This was a subject I dropped when I became very sick. Now that life is going on, and the process of thinking and writing is approaching a tolerable level of reliability, I can revisit an important practical subject I've been meaning to get to for some time. It is just as well, as the harrowing accounts of the Texas freeze continue to circulate, piled atop the fresh aftermaths of the California wildfires and the early pandemic waves, still ongoing crises of their own that followed a slew of previous crises.
As much as I'd like to bellyache about the underlying conditions of political economy that have brought us to this point - one of my favorite things to do admittedly - which indeed form an integral component of the gradual and rolling cycles of destruction that continue to unfold, my aim is to curtail the scope of these posts to more immediate concerns, though it will still take some ground to cover to get even that far.
In previous parts of the series, I spent some warm-up time yammering on about a summary of intentions for the discussion, as well as the phenomenological underpinnings of the subject. Now I think it is time to cut to the chase.
Something as general a designation as the "built environment" points to processes and complexes of immense complexity, but I think it is safe to say that one of the foundational driving impulses underlying such a project is to anticipate and master "nature," a word which parsed out, is taken to mean that world increasingly separate from human affairs.
Indeed, as the project to anticipate and master "nature" progresses, the realm seems to become ever more alien and appear ever more far away in the perception. Contrast that to countless forms of indigenous thought, where "nature" is seen as inseparable from human affairs, and is treated not as a beast to "master" but as a component of spiritual self to commune with.
What you get in a built environment then is a rationalization and a systematization of that near-infinite array of labors and metabolisms to transfer energy from the environment into the human person, and an ever-growing phenomenological distance from that very environment. As Spengler noted, you start in the dirt, and then you get a progressing elaboration in structures still rising up out of the dirt, but soon enough, the whole of the soil is covered in built foundation to support ever larger and elaborate built structures.
The dirt itself just about disappears, or is at least relegated to neat and tidy planters and containers where it keeps to itself. Lines straighten and the once meandering village tightens up into the grid, to be counted out and categorized in accordance with a centralized system of accounting. Out of the heat and friction of constant complex repetition coalesces a generalized and universalized abstract code, allowing ever-greater towering cathedrals of abstraction.
The question arises: where is all of the energy and drive coming from for such a vigorous and explosive process? That certainly is a complicated question in itself, but I think one decent place to start is in the words of old homesteaders when you talk to them about undertaking the path that they tread. They'll tell you: oh, it can be quite an exciting and rewarding lifestyle sure. But for many of them, their thoughts will reliably drift to the hard times, to feelings that they don't want to feel again, but which can't be forgotten.
The experience of being on the verge of starvation, vividly illustrated in stories of eating powdered milk or even river silt out of desperation, or being stranded in a severe storm with someone gravely ill and unable to get medical help: these are visceral experiences that don't go away, and oftentimes the only possible lesson of them is: never again. The pleasant lighted avenues, the carefully built climate controlled dwellings, the running water and sanitation, the plentiful food, the advanced medical care, all of these things - with their politically and economically fraught issues of class and access no less - become highly desirable in this respect.
Here another question arises: how is it then that certain indigenous cultures can get by perfectly fine for thousands of years living off of the land, without the fear and alienation of the "natural world," and the accompanying drive to tame and master said world, and how do they get by without the massive build up and violent expansion seen in the proliferation of the "built environment," and its spread as far and wide as energetically possible?
Another complicated question, part of which lies in historical contingency. As thinkers like Paul Cooper have observed, what many of these civilizations have in common is their genesis in what can be viewed harsh and challenging environments, which provide the impetus and the drive for their mastery, the conditions of which are not extreme enough to completely suppress and snuff out the striving parties.
As history shows however, the same imbalances that lead to the towering accumulations of built environment tend to be expressed in the accumulations themselves, and through a long and steady dialectical inversion, begin to take on the chaotic, uncertain, and dangerous attributes of the "wilderness" that was thought to be mastered and surmounted.
Next, I'd like to get to the nature of that uncertainty in the built environment.
