15  Office of Environment and Energy, Federal Aviation Administration. "The Foundational Elements of the Federal Aviation Administration Civil Aircraft Noise Policy: The Noise Measurement System, its Component Noise Metrics, and Noise Thresholds". 28 April 2023. Link, archived link. Accessed 17 August 2024.