Chapter
Civilization
Major League Village
Pittsburgh is a big village. Our city is a quaint Burgh, hardly metropolitan. Our city is too intimate to feel like a big-league city, yet Pittsburgh rates. Population isn't the only measure here as feelings count too.
Pittsburgh's special flavors need to be understood. Putting new insights into our landscape should compliment the scope and depth offered presently. Hopes to ignite our imagination can't torch what is just and precious.
Watching our systems work and sputter revealed a vision of a feudal Pittsburgh.
To be sure, a struggle brews in Pittsburgh between the old and the new. Old and new concepts need to be explained. We need to take some time to cover what exactly is meant by the old and new.
New buildings can yield old results.
Pittsburgh's new PNC Park is an old styled development. The building and ball field is new. But PNC Park might as well host games played by Honus Wagner or gladiators. Pittsburgh had North Side sports facilities.
Conventional wisdom says that Pittsburgh's popular landscape has been dotted with Renaissance I, II and III. Pittsburgh turned into a Golden Triangle instead of a dirty, dingy downtown. However, the 2001 Plan C Task Force hopes to rectify a dirty, dingy downtown. Three revivals delivered outward migration of more than 300,000. Pittsburgh went from 600,000 to 300,000. Given these trends, IV, V, and VI could push Pittsburgh's population to 150,000.
Trivial, trite, revisionist
Pittsburgh's renaissance was of the old-boys network. In the era of David Lawrence and R.K. Mellon, two men ruled the town. One was mayor for three terms and then became the governor. The other ran a bank. Those two leaders made all the decisions. They organized a renaissance.Little has happened within the fabric of our society in terms of a lifting of humanity's potential.
Pittsburgh got a face lift with new buildings and roads. Pittsburgh also seemed to have a cancer spread. The cancer within Pittsburgh's spirit presented a slow death that was harder to see. Its long-term ill effects were hard to realize.
The big, timeless lessons for Pittsburgh in I, II and III is yet to be etched in our collective history.
I think that it is safe to conclude that when the two people run a town, hundreds of people are going to flee every month.
Old and Happy
Being old is not bad. Out with the old and in with the new doesn't work here.
Churn or Development
To churn is not to develop. One minus one plus one still equals one. The new one may make the demolition and builders wealthy. Watch for sustainable development that increases without detracting from our fabric. When the new is contrasted with the old, look all the way back in the history to the conditions before the churn happened. Net gains matter in any measure of development.
The structure of Pittsburgh's society is old but not primitive. The oldness includes un-primitive old-boys-networks. What is truly primitive is hard to pinpoint. The people who named the Monongahela, the Shakers, the Fort Builders, the captains of industry, and all of our blessed past generations had complicated and advanced appreciations.
Old is often elegant. Old is not to be discounted because of its age.
Pittsburghers feel tugs and attachments to others in ways that other American citizens don't. Our ties among kinships and communities are to be respected and never taken lightly.
In world history, two forms of social organization have been distinguished. The forms admit variations of detail, but looking below the variety, two recurring types emerge: One is small, kinship groups. The other is larger, simply called military-organizations.
One thing is clear. At all times, people have lived in societies. Within societies, ties of kinship and of neighborhoods underlie every form of social organization. In the simplest societies it seems that these ties, reinforced and extended by religious or other beliefs, are the only ones that seriously counted.
Generations of extended families, intermarriage and neighborhoods have woven small, rude, close and compact communities. In simple settings, the local groups, the clans, and the village communities are often the centers of vigorous life.
Small kinship groups are often vigorous enough in themselves, but feeble for purposes of united action. Ties of kinship and neighborhood are effective only within narrow limits.
The opposite, large societies, vary in extent and in degree. Large societies range from a petty kingdom to the Chinese Empire. Larger aggregate of tribes and kinship seldom attain true social and political unity. Effectiveness on the larger scope rests upon a different type of tie, that of a military organization.
A Pittsburgher has a legacy with both the family and to larger organizations. The larger organizations, such as the unions, race, communities of worship, neighborhoods, and even to an economic class come into play. In Pittsburgh, there has been plenty of need for these military organizations. These military organizations present a way to fight with others.
Groups
Two bonding agents at work in civilizations include kinships (micro) and the millitary-type (macro). The tie of the millitary-type may have little or nothing to do with actual military service. The macro ties may rest on unions of military force and/or religious or quasi-religious belief.
The military ties establish a larger and more orderly society. Military ties come at a cost of much that is most valuable in primitive life, the local villages and kinships.
