564. Cities and freedom

 Oswald Spengler, in a book published in 1818, with the title ‘Decline of the west’(‘Untergang des Abendlandes’), proposed a deterministic model of the cyclical development of civilisations, with, emergence, flourishing  and decline. According to Spengler, Civilisation is part of the stage of decline, and is imminent for Europe.

 Together with civilisation in general, part of the decline is the rise of cities, at the expense of rural communities, and as a result, a decline of community. Indeed, in the early cities there were stinking slums of destitution, but the later cities were places of encounter, debate, manifestations, festivities, sports, monumental architecture, and statues Above all, cities gave room for individualism. A saying is: ‘city air is liberating’.

 This was a result of a switch of thinking from Platonic universalism, in which the collective is dominant. and the individual insignificant, to Aristotelian primacy of the individual, which took time, until in the 12^th century the work of Aristotle, entering via the world of Muslims, in Spain, was translated into Latin.

 One can have the opinion that individualism developed into egotism, and lack of civic dedication, which are part of our current cultural predicament, but it has also led to bursts of creativity and enterprise, in art, architecture, science and philosophy. Civilisation indeed.

 Also in other respects, I cannot take Spengler’s book seriously. There have indeed been many cases of emergence, development, flourishing and decline of civilisations, but with many different features and speeds; not so deterministic as Spengler made out. Civilisations have fallen due to military loss to invaders, internal revolutionary strife, natural disasters, degeneration or loss of morals. Some civilisations tottered and erected themselves, perversely sometimes, such as England after the Viking invasions, and revitalisation after William the conqueror, Argentina after dictatorship, Russia after communism, China after Mao, the US after the civil war, Germany after the second world war, and more.