The hated city, from transcendence to immanence

Jacques Lévy

doi:10.1590/2236-9996.2021-5103

Abstract

Abstract The myth of Babel (Genesis 11, Old Testament) is an early and pure example of using urbanity and globality as an evidence of hubris. The accurate analysis of this short text shows that rejection of urbanity is not the effect of a vague metaphor; rather, it is based on the observation that city-making represents the perfect expression of humanity’s capability for carrying out modest yet ambitious autonomous plans. The statement that urbanisation and the cooperation of all humans would be a sin is less easy to maintain today, but fresher libertarian or neonaturalist ideologies, replacing transcendence by immanence, have emerged and achieved a historical continuity with mainstream religious demands. Reluctance towards a possible emancipation through self-organised spatial arrangements continues to connect urban agency to a more general anti-societal and anti-human stance.

Highlights

The myth of Babel (Genesis 11, Old Testament) is an early and pure example of using urbanity and globality as an evidence of hubris
The threereligion monotheist myth of Babel shows that, as early as Antiquity, when the urban population rate was very low, the social process of city-making was addressed as a good example of hubris, the human challenging of God’s prerogatives. This period started with the writing of the Old Testament and continued as far as a literal reading of the scriptures prevailed – that is, for some believers, till, and from on, there has been a divine, vertical ‘geography’ of discontent based on the discontent with a certain geography
In spite of major changes in social worlds and in their self-representations, the progressive, pervasive vanishing of the effective presence of a God in Western societies, the resilience capability of anti-urban attitudes is striking. This apparent permanence is enabled by a transformation in the underpinning framework in which the hatred for cities can survive and even thrive in yet so different contexts, as if this negative relation to urbanity had jumped from a vehicle into others, which were conveniently available on the road

Summary

Introduction

The myth of Babel (Genesis 11, Old Testament) is an early and pure example of using urbanity and globality as an evidence of hubris. The threereligion monotheist myth of Babel shows that, as early as Antiquity, when the urban population rate was very low, the social process of city-making was addressed as a good example of hubris, the human challenging of God’s prerogatives.

Results

Conclusion