Consider how orderly but devistational military ties applied themselves with some families that were torn by the Civil War. Some family members fought with the South while brothers were of the North.
The two-party system helps to establish more orderly views. It is neat and orderly. Perhaps to a fault, talk shows can be represented by two guests, one speaking for the Democrats and the other for the Republicans.
Order
Order is not a high priority for our culture. We desire quality. We desire the best solutions. And, most of all, we desire freedom. Freedom isn't orderly. Democracy is messy. There are no easy, orderly formulas for the process of being in a dynamic society. Politics is the art of the possible. Trouble looms large when politics is about order.
A toothless evolution of a neighborhood business district is not attractive nor orderly. However, the priority is economics. Furthermore, priorities of order and economics are both less important than freedom. To hit our potential, we need to step beyond the lowly clamor for order.
To reach our potential, we need to come to know and understand the possible.
For example, TV news producers choose to follow the format for an one-on-one political debate between two the heavyweight candidates. The TV professionals choose the familiar. If we desire the best possible results, races with five rightful ballot options can't be with two seats at the debates.
Chapter
Preservation of Ties
Keeping strong ties among people helps make Pittsburgh thrive. Our strong ties make us distinctive. Enough can't be said about the strength of our ties. A supreme challenge is keeping out ties strong.
When a neighborhood church is crushed by the wrecking ball, the ties woven through that church snap. The experiences, feelings and even the smell become memories that can never be revisited. After the wrecking ball, hopes for first-person renewals are gone forever.
A site for a church (or any other non-profit institution) has a value. The value can be measured by a willing buyer in dollars. However, value for the community can't be measured so easily. The econmic value, the dollar value, the public value are all different and hard to compare. Wealth, in the eyes of the public, has little to do with profits. The public sector is different. A church, for example, has little to do with easily measured economic wealth.
A church, and the site's value, can come to represent a glue for society that is impossible to replace.
Meanwhile, a mill site is not a social institution. Places of work and industry are more about economics and the free market system where the dollar is the benchmark of value.
Neighborhoods had ties to mill sites. As the mills shut the neighborhoods often went in a period of drifting.
A mill site is not a social institution like a church. The value of a mill site is economic. The value of a church is more as its glue to society.
In different societies, people have different ties to their physical spaces. Consider four types of workers: farmers, industrial workers, office workers and technology workers. The first three settings have physical space ties to the land that is unlike the last. This shift is not to be taken lightly as we choose our ways for evolving our urban spaces.
In a world of agriculture, the farmers work the land and are tied to those physical spaces, naturally. In an urban, industrial world, workers are tied to the jobs and mill sites. In an office complex, the white-collar workers have ties to the cubicle, conference rooms, phones and water coolers. Bank workers need to process cancelled checks and physical paperwork. The traditional office actions are not similar with space relationships as to those of technology workers. The technology workers manage digital data.
History's Revolving Doors
Throughout history, waves of people moved from the country to the city. These moves broke ties to the land in one spot and reconnected the ties to the land in another spot. The ties shifted their attachments. The people in the country had ties to the ground and plantings. Then after the move to the city they had ties to the mill site and plants. Ties to plantations switched to factory. A farmer's relationship to his plot of land is much like that of a factory worker to the factory. The ties in both instances to were strong.
The office worker's relationship to the office space is still strict in most business settings in Pittsburgh. The people in the typical office have been able to hang around the water coolers, lunch rooms and perhaps, golf-course clubhouses. Today, with the internet, more technology workers are making office spaces much more flexible than that of the farmer, industrial worker and traditional office worker.
Digital Thinking
The evolution of the workspace is changing to a digital workflow. Outcomes of a day's toil are often digital.
The MIT license example
In the open-source software world, the technology works often slave over computer code and languages that are covered with The MIT License. With the MIT License, there is nothing to manage. Nobody is obliged to anybody for anything.
The MIT License Copyright (c)Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. - - - - Additional pointers: See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html and http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.html
Service
A service economy coupled with suburban lifestyles and better technology for distance-based learning and communications stretch the bounds of office, school and family. The ties of land and specific places are non-factors in many instances today.
Future Pittsburgh Downside
Pittsburgh's population can certainly dwindle further. Pittsburgh's trouble can accelerate. In the past, Pittsburgh acted like a heavy anchor that forced people to stay here. Connections among the spaces and the people are being crippled beyond repair. The mass of Pittsburghers are coming to realize that the connection to Pittsburgh as an urban space have evaporated.
Pittsburgh's outward migration can accelerate. Another 200,000 people could leave the city in the next few years. West Virginia may surpass the city. The point of the matter is, people do not need to live in Pittsburgh like they once did. As people become empowered, then the people can choose to live in Pittsburgh, or choose to leave.
