Getting By or Getting On

In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino says: ‘…one morning your desires waken all at once and surround you. The city appears to you as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content.’ … Towers say something about what society aspires to. Way back, it was churches that were the only buildings with towers. Then came clock towers, university buildings and libraries. Then it was the turn of merchants and finally our own modern-day ‘merchant-class’ – towers for banks and corporate headquarters. A few places though have put up towers of a different sort. Towers that are really just for looking out from. One thinks of Montreal, Seattle, Canberra, Dubai. It’s a pity there are not more of these – not necessarily on such an immense scale, but even something like five or six storeys – as long as it gives a view. Because a tower, whilst it is often a valuable landmark from the ground, is also a great place to look out from and get some perspective on what the surrounding town – and the world in general – is all about. I’m in one such tower now, looking out at the city below. It’s a cloudy evening with some rain. Traffic trails away to the north, the head and tail lights reflecting off wet roads. Commuters heading home. From this distance they seem to be moving very slowly. Then again, probably they are moving very slowly! I get to thinking, what has shaped this city? Architects, is the answer that springs to mind immediately. But they are generally only responsible for individual buildings. So then, planning? Planning regulations can have a big impact. But then, the planner is answerable to the politician and the politician is answerable to BIG MONEY – the lure of investment and employment that might be offered to a city, if the terms are right. So you could say it’s THE SYSTEM that shapes the city – the system of money and power. In any case, certainly not the people! What are all of my fellow humans doing and thinking as they go about their business down there below? Well, if they have aspirations towards a greener, less polluting, more ecologically sustainable city then they might as well give those ideas up right now! They’re working for THE MAN. And THE MAN just wants them to get on and work, so that money can be made. And if they have aspirations towards peace, justice and freedom – well, might as well shelve those notions too! The system just ain’t interested in social justice. The system is only interested in power. So what can they do? What can any of us do, except GET BY. GETTING BY sounds like a precarious place to be. We say JUST getting by, and BARELY getting by. From the tower, the world seems bigger, whilst the people seem smaller. Yes, it seems to me, we are fragile. Towers are dangerous places though, sure enough. Easy to get above yourself. Easy to think that YOUR perspective is the only one that counts. The trick is to use the tower as an opportunity to see OTHER PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVE – and maybe find a bit of empathy, a bit of compassion. That way, the tower is worth it. What if we all just collectively chose to give up on this type of life – the fragile GETTING BY kinds of existence that society seems to have carved out for us? What then? What if all the soldiers and police resigned? What if we all gave up our jobs and started doing our own thing? A peaceful anarchy, helped along by mind-altering drugs? That would be my kind of utopia – or at least a first step to get us started on a different way of being in the world. But I know what you’re thinking. Where I see utopia, you see zombie apocalypse! Perhaps it’s the older person’s prerogative to think of things as coming to an end – along with their own declining years. That’s it, I think, I’m just getting old. I think the bubble is going to burst very soon. Infinite growth on a finite planet. Ecological collapse. Climate chaos. No other generation has faced this! Surely, this time, it really is the end? Then again though, another part of me is thinking, something else, surely, is going on. All those folk down there have their own ideas of what’s wrong with the world. Here’s me blaming it all on THE MAN, on THE SYSTEM! So I’m seeing the neo-liberal hegemony, Washington Consensus as the source of the blame. But to others, isn’t that going to appear just like a liberal conspiracy theory? (And of course I inevitably bundle in climate change and vague hints towards communism, to boot!) I might as easily go for a hard right, ‘red pill’ kind of theory. Or is there really just a cartel of the ultra-rich (who are really giant lizards from another planet)? The first tower, after all, was the tower of Babel. You have to ask why God didn’t like people building a tower. Hubris, I suppose. It wasn’t just about having knowledge, it was about assuming too much knowledge and having too much pride. So God puts a stop to it – makes it so that we’re just babbling to each other. Makes it so that we just don’t understand each other’s stories. Is that where we’re at today? But we’ve even lost God as the ‘grand narrative’ that should put all of our partial stories into perspective. We are into ‘post-modernism’ – anyone’s truth is as good as anyone else’s – but hey, none of it is REALLY true. Fully dark now. Lights coming on all over the city. It doesn’t need to be so negative - I’m thinking. Why hate and be confounded by other people’s stories? Actually, I love your red pill story, and even your giant lizard theory! And there’s one group of people who love stories more than any of us. Yes – the kids. After all, they’re the ones who are going to inherit this world on the brink of collapse. A lot of the lights down there are kids’ bedrooms. Inside, they sit at screens – lost in alternative worlds. That’s what a grown-up would think though, isn’t it? They can be anyone in those worlds. A dragon, a werewolf, a superhero, a wizard. Infinite wants in a finite world? But do I really think they are so stupid that they do not know that? Do I really think that they won’t figure that out? And meanwhile, what is the world they’re building? A magical world in cyberspace, where you can take on any character you want, but at the same time you can truly be yourself. A world where your full creative potential can be realised. A place where there is unlimited sharing, where everyone has a voice. A world detached from the natural living world, on which we rely for our very existence. Ah, there’s the ‘responsible adult’ speaking again! Don’t you think the kids have not already seen that problem as well? Time to go home, I think. I turn towards the lifts. Am I just scrabbling for hope then? Or are kids not just getting by, but GETTING ON? I’m not sure. Gonna need a bigger tower.

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