In keeping with the urban theory reading self-guided reading course I'm doing, I thought I'd take a brief sidestep here for a bit of theological take on the topic. It is Sunday after all...

A few years back I read a book on the theology of the built environment by T.J. Gorringe. It's worth noting that my interest in urbanism in large part came from my mdiv where I was taught to see theology as a contextual project, not something that just exists outside of time and space. Not only that, but my professor (and the founder of the particular program I took, Donald Goertz, always said that the bible was primarily urban in nature. Anyways, as a part of one of my directed reading courses, I read this particular book and I thought it might be nice to just share a thought from it today that also builds off Mumford's work on the origin of cities.

Gorringe here is riffing off Mumford and considering how cities do or do not participate in the economy of redemption, that is, creating something that lasts for the betterment of the world.

"If Mumford is right, the Hellenistic city effectively built to celebrate its own achievements, as did Imperial Rome. This ought to be a warning to us, for today we wander about in their ruins. For what gave a new lease of life to Rome was Christianity without which, at several points in the past two millennia, it would probably not have survived. Cities necessarily have markets; they are centres of the arts and of innovation. But without a creative spirituality, a sense of transcendent purpose, they die."

I've always kind of liked the idea that cities have a soul, so to speak, and like people, that soul can be nurtured or starved. I think this puts it in an interesting framing, calling it a transcendent purpose. Going back a few days to what I was reflecting on with Mumford in the way that cities began as spaces for ritual and memory, I think it's interesting to consider what gives a city that spark. We sort of intuitively know when we visit a city that has it. It feels alive and exciting. It might also be why suburban sprawl can feel so soulless, they lack a transcendent purpose.

Mumford traces the evolution from city to empire through a brilliant question. As a city's population grew and the need for more land and food grew with it, how does the city achieve this? He lays out two options: either by cooperation or conquest.

Of course, the trajectory that he has already laid out around the power myth at the core of the development of the city leads to only one answer. But for me this gets at the very myth we need to break as a species. We have continuously chosen conquest to the detriment of our planet. It has brought about ecological ruin and left billions in poverty and exploitation. The power myth of conquest (or competition under capitalism's narrative) has failed us.

What I find interesting is the way he describes the collective ambition of the city as being one of cooperation, people coming together for greater safety and wellbeing. We have just become too dependant on a model that turns to strongmen in order to preserve it. Perhaps the real tension at play is cooperation vs anxiety. Our increased security and comforts feed that anxiety—and so we accept the promises of protection to our own detriment. Maybe the way forward into cooperation requires first dealing with our collective anxieties.

Something Mumford draws attention to is the way organized war is the result of the city rather than something inherent to humanity itself. He notes that as people were drawn in to the promises of cooperation and safety, they gave their protection over to a skilled and powerful leader. This leader was often seen as both spiritual and political leader, with the divine power capable of keeping the community safe from all threats.

I found it particularly interesting the way he roots the origins of this war in the role of human sacrifice. The leader, who had taken the responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of the community, had to have ways to appease the forces of nature they were at the mercy of. Human sacrifice was one way they would do this.

“Beneath all war’s technical improvements lay an irrational belief, still deeply embedded in the collective consciousness: only by wholesale human sacrifice can the community be saved.” (Mumford, 45)

What may have began as small raids to seek out victims, grew to become sizeable numbers in some areas, perhaps representative of the growing collective anxiety the city produced. Mumford's point was that over time, the power of the king became the point: the power to control, subdue, or destroy. Organized war was their invention, used to eliminate threats to their power—real or imagined.

Started reading Lewis Mumford's 'The City in History' this morning as a part of a self-guided reading course I've put together for myself. Something that stood out in today's reading was the role that ritual, particularly related to burial and honouring the dead, played in the formation of permanent settlement. These rituals went beyond just a burial plot to art and other symbolic practices, what he notes as a nod to a way of living that speaks to a more complex need for humans to form societies than merely survival.

It is the same way of life that compels art and performance and other forms of meaning-making ritual in our cities today. From the street artist to the ornate sacred space, these things invite us into a communal life that goes beyond meeting our physical needs to touching on something more transcendent.

Postman makes an interesting observation around the way political consciousness changed with the tv.

“In the television age, political judgement is transformed from an intellectual assessment of propositions to an intuitive and emotional response to the totality of an image. In the television age, people do not so much as agree or disagree with politicians as like or dislike them.”

He then makes this suggestion that the democratic system was built around the idea that political judgement was something that was learned over time. This is why voting was restricted to a certain age. Political engagement also existed in the world of print—in newspapers, pamphlets, and books. Then tv came and flattened it and then everyone had access to the same political process and in doing so our judgement of political figures was reduced to image.

It's a bit of a cynical take, and perhaps a bit idealistic in its conception of the past, but I think it fits. I remember talking to a former MPP turned campaign manager on the political process and they more or less confirmed that voting comes down how likeable people feel the candidates are. And with tv, the likeability of politicians became the main point.

Of course, I'm always fascinated to consider how this trajectory has continued into the digital age.