Explain the Significance of Cities for Contemporary Social and Mental Life
George Simmel in the article, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” argues that that people in the contemporary world encounter problems as they try to maintain independence from the present sovereign powers. This occurs due to the presence of historical cultural practices that disrupt the state of independence. The eighteenth century view attempts to escape the conflict by fashioning a life of liberation of the historical and cultural ties. The nineteenth century seeks to promote a person’s individuality in pursuit of uniqueness and indispensable attributes. The author argues that this attributes make a person more dependable than in the eighteenth century. Nietzsche opinion contravenes that of Simmel. His claim is that the full development of a person emerges through socialism and using work as a motivating factor. In so doing, an individual can resist the forms of modern technology that tend to divert people from the prior setting. The author claims that there seems to be a relationship between the current metropolis and the social structure. This eventually leads to the existence of individuality due to forceful adaptation. Simmel argues that the psychological foundation of the metropolitan changes people internal stimuli. His claim is that humans are created with the ability to adapt to changes that take place in the universe. Humans often react in the face of different economic and social setting that happen every day. The author suggests that human minds contain a degree of awareness and response in the face of the existing metropolis. The mental life leads to intellectualism as the mind exacerbates feelings towards the metropolis. The author claims that this happens unconsciously to attain equilibrium. One author refutes this claim and offers the following grounds: People accustomed to the metropolitan life have natural individual modifications to enable them create a protective organ that shields them from any fluctuations. This author continues to inform that the metropolitan does not react emotionally rather reacts rationally to create mental predominance. The opinion of the author is that the metropolitan person reacts because of events that are not sensitive to the depths of the personality. The author makes a claim that the metropolis acts as a commercial center due to the concentration of activities unlike the life in the rural setting. The intellect refutes this claim by making suggestion that: the domination of the economy is a matter of attitude that one can resist once they have the will to do so. The intellect claims that he is a unique element that has the capacity to withstand the influence of money in his life. The intellect considers money as a unifying factor to all people. The intellectual relates with people in the society the same way he deals with money. The author claims that the form of life in the metropolis emanates from interactions of the intellect.
United States sociologist Louis Wirth in the article, “Urbanism as a Way of Life” argues that a city has a large, dense, and permanent settlement with socially heterogeneous people. Some geologists and historians refute this claim in their attempt to isolate some significant attributes of the urban life. Louis theory of urbanism claims that his sociological viewpoint has undergone empirical research in the face of the evident research materials. Louis claims the existence of presumptive evidence and accepted hypotheses to justify the urbanism theory. Most of the historians and scholars disagree on the issue of a city having compact settlements having heterogeneous people. Louis reiterates that urbanism assumes dense population, heterogeneous people, and accentuated attributes. Louis claims that the definition of the city needs inclusion of the significant attributes without the need for unnecessary assumptions.
A large number of people imply many people concentrating in one place to create high-density settlement. Some people claim that large numbers and density are interrelated factors. This is because each derives its own connection with own individual social consequence. Some people criticize the addition of heterogeneity to the population to derive urbanism. The authors claim that heterogeneity adds to the population and fails representation on the large numbers. The authors suggest that the population of the city does not reproduce itself. In retro respect, the city derives the large numbers from immigrants living from the countryside or other regions in the world. In light of this statement, America dominates by having a mix of different cultures in the nation because they are different and useful instead of the fact of like- minded. An author claims that the increasing number of people in one area affects their relationship as well as the character of the city.
The size of the population aggregate can vary in their participation and their interaction. Louis claims that urban people have different personal traits, occupations, and ideologies compared to the people in the rural areas that have wide poles. The author’s opinion is that racial segregation, social status, and ethnic issues emerge due to the coexistence of people in the urban area. The author argues that a traditional setting with bonds of kinship and emotion sentiments do not separate the people according to color or any other preference. In a traditional setting people work in solidarity to ensure the entire community remains in unison. The theory of Max Weber claims that it is possible for most of the people to know one another in a personal way. The sociological point of view claims that the large number of peoples concentrating in one area lack coherence in their social relationship. Simmel argues that the external contact of people in the city can compare to the relationship in the rural area. Simmel says that the multiplication of people in an area by condition makes it impossible for them to interact socially to produce human relationships. According to Simmel, urban personality produces few instances of acquaintances compared to people in the rural area. This means that people relate with others that they know as they do their daily duties that represents only a small portion.
