The Blasé Attitude

For those only weakly committed to city living, particularly middle-class people who have serious difficulty with social diversity and who have clear housing alternatives, the "problem-free" suburbs become tempting. After an incident such as a car break-in or a bicycle theft, a "last straw" can make them leave. (249)

New York City’s population is a little over 8.3 million people. 8.3 million people are spread out among five boroughs and each have their own set routine. Each one of those 8.3 million see New York in a different way becuase “You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it” (“City Limits” 4). Some people are like Colson Whitehead who “was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else” (“City Limits” 3). Others may have “moved here a couple years ago for a job. Maybe [they] came here for school” (“City Limits” 3). Different reasons have brought these people together. They are grouped as New Yorkers, but many times, living in New York is their only bond. With on going changes and never ending commotion, it is hard to

“Could it be that we are supposed to be talking to the plants and animals, interacting with them, accepting the gifts they offer, and using them in ways that further their growth?”(Starhawk, 162). I feel this quote from “Our Place in Nature” is a great way to start the topic of how artists uses plant life in their work. It shows how artists might try to interact with the environment for ideas on the works that they come up. I feel also that they are trying to be one with the environment. I feel if you spend enough time in nature, you will build a strong connection with everything around you. This comment is justified when Starhawk said, “I can walk into any forest where the trees are strange and understand something about the relationships

Government, a system that has high dignity and extreme power, decide what people should do, what people should not do. Also, they protect people from their own selfishness and evil. In order to maintain the peace, the government encourage people collaborate together, and share the same belief, therefore, a city won’t have any conflict and struggle. But, everything has a negative side, because of the long time controlling, people changed, they are submissive, they are ignorant, and also, the “Brain” of the city finally stopped thinking. Fahrenheit 451 shows that the fireman montag thought burning was a pleasure to him, but later he realize that the society is lacking self sense, therefore,he started to change.

Hitchcock’s notoriously elaborate Rear Window set (under the art direction of J. Macmillan Johnson and Hal Pereira) is so significant because it contains the entirety of the movie. The rest of the city is a mere suggestion, hinted at by cars and pedestrians passing by a narrow strip of alleyway. Therefore, the real analysis of city life that Rear Window explores is that of the relationship between neighbors. In his essay The Metropolis and Mental Life, Georg Simmel comments that the city dweller must avoid overstimulation by practicing “reserve” among others and that,

Throughout the story, Lost in the City by Edwards P. Jones there are many different ways the city influences the different characters. Lost in the City takes the reader through some difficult times of many African Americans in Washington. The different characters form bond that cannot be broken in order to handle what life throws at them. In the stories "The Girl Who Raised Pigeons" and "The First Day" the city influences the different main characters in different ways, to help them come of age.

Prejudice is an opinion in which is not based on any reasoning, and may cause harm. Prejudice can be seen just about anywhere, and it affects our daily lives. There are many different ways a person can show prejudice beliefs, but why do they believe things they have never experience? Some may say it’s something personal with one’s self that causes prejudice thoughts, or some may think it their surroundings contribute as a motive.

Two famous myths from the ancient world, “Pandora’s Box” and “Loo Wit, The Firekeeper,” describe human suffering in their own way. The theme of “Pandora’s Box” is acting out of revenge will only lead to suffering. The all-mighty god, Zeus, cultivated a plan out of revenge for what Prometheus had done (shown fire to the humans), “Zeus extended his displeasure… It was a scheme which would [affect]... the whole race of human beings…” (Untermeyer 1).

Some people attracted to living a long time in their communities. As a youth, I’m scared to see one day our cities will be full of homeless people, armed robbers, jobless citizen etc. All this is in the name of gentrification. Gentrification is the way of renovating and improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small business. After the renovation, some people thought that the wealthy people will come and occupy the districts. So the low-income people decided to fight for their community. Nowadays, people who live in their communities for a longer period of time find an interest of staying

Socrates explains his theory of the city and its rules as the nature of ones life. It is not moral to fight against it. We were welcomed to live in it and accept it how it is.

The intensification of rapidly changing stimulations in the city requires the individual to “create a protective organ” manifesting itself in a “matter-of-fact attitude”. This attitude rather than concerning itself with emotions takes on a rational mentality and gives rise to intellectualism. In other words, instead of letting constant encounters with unexpected smells, objects, actions, noises, events, people agitate the nerves and react emotionally, the individual approaches everything in a logical manner. This rational mentality of a purely intellectual individual inevitably leads to a blasé mind set, an apathetic outlook to that which is happening around them. This blasé attitude is a necessary response against the threat of individuality.

Life in the city is often chaotic and fast-paced. It is as quick as a television dinner. Often, people are forgetting the art of appreciation. Things go unnoticed like a pebble under a shoe, like sparkling windows on corporate buildings. Now, people are typically giving more time to their technological devices- which is not necessarily a terrible thing. If anything, it speaks more of an imbalance. There is a wider disconnect in every day social interactions (communications) and public spaces (location). It has been noted by a creator of public spaces, Goldberger, that people are “there but not there”. They have closed themselves off from experiencing what is right in front of them. For example, the average adult spends seven hours on a technological

Georg Simmel was born in Berlin (Germany) in 1858 and died in 1918. He delivered and then published one of his most famous pieces of work ‘The Metropolis & Mental Life’ in 1903 in New York. Habermas (1996) described Simmel ‘as a critic of culture is in a peculiar way both near to, and far away from us’ (Frisby, Featherstone 1997). Simmel was a well known sociologist, his family was business oriented and Jewish. Weber, Friedrich and Kant (He became interested in the philosophy of his work) all had a key influence on Simmel when he combined all of his ideas together. Massimo Cacciari made a bold claim that ‘the problem of the Metropolis, as a problem of the relation between modern existence and its forms, is the point from which all of Georg Simmel’s Philosophy develops’ (Frisby, D 2013). When Simmel talks about living in the city and what the social structure and economics are like, this is very similar with the analysis Weber uses (Rationalization).

Human beings have been known to survive harsh environments such as natural disasters all throughout history and now. Survival is an essential part of our lives and it’s the reason why we’re all here today. People you might not expect in real life have gone through much harder times than we have. Some humans have been in a natural disaster so dangerous, that they would have to resort to cannibalism.

Urban studies aims to develop an understanding the modern city metropolis. As Savage et al. have pointed out, the urban encompasses far more than just the physical city itself; understanding the city help us to understand many aspects of modern life (2003, pp.4). Many of its features, such as mass media and public transport systems have spread throughout society over the past century. Sociological studies of urban life began with the landmark publication of 'The City' in 1925 by sociologists Robert Park, Ernest Burgess and Louis Wirth from the University of Chicago, students of Georg Simmel who shared his belief that the urban environment changed man's