I like politics – the drama, the clash of ideas – not so
much the score-keeping (I’m not a sports fan). One piece of the ever-interesting
political puzzle has always eluded me – why is it that you can look at a political
map and clearly see that the bastions of left-wing ideology are the giant
cities. What is there about City-ness
that produces that frame of mind? This last trip to New York finally coughed up
some answers. I’d like to know what you think – these are my thoughts:
·
Big cities are fairytale worlds. The ramparts
are beautiful, sparkly, gold-tipped. Food just appears. Water is always hot.
Transportation – I’m thinking subways here – is magic – hectic and
uncomfortable, but fast and no one seems to be driving the thing. It just goes.
Maggie and I, as we visited modeling agencies, kept finding ourselves in
Narnian places – elevator doors in questionable looking buildings opening into splendiferous
spaces with ornate red chandeliers and white leather furnishings. Enchanting. Under
those circumstances it would be easy to go on imagining a completely utopian
existence. Why not? Is this not already Neverland?
·
Go back to transportation; in big cities going
anywhere distant independently requires the punishing expense and fuss-n-bother
of owning a car – to say nothing of the nerves of steel it takes to drive
through LA’s freeway tangles or the clogged capillaries of New York --- or you
hail a cab and pay twelve prices for the thrill of hyper-aggressive driving by
someone who’s only been in the country for 3 months. Your only other option is
public transportation – cheap, available, but here’s the effect: you lose the
idea of being in complete control of your own movement. You wait patiently for
the vehicle to appear. You sit obediently in your seat (or stand and hold on
for dear life) and you go where the thing takes you, which is rarely exactly
where you want to end up. The idea of independence would get shaky after too
many years of that. Some freedom gets sacrificed for the advantages of living
in a phenomenal city, making it easier to give up a little more, and a little
more, and a little more.