One way to keep people in Pittsburgh is to lock them here. There are various ways to insure that people can't move away.
Modern ties between for people and places need close examination. A different mindset is necessary to face the new challenges of these different times. Today's capital is wired from place to place faster than the speed of light.
Tied To
Ties can attach to great, positive elements that serve to lift those around that part of the web of life. Or, ties can attached to negative forces. Sadly, ties can be made to trouble spots and act as anchors of despair. Strong ties that attach to stars of hope are assets. Weak ties, or worse yet, strong ties to negative symbols are liabilities.
Creating roads, MagLev and other transport systems might speed the downward spiral for Pittsburgh.
Reattachments
Perhaps members of a church can latch upon another place with a solid embrace. Perhaps a neighborhood can connect with a wider-business district or a valued recreation center.
Urban blight is neither about kinship nor military. Blight isn't a bonding agent. The blight is just some measure. The real fight isn't against the blight.
Negative bonds are more evident when looking within family dynamics. The sources and reactions to family stress can churn various hardships to hopelessness.
Life with a loved one in jail, no doubt, can work to compromise kinship bonds. Perhaps stressed family members are less willing to turn to the police in times of need. Perhaps stressed family members are more prone to lash-out at strangers when additional pressures mount. A family can't grow its wealth when one of its own is struggling with bankruptcy.
A positive state of kinship bonds could be visible as well. A family rich with emotional, loving bonds won't let the trouble of one pull them all down. Great ties and strength among tight families and various members can pull the vulnerable put back upon their feet.
Coutless efforts and opportunities can be presented by city leaders to assist citizens in matters of kindship ties. The start of those efforts makes for a shift in priorities. The middle is an awareness and appreciation to the real root problems. The clincher is the immagination so the various ideas can be expressed, crafted and refined in open discussions. The closing is the bedrock of principles when liverty and government rules are abided by.
The government leaders can't address kindship ties when the emphasis and priorities have been to corporations. And end to corporate welfare allows a new focus on the side of humanity. We've been burning the candle of our attention at the wrong end in our priorities. Furthermore, we can't be successful if we only light the other end and don't extinguish what we've been doing. We can't squander our attention and focus on two fronts, such as buring the candle at both ends.
Ties and bonds create order. Many macro-military ties exist for the purpose of creating order. Such order, once established, forces compliance. The rulers become invested with a sacrosanct authority. It may be that the leaders in military-organizations are gods or descendants of gods. It may be that they are blessed and upheld by an independent priesthood. In any case, expect that the powerful will extend their sway over the bodies and the minds of people. They are ordained because they arrange the ordination. Environments heavy with military ties make authority societies. The convenient description is authoritarian.
Ties of the military-organization nature serve not only to hold one tribe together, but also to hold other tribes in subjection. To be in subjection, is to be under the authority and control of another. Subjects are easily controlled, especially in relationships to rulers.
True social and political unity in Pittsburgh also came to rest upon the unions. At times, the unions become military-like organizations.
Authoritarian
An authoritarian government is not necessarily abhorrent to the people nor in different to them. But it is essentially government from above. So far as it affects the life of the people at all, it does so by imposing on them duties, as of military service, tribute, ordinances. Authorities get to impose new laws and new principles good to itself.
Government from above equals top-down government. Top-down government leads to greater occurrences of law that commands an imposition by a superior upon an inferior backed by sanctions that punish. This is not true of law in general. It is a roughly true description of law in Pittsburgh's a particular stage of society.
In the lower stages of civilization there appears to be only one method of suppressing the strife of hostile clans, maintaining the frontier against a common enemy, or establishing the demands of outward order. The alternative to authoritarian rule is relapse into the comparative anarchy of savage life. Authority and anarchy are at opposite ends of the spectrum in a low-stage of civilization.
Chapter
City-State
Models of Urban Living
Another system appears in history presenting depth, scope and awareness in our quest for understanding and leading in modern times. The city-state of ancient Greece and Italy presented a different type of social organization. The classical city-state emerged and was different in several ways.
Choice
The city-state was the coming together of separate clans for a comparatively equal alliance. The city-state formation came about as the result of proactive choice. The city-state was not an outgrowth of conquest. The city-state was pulled together by the positive forces of peace, not by war.
Growth that comes as a drive to peace is not the same as growth that comes as an escape from some other place of strife. The urban cities of the north grew in the middle 1900s as blacks moved away from the southern states. The solutions for thriving that we should aim to build and master in Pittsburgh have to be such that people from around the world choose to flock to our spaces. We need to pull people to us because of our splendid opportunities of both peace and prosperity.
