Suburban Decadence
I found a wonderful quote from Christopher Lasch concerning the decadent nature of suburban life, provided by the Terra Firm blog. We often hear about the degraded nature of urban life and how the flight to the suburbs is somehow a noble reaction to this degradation(often compared to the old practice of moving into the countryside).
Many conservatives, like Benjamin Shapiro for example, even try defending the lifestyle of suburbia against what they see as Hollywood unfairly maligning it as "a morally hypocritical, empty, sick place" in popular TV shows like "Desperate Housewives" or movies like "American Beauty". Perhaps people like Shapiro can't face the hard truth that maybe such shows and movies actually reflect real life in suburbia (which would certainly explain why they're so popular). Shapiro continues insisting that suburbia "is a decent representation of the American dream. Ideal suburbia represents the wish to rise in the world, to have a home of one's own, to raise a family and children within communal morality." I particularly like the last one, since many people like to argue about the genuine sense of "community" that exists in suburbs, as opposed to the empty loneliness of the cities. Well Lasch clearly refutes this myth:
Not only that, the insane suburban ideal has caused another plague on our society known as urban sprawl, in which many square miles of forests, farm land, and not to mention often historical sites as well, are destroyed to make room for Wall-Marts, shopping malls, fast-food places, big spaced out housing, and roads frequented by gas-guzzling SUVs. Nothing more than a post-modern cultural waste-land!
At least in the big cities, admist all the garbage(which most certainly does exist) you can at least experience some resemblance of real culture. Whether it be in the form of great historical landmarks and buildings(or buildings built when a real sense of aesthetics governed), symphony halls and theaters, museums of great quality, and such. You hardly find any of this in your typical suburbs, or if you do it's only of half-ass quality.
Luckily, there is a movement now to attempting to check the continual suburbanization of life called the "New Urbanism". William S. Lind wrote an interesting article about this new movement for the American Conservative. Sadly there's no direct link to the article, but a good commentary on it can be read here. Another interesting commentary on this movement is Robert Royal's article "the Old Urbanism", written for Crisis Magazine.
A revival of urban life in its geniune sense would do wonders for our society. Need we forget that the greatest achievements of civilization (art, archiecture, music, philosophy, etc) were often accomplished in urban areas. It might also do much to save rural life in its true sense from urban sprawl. Moving to the suburbs is not the same as moving to the countryside. Many suburbanites try to protray themselves as country bumpkins, but since when did bumpkins drive SUVs and drink Starbucks? In fact suburbia is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to dress up post-modern decadence as a form of ruralism.
Not to mention how much suburban teenagers nowadays put on the charade of acting like real gangstas from the ghettos ( hey, why not give them a chance to live out their fantasy and see what gangsta life is really about). Bottom line, suburban life is decadence unchecked. Unlike traditional urban and rural life, where any decadence is checked by some force.
Many conservatives, like Benjamin Shapiro for example, even try defending the lifestyle of suburbia against what they see as Hollywood unfairly maligning it as "a morally hypocritical, empty, sick place" in popular TV shows like "Desperate Housewives" or movies like "American Beauty". Perhaps people like Shapiro can't face the hard truth that maybe such shows and movies actually reflect real life in suburbia (which would certainly explain why they're so popular). Shapiro continues insisting that suburbia "is a decent representation of the American dream. Ideal suburbia represents the wish to rise in the world, to have a home of one's own, to raise a family and children within communal morality." I particularly like the last one, since many people like to argue about the genuine sense of "community" that exists in suburbs, as opposed to the empty loneliness of the cities. Well Lasch clearly refutes this myth:
"It is often said that people went to the suburbs in search of "community," as an alternative to urban anonymity. I think it was just the other way around. What they craved was complete privacy -- the freedom to bring up their children without interference from intrusive relatives and neighbours, to choose their friends on the basis of mutual interests instead of physical proximity and to organize their time without consulting the pleasure or convenience of anyone else. Suburbs appeared to institutionalize the principle of free and unlimited choice. They were designed to exclude everything not subject to choice -- the job, the extended family, the enforced sociability of the city streets. Americans hoped to put all that behind them when they headed for the seclusion of the suburbs, where they were accountable, it seemed, to no one."So rather than the being basis for building a true sense of community, suburbs provided the perfect basis for the thriving of narcissism that prevails in our modern culture. Since the 1950's, suburban norms and ideals became those of American society in general, and it comes as no surprise that the decadence of the 1960's quickly followed. The 50's were merely governed by a materialism and decadence that decided to hide behind a mask of decency and morality. Since the 60's, that mask was torn off and the materialism and decadence was given free reign without any regard for restraint. This is a fact often ignored by those who idealize the 50's as some kind of golden age.
