The modern megalopolis has become, in Copley’s description, a “hiding-place” to which an increasingly childish and petulant population flees in order to find refuge “from nature” and no less “from history.” Copley imputes the flight from reality to all levels of society in the urban colossus, not merely to the millions of welfare clients, but also to the bureaucracy, the professoriate, and the ruling-class, whose mentalities tend towards coalescence. “The cities become isolated from everything but their own increasingly abstract thoughts.” The contemporary jet-setter travels “from one urban cocoon to another… from one ‘house of self-worship’ to the next.”"Babylon the Great is Fallen: Gregory R. Copley on Un- Civilization." By Thomas F. Bertonneau, The Brussels Journal, 5/2/14.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Gimme shelter.
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4 comments:
It's interesting to note that Enoch, the first city, was founded by a murderer who sought to escape the curse of the land.
Cities, for all that they may do right, tend to be an escape mechanism from the curse of Adam - that man should toil for his food.
Folk flee to the city in search of a life spent living off the riches of those in the country (food, water, natural resources), in effect becoming trade centers where the buying and selling of the labor of others becomes the "profession."
And of course other so-called "professions" spring forth around it - namely the first and the second profession of variation or another.
I will have to read up on Enoch, whose name is new to me.
I think your analysis elaborates some on that of Mr. Bertonneau. When the balance between the city and the country tilted in "favor" of the city, urbanites began to lose touch with reality. I remember a Wall Street Journal article from 10 or 15 years ago about urbanites who moved out into the country. One fellow who moved next to a pig farm was upset that there were so many flies on his screens. Sacre bleu!
Warning: If you sound like an environmentalist, you are doing something wrong.
BTW, what's with the illegible captchas?
That's a stretch to pull environmentalism out of that post. I am not in favor of dumping benzene into the aquifers and like to breathe clean air. Does that make me a prime candidate to join Earth First?
I think the illegible captcha are courtesy of Google.
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