Size
The city-state was very small as compared with an ancient empire or a modern state. The city-state was much larger than a primitive kindred.
Lifestyle
The city-state's life was more varied and complex. It allowed more free play to the individual. Indeed, as it developed, life in the city-state suppressed the kinship organization and substituted new divisions, geographical or otherwise.
Diverse
The city-state was not homogeneous. Different, once separate, diverse clans came together in the city-state. City-state places gathered people.
Basics
The city-state was not based on kinship, but on a concept of civic right. This civic right was a distinguished feature not only from the commune, but from the monarchy. Those of the city-state recognized and lived with understanding that law was not a command imposed by a superior government on a mass of subjects. On the contrary, government was itself subject to law. Law was the life of the city-state. The law was willingly supported by the entire body of free citizens in a city-state.
The city-state was a community of free people (mostly free men). Considered collectively, its citizens owned no master. They governed themselves. The people of the city-state were subject only to principles and rules of life descending from antiquity.
The relation of the individual to the community was close, direct, and natural. Their interests were obviously bound. Unless each did his duty, the city-state might easily be destroyed, and the population enslaved. Unless the city-state took thought for its citizens, it might easily decay.
Public Religion
The city-state had no fissure between political and religious life. The claims of the secular and the spiritual went their own ways. Crossover sounds of either the church nor the city-state did not distract the allegiance. Church vs. State battles could have set the authority of conscience against the duties of patriotism. Hence, they went their own ways.
Subjection
Pittsburghers are quick to assume various roles as subjects. Subjects owe allegiances. Allegiances make for heavy weights that need to be understood and evaluated. Since subjects are ones who owe others, subjects have comfort with debt. Subjects owe, or at least subjects think that they owe. Those who are comfortable in roles as subjects are also comfortable with debt.
Pittsburghers owe allegiances to churches, unions, and political parties. We are subjects in many areas of life. We are subjects in research, industry, and government.
Chapter
Debt
Oh Owe
The acceptance of debt among Pittsburghers is staggering. In part, Pittsburghers' nature as willing subjects makes Pittsburgh vulnerable to government's leaders who opt to easily exploit their powers. Pittsburgh has subjected itself to the contempt of others for long periods. This is a weakness that needs to addressed.
Political Debt
Political debt is overblown. Many older Pittsburghers have been lifelong political party members. Most will always be of a certain political party because of the heavy debt felt obligated to that party. The actual debt is minimal, yet, the mind set of being in the role of a subject is maximal.
Political debt converts to dollars from time to time in Pittsburgh.
Subjects in research
In the name of science, industry and entertainment, we have undergone treatments, experiments, analysis, and dissection.
Pittsburgh is home to great research institutions including UPMC/University of Pittsburgh/Childrens Hospital. Pittsburgh presents a wonderful place for research because of easy and abundant pools of subjects.
Flourishing Thoughts
Sharp Neighbors
Great historical movements are accented by great thoughts among the people. In ancient Greece, the philosophical imaginations of the people soared. Plato, Socraties and others were in their midst. In the time of the American Revolution, the words of Thomas Paine spread. He was one of many great thinkers that get large measures of credit in that period.
For the city to soar, the citizens need to ponder big thoughts concerning our civic ways. Our brains need to tune into a new sense of philosophy, reason and maturity.
To flourish in the future, ponder big thoughts today. Learn from insightful mentors. Engage in high-minded discourse.
To assume that our civic life is going to soar because we have great people in our midst thinking great thoughts in other pursuits of life is a mere flirt. Greatness abounds. Many Pittsburghers flourish in their own rights on international stages. However, their brainpower may not transfer with an automatic segway to our local neighborhoods. Effort needs to be exerted in the civic scope to yield civic results. We need to inject toils of thought into the natural conditions of Pittsburgh if we are to thrive as a civic space. We can't harvest fruits where there have been no sowing of seeds.
Pittsburgh's talent from individuals who grace international stages points to a potential for civic engagements. However, beware. Potential and reality are not similar. The experts are more often than not so consumed in their own disciplines that they might not be able to see the forest through the trees. These neighbor stars might be too comfortable with the boss-to-subordinate roles that have less practicalities in a civic partnership among equal citizens. Some of our international stars are bound to be old-school experts. Other Pittsburghers who are stars in their own rights might be concentrated in up scale neighborhoods and more suburban locations. We might not desire the expert star citizens who reside in Shadyside to come over and fix troubles in Knoxville.