--Christopher Lasch, "The Sexual Division Of Labour," in Women And The Common Life: Love Marriage And Feminism
Not only that, the insane suburban ideal has caused another plague on our society known as urban sprawl, in which many square miles of forests, farm land, and not to mention often historical sites as well, are destroyed to make room for Wall-Marts, shopping malls, fast-food places, big spaced out housing, and roads frequented by gas-guzzling SUVs. Nothing more than a post-modern cultural waste-land!
At least in the big cities, admist all the garbage(which most certainly does exist) you can at least experience some resemblance of real culture. Whether it be in the form of great historical landmarks and buildings(or buildings built when a real sense of aesthetics governed), symphony halls and theaters, museums of great quality, and such. You hardly find any of this in your typical suburbs, or if you do it's only of half-ass quality.
Luckily, there is a movement now to attempting to check the continual suburbanization of life called the "New Urbanism". William S. Lind wrote an interesting article about this new movement for the American Conservative. Sadly there's no direct link to the article, but a good commentary on it can be read here. Another interesting commentary on this movement is Robert Royal's article "the Old Urbanism", written for Crisis Magazine.
A revival of urban life in its geniune sense would do wonders for our society. Need we forget that the greatest achievements of civilization (art, archiecture, music, philosophy, etc) were often accomplished in urban areas. It might also do much to save rural life in its true sense from urban sprawl. Moving to the suburbs is not the same as moving to the countryside. Many suburbanites try to protray themselves as country bumpkins, but since when did bumpkins drive SUVs and drink Starbucks? In fact suburbia is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to dress up post-modern decadence as a form of ruralism.
Not to mention how much suburban teenagers nowadays put on the charade of acting like real gangstas from the ghettos ( hey, why not give them a chance to live out their fantasy and see what gangsta life is really about). Bottom line, suburban life is decadence unchecked. Unlike traditional urban and rural life, where any decadence is checked by some force.
posted by Perun at
4:55 PM
4 Comments:
This is my first visit to your blog, and generally I like what I see. However, there are some critical issues you do not consider here.
1) Children have a greater degree of physical saftey in the suburbs than in the city. This becomes more important as you have more children.
2) Suburban homes have a larger yard than urban homes. Again, this becomes more important as you have more children. It is nice to be able to watch them play outside as you make dinner, and comforting to have them fenced in.
3) Once you have more than 5 kids, a large SUV or 12 or 15 passenger van are the only way to get around as a family.
4) I'm sure you know that the family is the cell of society and the source of real culture. Although you may only find historic architecture, museums, theater and symphonies of half-ass quality in the suburbs, you do find better family life. When was the last time you encountered a family of 10 from an urban neighborhood? The reason is because it is harder for such families to live in those envionments.
So, as you procede to justly criticize the vacuity of suburban life, please remeber that these are also the neighborhoods where you find the Catholic homeschooling familes of 10, and that is something the cities have less of.
I invite email correspondence to naaskofamily[at]aol.com should you wish to discuss this issue further.
ben
Yeah but the problem with your argument is that suburban families are not that large. In fact they only tend to have 1 or 2 children on average. So those SUVs most of the time are not used to transport the kids, but rather for vanity reasons.
Those large houses would imply larger families as common sense dictates, but it's not true. Each family member simply gets more of their own little section of the house.
I agree that most suburbanites are vacuous clods shirking their responsibilities to rasie up the next generation. They live in houses that are wastefully large and drive cars to match.
My point was, that despite these wastefull excesses, that the best hope for the future of society, large religious families, much more often find a home in the suburbs than in urban areas.
The problem is neither with the city nor the suburn per se, it is with the abandonment of family life. The city long ago adopted it's mode of being to the single person and those whose children have grown. It has done this by cultivating an environment receptive to creativity and growth for young people as they mature and move away from their families of origin. This is why we find universities and night life and interesting cafe's in cities.
The horror of the suburbs is that they ought to be the realm of families, the real locus of the literal generation of the society, but that this mission has been largely abandoned.
This may or may not have to do with the architectural, urban and community planning in the modern suburb, but I suspect that such planning itself is the result more of the abandonment of the traditional form of family life than the reverse.
Perhaps Cadillac Escalades are just another symptom of a selfishness that does not look beyond the material comforts of the individual, but the smoke-belching 25 year old Chevy Suburban filled with carseats and kids in every seat and a pro-life bumper sticker on the back is surely a sign of hope in a disordered world.
ben
Well Im not arguing that city life is the sole answer to the problem. I am advocating a restoration of city life in its true sense, as opposed to suburban decadence.
Im not advocating that everybody live in cities either, Im all in favor of a reival of rural life. But suburban life is not the same, no matter how much suburbanite delute themselves thinking it is.
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