Civics: as Applied Sociology/Part 2/E—The City-Complex and Its Usual Analysis

by Patrick Geddes

In the everyday world, in the city as we find it, what is the working classification of ideas, the method of thought of its citizens? That the citizens no more think of themselves as using any particular sociological method than did M. Jourdain of talking prose does not really matter, save that it makes our observation, both of them and it, easier and more trustworthy.

They are speaking and thinking for the most part of People and of Affairs; much less of places. In the category of People, we observe that individuals, self and others, and this in interest, perhaps even more than in interests, commonly take precedence of groups. Institutions and Government are, however, of general interest, the state being much more prominent than is the church; the press, for many, acting as the modern substitute for the latter. In the world of Affairs, commerce takes precedence of industry, while sport runs hard upon both. War, largely viewed by its distant spectators as the most vivid form of sport, also bulks largely. Peace is not viewed as a positive ideal, but essentially as a passive state, at best, of non-war, more generally of latent war. Central among places are the bank, the market (in its financial forms before the material ones). Second to these stand the mines then the factories, etc.; and around these the fixed or floating fortresses of defence. Of homes, that of the individual alone is seriously considered, at most those of his friends, his "set," his peers, but too rarely even of the street, much less the neighbourhood, at least for their own sake, as distinguished from their reaction upon individual and family status or comfort.

This set of views is obviously not easy of precise analysis of exact classification. In broad outline, however, a summary may be made, and even tabulated as follows:—

THE EVERYDAY TOWN AND ITS ACTIVITIES.

[1]

Next note how from the everyday world of action, there arises a corresponding thought-world also. This has, of course, no less numerous and varied elements, with its resultantly complex local colour; But a selection will suffice, of which the headings may be printed below those of the preceding scheme, to denote how to the objective elements there are subjective elements corresponding—literal reflections upon the pools of memory—the slowly flowing stream of tradition. Thus the extended diagram, its objective elements expressed in yet more general terms, may now be read anew (noting that mirror images are fully reversed).

[2]

Here then we have that general relation of the town life and its "schools," alike of thought and of education, which must now be fully investigated.

Such diagrammatic presentments, while of course primarily for the purpose of clear expression and comparison, are also frequently suggestive—by "inspection," as geometers say—of relations not previously noticed. In both ways, we may see more clearly how prevalent ideas and doctrines have arisen as "reflections upon" the life of action, and even account for their qualities and their defects—their partial truth or their corresponding inadequacy, according to our own appreciative or depreciative standpoint. Thus as regards "People," in the first column we see expressed briefly how to (a) the individual life, with the corresponding vivid interest in biography, corresponds the "great man theory" of history. Conversely with (b) alone is associated the insistance upon institutional developments as the main factor. Passing to the middle column, that of "Affairs," we may note in connection with (b) say the rise of statistics in association with the needs of war, a point connected with its too empiric character; or note again, a too common converse weakness of economic theory, its inadequate inductive verification. Or finally, in the column of "Place," the long weakness of geography as an educational subject, yet is periodic renewal upon the field of war, is indicated. We might in fact continue such a comparison of the existing world of action and of ideas, into all the schools, those of thought and practice, no less than those of formal instruction; and thus we should more and more clearly unravel how their complexity and entanglement, their frequent oppositions and contradictions are related to the various and warring elements of the manifold "Town" life from which they derive and survive. Such a fuller discussion, however, would too long delay the immediate problem—that of understanding "Town" and its "School" in their origins and simplest relations.