Furthermore, the people that Mayor Murphy had been listening to might have been the ones who were creating the demand for an up scale department store such as Nordstrom.
The upwardly mobile people of Pittsburgh are the ones who are going somewhere. Consider the truth in the slogan, "going somewhere." Perhaps they are going somewhere else and are not staying put, not saying in Pittsburgh. Those who are going somewhere might be compounding the white flight from the cities. We have experienced a time when a lot of Pittsburghers have been "going somewhere." Too many have gone by moving themselves out of the city. Pittsburgh has been on the move, one moving van at a time.
Should the City of Pittsburgh hit a deeper depression, that group within our demographics can go elsewhere. They have the money to move. They are not stuck here as the poorer would find themselves. The "upwardly mobile" might move out when the bottom falls out of their home neighborhoods.
The patrons at the ballet as well as the high-rollers in the luxury boxes at the stadiums are not predominantly residents of the City of Pittsburgh.
Chapter
Building
Pittsburgh is populated with engineers. A plethera of engineers could be a tremendous asset for the region. We have many experiences in building, designing, calculating, and evaluating systems and processes. We handle delicate glass, light aluminum, durable coatings, and steel for bridges.
What we don't have is much leverage of this engineering talent in civic pursuits. We need the talented to engage.
Heavy Listening
Most of all, we need the governmental leaders to listen. The listening needs to be as artful and skilled as the delivery agent requires. The desire to listen and the capacity to listen. Both need to be working before successful encounters can occur, evolve and flourish.
The listening, cooperation and work with the people is the way to win Pittsburgh's way back to admiration. Both the world and our residents, our harshest critics, want greater civic success. Insist upon listening capabilities and demonstrations from politicians and candidates.
The broken DAD model: Decide, Announce, Defend. A better DAD model: Describe, Associate, Discuss.
Naturally, the future conditions of life hinge upon some difficult decisions in the present. Pittsburgh needs to elevate people into offices of power and influence who are skilled decision makers, thoughtful agents with interactions and masters at listening. No problem is large when all of Pittsburgh's brain power can be leveraged in the decision process.
Listener's Value of Weight of Voices
Is what you say important, or is who you are when you say it important? To listen well, the listener needs to focus upon the message and not upon the messenger. An elitist mayor might be much more willing to entertain comments from and actually listen to those who are CEOs. Average citizens in Pittsburgh have been turned off by a lack of listening by the Mayor Murphy Administration for years.
- For Pittsburgh to thrive, we need:
- Expert guidance tempered with democracy viewpoints from the cutting-edge citizens who interact and impact all phases of government from the fanciful to the mundane.
- The ordinary and non-scholars need to hold onto a splendor in attitude and expectations.
- Good faith efforts for listening in the leadership needs to make our communications happen in better ways by investing in those infrastructure elements.
Withering Ways
The Ancient Greek city-state withered with serious limitations at its roots. The downfall of the city-state had to do with responsibilities and privileges based upon the rights of citizenship. Citizenship did not extend to all of the community. Citizenship didn't hinge upon the rights of a person.
The city-state crashed because life in the city-state was less than fair.
The Greek city-state population included slaves and serfs. In many places, large classes descended from conquered populations. Some of these people were personally free, but they were excluded from the governing circle. The city-state was constantly torn by these disputes of faction. The disputes brewed because of the legacy of the old clan organization, a consequence of the growth of wealth, and the newer distinction of classes.
Feds
Interstate relations for city-state dealings escalated the evil within factions. The Greek city-state clung to autonomy. Federalism might have solved a few of the larger problems of the city-state in Greece, but federalism took hold too late in Greek history to save the nation.
Life for a city within the United States in 2001 is quite secure. Pittsburgh enjoys superior assets in both autonomy and federalism. Distant lands that want to dominate Pittsburgh. Thankfully, the worries of Pittsburgh are not from war with Stubenville or others.
Pittsburgh Embasy
Pittsburgh's present needs do not call for a diplomat so as to structure peace with armies that could rise up and crush our citizens. The traits of a foreign-relations diplomat have their merit in some other time and place. Rather now, Pittsburgh's situation needs passionate leadership for internal city engagements. Pittsburgh needs large dosages of serious justice, inclusion and coaching. We need leaders who want to begin the process of earnest self-government from Brighton Heights to Bon Aire. We can't waste terms with low-quality interactions and mushy, greed filled, envious attitudes. We need top-flight self-discovery and civic service.
The City of Pittsburgh enjoys relationships with the larger governmental jurisdictions: county, state and nation. These relationships are assets. However, those relationships are fortunes not solutions.
