The Culture of Cities (Forbidden Bookshelf) by Lewis Mumford

Author:Lewis Mumford [Mumford, Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9781504031349
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-03-08T05:00:00+00:00

16: Possibilities of Renewal

History is full of burying grounds: the dead forms and deserted shards of communities that had not learned the art of living in harmonious relations with nature and with other communities. The end stage, over which Spengler gloated, is an undeniable reality that has overtaken many civilizations: dead-food for the vulturelike imagination.

But one must not, like a Spengler or a Sorokin, make the mistake of identifying the logical stages of a process, as discovered and systematized by intellectual analysis, with the living reality. For in real life, in real cultures, history does not present a solid laminated block of uniform dimensions that one may break down into smaller blocks, each unified within itself to form part of a consistent whole. End-processes often occur in the middle of a culture; accidental mischances and injuries may bring to the middle-aged the normal deteriorations of senescence. Likewise early processes or rejuvenating reactions may be noted in the final phases of the most mechanized civilization. In short, time as experience and duration upsets this logical order, which is based chiefly on time as an attribute of spatial movement. Mutations arise in human communities from unexpected sources: the social heritage makes society much less of a unity than we are compelled to conceive it, by the nature of language, when we interrupt the complex stream of actual life in order to take account of it in thought. Out of these mutations, a new social dominant may arrive: veritably a saving remnant.

To take the simplest point of all: the final stage in civilization is often reached at an intermediate point in urban development. Witness fourteenth century Rome. It exhibited most of the characteristics of a Nekropolis, including a loss, not alone of the single title to papal supremacy, but of a good part of its population. Yet, after that nadir had been reached, a renewal took place: two centuries later its ruins stimulate Brunelleschi and its new buildings offer a challenge to the genius of Michelangelo. The other point to remember is that civilization is not, even in its utmost megalopolitan phase, confined to the world-cities alone. Though they cast their shadows over the farthest territories, neither their governments nor their armies nor their culture institutes can embrace with any degree of thoroughness the provinces they lay claim to: part of their dominion is mere bluff and pretense, unchallengeable until actually challenged.

Even in the ultimate stage of Tyrannopolis, the tyranny is only partly effective: Krilov contrives to tell his satirical fables and Epictetus, the slave, thinks his own thoughts and preserves autonomy within his soul. At this stage there still remain regions and cities and villages with other memories, other backgrounds, other hopes: though in shackles to the external dictatorship, they remain essentially withdrawn. In the heyday of the megalopolitan economy, such regional centers remain partly outside the cycle: some failure of enterprise, some lack of opportunity, or some sturdier sense of life-values keeps them from sharing the delusive growth and splendor of the metropolis.

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