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City Question 3: Agoraphobia
Does agoraphobia seem like a likely, or at least possible, outcome from the social scattering and post-scarcity society that was setup early
on in the book? Do we see any correlatives in society today? Are there other ways that you feel society and individuals might change instead
in a situation like the one presented in the book?
Comments
Again, Asimov's Spacers (and especially Solarians) are a direct parallel.
Again, from a rural perspective what we find is that the folk with the money want the opportunity to spend short periods of time away from built-up society, but don't actually want to sacrifice social benefits like art, museums, posh coffee shops etc which are mainly to be found in cities. Suppose a Star Trek type matter transporter were to be invented... my guess would be that this would accelerate the idea of people's main home being somewhere urban but would intensify the trend towards second homes or similar in rural areas. IMHO you wouldn't get a mass exodus from the cities. I guess I'm saying that one of the foundational assumptions of Asimov and Simak here is that people have a single domicile, and the question is where to place it, whereas what we are seeing is more of a dilute pattern where people have access to multiple homes.
As I can see as I accompany my son on his rounds delivering flowers, rather than retreating to the country, people retreated into the city. Many people do not come out even to accept gifted flowers, and instead communicate to people through their doorbells/security systems and ask anything to be left on the porch. Everything is delivered now. The human species may become extinct purely through never meeting to share genetics. Of course that itself could be delivered, but who wants to have babies? That would be asking a thoroughly selfish people to want to share.
@clash_bowley 's thought about never meeting to exchange genes is pretty funny (I lolled), but I don't think the American xenophobic example is a very good one to use when considering the whole world. That said, apparently populations are declining around the world. We used to say it was just a first world thing.
The concept reminds me of Cities if Flight, in which there is also a mass diaspora of people leaving earth. But they're leaving in whole cities, so they are so much leaving the cities as taking the cities with them.
As the planet continues to warm, we may well see different patterns of migration. The next 100 years might well see more migration than the world has ever seen.
Sorry - that reply was rather disjointed - too many thoughts piling up at once.
It was meant to be chuckled over...
I also thought of Blish's Cities in Flight
Have not read Cities in Flight. Might need to give it a go. I don't recall if I see it kicking around.
I thought the agoraphobic angle was an interesting one. When I see the anxiety that younger generations appear (I say appear because I can't claim to know if it is supported by evidence) to have when needing to do simple things like place a phone call or ask where the washroom is in a restauraunt, I wonder if that isn't something along the same lines as what is being suggested in the book. That being said, I am not certain the causes are the same. On the flipside there is still a lot of socialising happening in younger folks, though it seems to be in more closed social media places like Discord, or Instagram group chats.
When I was reading it I thought it was just another example of a story about a man universalising his experience to be the only experience there is. Kind of a super rationalisation to enable the challenges of facing the complexities of the world. I wondered if there was something personal that drove this, or just an interesting idea to motivate a protagonist.
Actually that is something I haven't really settled. When I read say Bradbury, who has similar themes in his writing, this book and its nostalgia reminded me of both the Martian Chronicles and Illustrated Man, I have a clear understanding that they are stories that are evocative rather than representative of our world. Didn't get that from these. They seemed more like descriptive substitutes for the world.