The Concept-city is decaying. Does that mean that the illness
afflicting both the rationality that founded it and its professionals
afflicts the urban populations as well? Perhaps cities are
deteriorating along with the procedures that organized them. But we
must be careful here. The ministers of knowledge have always assumed
that the whole universe was threatened by the very changes that
affected their ideologies and their positions. They transmute the
misfortune of their theories into theories of misfortune. When they
transform their bewilderment into “catastrophes,” when they seek to
enclose the people in the “panic” of their discourses, are they once
more necessarily right? (152)
This particular piece of Michel De Certeau's "Walking in the City" seems to be arguing against the use of apocalyptic rhetoric by the people who are in seats of power. He is urging people to embrace Change. It is when a society attempts to maintain a status quo that when change happens it seems so apocalyptic because the changes were not gradual but were forced to occur in a large manner.
As De Certeau points out the "story begins on ground level" (153). This is pointing back to Foucault's Panoptic ideas. The people are the ones who are really the authors of city's story not the ministers of knowledge talked about in this paragraph. De Certeau is pointing out that some people become too invested in their positions of power, while Foucault was important to specify that it was never important who was in the positions of power, but that the structure of power itself existed.
The City's story is told in pedestrian speech acts. Analyzing the walking as language really gives a sense that the story is controlled by the people on the ground even if they are not sure what the story is. Their actions give a spatial conception to the city that speaks of absences. By tracing the path of everyone in the city, you are only left with relics that are left afterward, the immediate actions can not be completely graphed, they only happened once creating a unique experience that is still in some was part of the overarching story told by everyone walking on the streets of the city.
The important thing about this piece is that it brings up that in the city walking is an act of both searching and expressing a lack. "To walk is to lack a place" (159). Therefore this city is dying but all the people are searching for something within it. To find a place, but how can a place be found inside a system that is slowly decaying around them? We want simply to "be there". But this becomes impossible as "there" is an unattainable concept because once we reach "there" it is now a "here". The movement is the important idea, while the destination itself is simply a McGuffin in a sense. It is just there to keep us driving on. This futility seems to be hinting towards a definite death and apocalyptic part of a narrative that is explored in The
Road and The Parable of the Sower. It's important that the journey is the story, and in neither narrative is the destination ever reached. It's about the walking, not about the "where".
As De Certeau points out the "story begins on ground level" (153). This is pointing back to Foucault's Panoptic ideas. The people are the ones who are really the authors of city's story not the ministers of knowledge talked about in this paragraph. De Certeau is pointing out that some people become too invested in their positions of power, while Foucault was important to specify that it was never important who was in the positions of power, but that the structure of power itself existed.
The City's story is told in pedestrian speech acts. Analyzing the walking as language really gives a sense that the story is controlled by the people on the ground even if they are not sure what the story is. Their actions give a spatial conception to the city that speaks of absences. By tracing the path of everyone in the city, you are only left with relics that are left afterward, the immediate actions can not be completely graphed, they only happened once creating a unique experience that is still in some was part of the overarching story told by everyone walking on the streets of the city.
The important thing about this piece is that it brings up that in the city walking is an act of both searching and expressing a lack. "To walk is to lack a place" (159). Therefore this city is dying but all the people are searching for something within it. To find a place, but how can a place be found inside a system that is slowly decaying around them? We want simply to "be there". But this becomes impossible as "there" is an unattainable concept because once we reach "there" it is now a "here". The movement is the important idea, while the destination itself is simply a McGuffin in a sense. It is just there to keep us driving on. This futility seems to be hinting towards a definite death and apocalyptic part of a narrative that is explored in The
Road and The Parable of the Sower. It's important that the journey is the story, and in neither narrative is the destination ever reached. It's about the walking, not about the "where".
I wonder if, in fact, the city is actually dying. Perhaps it is more like a constant regeneration, with everything constantly being moved but nothing actually being destroyed. This sort of eases the feeling if futility of every day life in the city, but perhaps only in my mind. a city without people would not be alive, so is it possible that there would be no life or change or even death in a city without people populating it? There would be no meaning in some space, such as an apartment, or in a dearly cherished object if it was not imbued with that meaning by a person. Without people, the city ceases to exist.
ReplyDeleteI think of Detroit.
ReplyDelete