The citizens of the city, the citizens of the county, city government and county government make up various elements that overlap. Citizens in the city live within the county. The relationship of greatest value is the one between the citizens to its government. Large troubles are expected when the city government values its relationship with another governmental agency before its relationship with its own citizens. The relationship for the leaders of the City of Pittsburgh's to the leaders of the Allegheney County government must take a back-seat.
Gene Riccardi, City Council member should not worry about the city's dealings with the County so as to not rock the boat and hamper the building of the hotel at the Convention Center site. Rather, Gene Riccardi needs to worry about his relationship to the citizens of his district.
Self interest can not be compromised.
Politics of the international, federal, and state flavors can become sinks and serious distractions for locals. A buzz about local politics can get our house in order locally.
Pittsburghers can't worry for weeks and dwell only on strained USA - China relationships. Let's not perseverate about the downing of a survailance plane at the cost of downing a local historical structure. Sadly, that has been happening. The wasted opportunities for interactions gobbled up because of the Florida recount vote hurt us.
Pittsburgh is blessed with these times and our associations with Harrisburg and Washington D.C. However, those associations can't come to our rescue and fix our problems that are internal. Pittsburgh needs to fix itself. Pittsburgh needs to pull our own solutions onto the community-wide discussion table. Pittsburgh needs to find internal powers and measures of dealing with the people and challenges that are in Pittsburgh now.
Roaming Rome
Ancient Rome devised a different method of dealing with the political problems involved in expanding borders and relations. Roman citizenship extended far and wide. Roman citizenship came to include all of Italy. Later, Roman citizenship comprised the free population of the Mediterranean basin. This extension was fatal to the free self-government of a city-state. The population of Italy could not meet in the Forum of Rome or the Plain of Mars to elect its leaders and pass the laws. The more widely the citizenship was extended, the less valuable it became for any political purpose.
We have a physical and virtual capacity to gather as never before in history. The problems of gathering have vanished. Yet they worsen at the hands of the media and corporate, if not govermental interests.
With the internet, cable, convention centers, stadiums and civic arena(s), the problems of gathering could be totally eliminated, it seems to me, in my humble opinion. The information infrastructure is lacking. But, these missing links in the information infrastructure are much smaller hurdles than what the Romans faced or to what Ben Franklin faced. The struggle for our age is those final steps. But, the stuggle for Pittsburgh seems to be more with the will to make gathering a priority of serious consequence. We need to build community to prevent our community from crumbling. Ground swells of citizen participation can be organized for mutual benefits.
A gathering in 2000 makes a splendid exmaple. Pittsburghers happened to gather in the physical space of the Mellon Arena and on-line with a web site hosted by Free Markets for the auction of stripped artifacts from Three Rivers Stadium. We gathered in a temporary, micro-marketplace and did the work of the people with plenty of transactions.
Machine Politics
The history of Rome illustrates a building of an extended empire by military force and the maintenance of peace and order through a bureaucratic machine. In the vast systems of Rome, the army was the seat of power. Each army at a distant post was a seat of potential power.
A sanctity with the emperor gave a dim remembrance of an embodied popular will. The fact of the matter was that the emperor was the choice of a powerful army. Truth be told, the emperor was ratified by battles and maintained power as long as he could suppress rivals.
Feudal Order
"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
William Pitt
Order was a compromise between central and local jurisdictions. On the local side, a prince came to power who was to owe an allegiance, more or less, to a distant sovereign. Vassals existed then. Vassals were people who held land under the feudal system. They did homage and pledging to an overlord, performed military services and other duties in return for protection. Vassals were feudal tenants and subordinate to the real powers elsewhere.
The social structure of the Middle Ages assumed hierarchical forms. The feudal application of authority said every man had his master. The serf held of his lord, who held of a great seigneur, who held of the king. The king held of the emperor, who was crowned by the Pope, who held of St. Peter. The chain of descent was complete from the Ruler of the universe to the humblest of the serfs.
The feudal way was very ordered. Order had its advantages. Within this order, a growth of industry and commerce came into being. Marketplaces and gathering points were able to spark enterprise. Within towns and with the aid of the thoughts flowing from within and around the free market, in turn, new centers of freedom were able to emerge. The towns became places where the citizens learned anew the lessons of association for united defense and the regulation of common interests.
What is certain is that the thoughts flowed as a result of movements to free markets. Cities and great people with great thoughts connected, organized themselves and thrived by choice.
