I never lived in a city before now; tourism was my closest experience with city life. Despite initial fear about living in the city, I now prefer the city to the suburbs.
My initial fear with life in the city originated from an essay I wrote for an American Drama class. In order to properly analyze feminist play called Machinal, I read an essay called Metropolis and Modern Life. Both the play and the essay possess a negative and pessimistic view about the city
life. Where Machinal claims that the city facilitates masculine domination, Metropolis and Modern Life claim that the city and its money economy facilitate unrelenting emotional hardness.
The crux of the essay’s argument is that because humans are creatures dependent on differences, the ever changing and stimulating environment of the city forces a city dweller to react rationally instead of emotionally. By thinking rationally, a city dweller can disconnect from the disturbances of the outside world. Furthermore, the city’s money economy forces one to hollow out the differences between things and think in a calculating manner.
Metropolis and Modern Life also claims that a city forces one to become a cog in an overwhelming machine. As the result specialized labor, individuals begin to overvalue a specific type of achievement and individual culture atrophies.
Although Machinal’s thesis seemed too radical believe, the essay’s thesis about emotional hardness was more convincing. Fortunately, Metropolis and Modern Life’s thesis does not seem to hold true in Sao Paulo.
Admittedly, I can now walk down a busy street without registering the massive amounts of noise and people. I can also ignore destitute homeless people, an ability that disturbs me not that I think about it.
However, I feel that I possess a community with my host family, school, church, and jiu-jitsu dojo. Within these communities, my intellect does not dominate and I do not hollow out the differences in things or people. With regard to the atrophy of individual culture, I also disagree with the essay. A midnight walk along Avenidue Paulista and trips to various clubs prove that strange characters can exist within the city.
Perhaps Sao Paulo is not representative of cities in general or my opinion will change by the time I leave, but Sao Paulo has definitely been enjoyable so far.
