Last week we looked at the city from the perspective of the mythmaking imagination. When we say “city” in the modern period, we think “bright lights, big city,” the megalopolis, as Spengler called it in The Decline of the West, that was an imperialistic power center, like Rome, in older times, and a capitalistic (but still imperialistic) power center now. On the fringes of that power structure are what I called the margins, in which people try to invent a way to live and the arts try to find a way to flourish. Spengler has a cyclical view of history, and regards the megalopolis as the final stage of a civilization before it collapses of its own decadence.
March 24, 2023
March 24, 2023
March 24, 2023
Last week we looked at the city from the perspective of the mythmaking imagination. When we say “city” in the modern period, we think “bright lights, big city,” the megalopolis, as Spengler called it in The Decline of the West, that was an imperialistic power center, like Rome, in older times, and a capitalistic (but still imperialistic) power center now. On the fringes of that power structure are what I called the margins, in which people try to invent a way to live and the arts try to find a way to flourish. Spengler has a cyclical view of history, and regards the megalopolis as the final stage of a civilization before it collapses of its own decadence.