The feudal system broke with an evolution that began with order. As the growth came for merchants and the industrious, the free markets insured a move to independence. The independence resulted in a reversed view of the feudal ways. The new positions that emerged, unlike the prior feudal ones, said the authority of government comes from the governed. The authority of the government rests within the people and with each individual person.
The people from the city-state came to understand that the free market ways would not work in a system of authority. The marketplace needed to be fluid to function. A market can't live with the shcakles of order.
History's common-ground lessons concerning city-life flow in ancient Greece, ancient Rome and again in England under the crown. In England, great power was developed as a result of various conquests. Throughout world history, the central power was at its strongest in England. However, the "corporate towns" of England became for many purposes self-governing communities. The city-state emerged again. Astonishingly, the occurance of the city-state in England came with an outburst of activity, a revival of literature and the arts. The city-state came to make a rediscovery of ancient learning. This meant the world was able to have a rebirth of philosophy and science.
History's highlights reveal a confluence between great civic thinkers and the emergence of great city-states. Development happened in unison. Splendid lessons and directions for Pittsburgh can emerge if we turn our attentions upon ourselves with inward civic concentrations. We have the talented thinkers in Pittsburgh, but the brain power isn't applied. We can build a great urban landscape by building great personhood and thinkers.
Unison
As Pittsburghers soars, so will Pittsburgher. The inverse is not true.
The concept of unison is a distinctive characteristic for Pittsburgh with many dimensions. Pittsburgh presents the unison of two rivers to form a third river. The river union that comes to a point in Pittsburgh is made possible because of the upstream forces. Two rivers gather all the forces of all sorts of contributaries from throughout the region.
The most successful developments pending for Pittsburgh's future needs to occur within a serious connection that overtly links the past to the future. Future development without a strong sense of unison to the past is going to flounder and perhaps fail repeatedly.
County Executive James Rodday said that the old, David Lawrence Convention Center, a building that was torn down in an expansion of a new one in June 2001, "did not serve our community well. That building could have been torn down the year after it was built." He didn't think that the building had good measures of customer service.
Perhaps the old Convention Center, named after a very strong authority-driven past Mayor, did not fit. Perhaps it didn't have a good measure of unision with the overall Pittsburgh landscape. Perhaps the line from the movie, Field of Dreams, "build it and they will come," is not a given truth in Pittsburgh.
We'll need to stand upon the shoulders of thought from other great times in other splendid places. Boston and Paris need to be understood along with Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo-Emerson. Who among us can connect the greatness that has been found elsewhere to the present day places, people and struggles of Pittsburgh?
City Mouse & Country Mouse
In the country however, the ties to the land were much harder to avoid. In the country, people are less able to mingle, share thoughts, and evolve in community pursuits.
Chapter
Slavery
Teaming Can of Worms
Slavery makes a huge can of worms. However, others exist as well. The formula for success for Pittsburgh's future has part of its key within the understandings of slavery as well as within those other issues. Pittsburgh needs to discover its success within all the cases of various struggles.
The Compelling Sense venture aims to aggitate, instigate and open all of the various cans of worms that we need to deal with in our society.
Pittsburgh, as a city, is like a huge can of worms. We are tangled, dirty in areas, teaming in others, and all mixed in a tight landscape. Slavery is still part of this can, yet today. Let's not discount it and let's not let it be the end all to all solutions.
Long Ago
The mediaeval city-state was better than the ancient city-state in that slavery was not an essential element in its existence. On the contrary, by welcoming the fugitive serf and vindicating his freedom it contributed powerfully to the decline of the milder form of servitude. But like the ancient city-state, the medieval city-state was seriously and permanently weakened by internal factions. And, like the ancient, it rested the privileges of its members not on the rights of human personhood, but on the responsibilities of citizenship. The medieval city-state knew not so much liberty as rights of corporations secured by charter.
A massive medieval era struggle concerned the rights of the city-state as a whole secured against a local lord, a king, and the rest of the world. The struggle included the fight for rights of guilds and crafts within the city-state. And, the struggle came to take hold upon the men and women only as they were members of such bodies.
Progressive
The struggles in Pittsburgh seem to often mirror the struggles of the medieval city-state. How sad.
A sign of progress is the capacity to create new mistakes. There are enough battle and mistakes to be made in life that we should strive to create our own, not repeat those blunders of others.
As Pittsburgh fights among a guild (unions, AAWU) to another (City, Dick Corp.) -- we are not being progressive.
Isolation
The concept of isolation presents a serious threat to wellness. In an organic setting, isolation is one sure way to death. Isolation is at the opposite end of the spectrum in values of integration, networked, interdependent web of life and harmony.
The noted isolation with the city-state was because the city-state became a place of relative freedom within borders of a feudal society. The isolation of the city-state made the city-state much like an island of freedoms. Being an island in terms of being urban is horrible. Cities that want to thrive need to work against the concepts of gated communities.
The geography of the Pittsburgh area is unlike an island, a body of land surrounded by water. Rather, our land is divided by water. Few cities are islands. Many are ports.
Nations
The real weakness of the city-state was its isolation as a pocket of freedom that came to be sewn into the trousers of a nation. The nation grew more powerful with generations. Improved communications assisted those with central power. Particularly in France and England, the nation-state began to gain upon the locals. Disobedience and disorder was more easily suppressed. Great unified nation-states, the foundation of modern nations, were forces on the landscape.
The emergence of the nation widened, and in some respects, improved social order. With the nation, civic autonomy came to suppress local anarchy and feudal privilege. As the nations came into being, a national order was established. The national order depressed a good deal of the freedoms that were found flourishing in the cities and was able to increase some of the freedoms in the country where freedom was much more rare. The new national fabric dampened the most vibrant.
The growth of centralization was incompatible with civic independence.
America's story of becoming a nation included the union of 13 states. The United States formed a nation. Putting all of those places under the same flag made for more order. Plus, the national trends softened the distinctive edge and characteristics of all of its locations. Being united increased the unison and decreased the dis-union or distinctions.For the next centuries, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, all east-coast cities, would evolved in their own ways but upon the same, general pathways. The nation would have a hand in steering a course throughout the ages.
As history entered the modern period, society was thoroughly authoritarian. The modern-state starts from the basis of an authoritarian order. Kingly powers were supreme. Below the king, the social hierarchy extended from the great territorial lord to the day-laborer.
The tend was towards arbitrary despotism. To be arbitrary is to be unjust. The concept of arbitrary needs to come into focus.
Arbitrary is an adj: not fixed by rules but left to one's judgment or choice; discretionary. Based on one's preference, notion, whim, etc. Capricious. Absolute; despotic. Dictatorial.
To be random, however, is not to be unjust. Random and arbitrary are different concepts.
With the modern-state, the one point gained as compared to earlier forms of society is freedeom. The base of the pyramid of class started to enjoy personal freedom. Serfdom had virtually disappeared. In the greater part, slavery either vanished or became obnoxious incidents. The modern-state's emergence heightened the divorce of the peasant from the soil. That laid the foundation of many future social problems.
The soil, space and peasant relationships get additional discussions in other sections.
Chapter
Liberalism
Challenge conventional wisdon. Challenge Corporate Welfare!
Conventional wisdom contends that Pittsburgh has been a liberal town. Democrats are the liberal party. The liberal tag and the meaning of liberalism needs great scrunity in Pittsburgh in 2001. Liberalism is a historic term that has been kicked around well before John F. Kennedy.
What does it mean to be liberal, non-liberal and conservative? Those terms need more distilling.
Modern Pittsburgh goes far towards incorporating the elements of Liberal principle. When we have seen what these are, and to what extent they are actually realized, we shall be in a better position to understand the essentials of Liberalism, and determine its permanent value with our decisions for the immediate future.
The protest against that order of the modern-state authority marked the historic beginning of Liberalism. The protest covered religious, political, economic, social, and ethical grounds.
At first, Liberalism appear as a criticism. Sometimes it is even a destructive and revolutionary criticism. This negative aspect of Liberalism makes it not so much to build up as to pull down. Liberals strive to remove obstacles which block human progress. Liberals find humanity oppressed, and would work to set it free. Non-liberals find humanity free and work to remove larger oppressors. The Non-Liberals point out the positive goal of the endeavor.
Being critical injects tension. Tension can be to pull or push to the left or to the right. Being critical and injecting tensions are not an exclusive domain of the Liberals, but it is frequent for all aggitators.
Liberals find humanity oppressed, and would work to set it free.
Non-liberals find humanity free and work to remove larger oppressors.
Liberals finds a people groaning under arbitrary rule, a nation in bondage to a conquering race, industrial enterprise obstructed by social privileges or crippled by taxation, and Liberalism offers relief from those perspectives.
Everywhere real Liberalism resides, note how the aim of the Liberalism is to remove super incumbent weights, knocking off fetters, clearing away obstructions. Yet there is more. Liberalism does as much for the reconstruction that will be necessary when the demolition is complete. The predominance of critical and destructive work should be matched with an ultimate reconstructive power. The work of reconstruction goes on side by side with that of demolition.
More to come.
Reactions most welcomed, of course, if public.
