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AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

This may come as a shock but the world has changed.
It is still possible in England to ‘live in the country’, somewhat detached from the strictures of modern life. Some of my older ‘country’ relatives grew most of their own vegetables and kept chickens (some even caught fish and shot grouse and pigeons for food).
However 55% of the worlds population now live in cities, and cities are machines that need constant tending by their inhabitants to run smoothly. Cities need ‘nonplaces’ as adjustment points to make the city machine run and cities need transactional people to lubricate the city processes.
Is supermodernity dehumanising? I rather think so. But (heresy trigger warning) perhaps there are simply too many people to live lives of agency and individuality.

Xaven Taner
Xaven Taner
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

I think you may be right. Mass culture, which was born from out of the modern industrial city (and mass democracy), is antithetical to a life of true agency and meaning. The whole world is turning into a non-place, and with it the historical communities and forms of life associated with them are fast disappearing.

Mike Downing
Mike Downing
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Like Fritz Lang’s movie Metropolis but without the human, hopeful ending.

Last edited 1 year ago by Mike Downing
Xaven Taner
Xaven Taner
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

I think you may be right. Mass culture, which was born from out of the modern industrial city (and mass democracy), is antithetical to a life of true agency and meaning. The whole world is turning into a non-place, and with it the historical communities and forms of life associated with them are fast disappearing.

Mike Downing
Mike Downing
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Like Fritz Lang’s movie Metropolis but without the human, hopeful ending.

Last edited 1 year ago by Mike Downing
AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

This may come as a shock but the world has changed.
It is still possible in England to ‘live in the country’, somewhat detached from the strictures of modern life. Some of my older ‘country’ relatives grew most of their own vegetables and kept chickens (some even caught fish and shot grouse and pigeons for food).
However 55% of the worlds population now live in cities, and cities are machines that need constant tending by their inhabitants to run smoothly. Cities need ‘nonplaces’ as adjustment points to make the city machine run and cities need transactional people to lubricate the city processes.
Is supermodernity dehumanising? I rather think so. But (heresy trigger warning) perhaps there are simply too many people to live lives of agency and individuality.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

Interesting article, but there is so much more to talk about on this subject. Luxury hotels which are almost identical wherever one goes, and ersatz localism where restaurants and air bnbs conform to a clichéd tourist version of authenticity.

And especially, as a commenter has astutely noted – the relation to somewheres/anywheres. The development of “non-people”, who gravitate towards these non-places and are essentially tourists even in their own country.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

Interesting article, but there is so much more to talk about on this subject. Luxury hotels which are almost identical wherever one goes, and ersatz localism where restaurants and air bnbs conform to a clichéd tourist version of authenticity.

And especially, as a commenter has astutely noted – the relation to somewheres/anywheres. The development of “non-people”, who gravitate towards these non-places and are essentially tourists even in their own country.

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago

Interesting article. I wonder if this is a linked idea? The Somewheres and Anywheres idea (that seemed to receive publicity around the EU referendum in the UK).
Then thinking about travelling and passing through an airport. Worldwide they are so similar, one could be anywhere and I suppose (from this article) that you really are anywhere (or nowhere perhaps).
I am happy to class myself as a Somewhere person, the idea of “home” is strong within me. My Wife is less easy to compatmentalise, but I would say definitely leaning towards an Anywhere. She seems very happy and relaxed in airports, I find them stressful. I am one of those who plans and checks and looks for the signs to the gates and has my paperwork (or App work) all to hand etc etc. My Wife relaxes and doesn’t do anything (perhaps a little light shopping!).
I wish airports provided me with a sense of being at home when away!

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Buckley

I wished London would provide me with a “sense of being at home” when I lived there – but it never did. Perhaps large cities are also non-places.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

I felt very at home in London when I lived there. Perhaps that was bacause I am an intorvert, and felt – for the first time – at home in the general alienation

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Interesting comment; i do know what you mean. I was a student in London and had a similar feeling at first, but in the end i was happier to return to my Somewhere. I still enjoy visiting though, and having a better idea of its locations having spent periods of time there. Incidentally, i don’t think it’s any more alienating now than it was in the 1970s.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Murray
Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

It’s certainly easier to be anonymous in London than in a village.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Interesting comment; i do know what you mean. I was a student in London and had a similar feeling at first, but in the end i was happier to return to my Somewhere. I still enjoy visiting though, and having a better idea of its locations having spent periods of time there. Incidentally, i don’t think it’s any more alienating now than it was in the 1970s.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Murray
Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

It’s certainly easier to be anonymous in London than in a village.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

I don’t know. London is my village, and I don’t like to be away from it too long.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

I felt very at home in London when I lived there. Perhaps that was bacause I am an intorvert, and felt – for the first time – at home in the general alienation

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

I don’t know. London is my village, and I don’t like to be away from it too long.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Buckley

I wished London would provide me with a “sense of being at home” when I lived there – but it never did. Perhaps large cities are also non-places.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago

Interesting article. I wonder if this is a linked idea? The Somewheres and Anywheres idea (that seemed to receive publicity around the EU referendum in the UK).
Then thinking about travelling and passing through an airport. Worldwide they are so similar, one could be anywhere and I suppose (from this article) that you really are anywhere (or nowhere perhaps).
I am happy to class myself as a Somewhere person, the idea of “home” is strong within me. My Wife is less easy to compatmentalise, but I would say definitely leaning towards an Anywhere. She seems very happy and relaxed in airports, I find them stressful. I am one of those who plans and checks and looks for the signs to the gates and has my paperwork (or App work) all to hand etc etc. My Wife relaxes and doesn’t do anything (perhaps a little light shopping!).
I wish airports provided me with a sense of being at home when away!

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago

“The airport is perhaps the ultimate non-place, a “discontinuous city, whose vast populations … are entirely transient, purposeful and, for the most part, happy.””
I can assure you that I am never, EVER happy when I am at an airport. I can’t stand airports and can’t wait to get out of them again. Leeds-Bradford is a place I’m especially keen to get in and out of quickly.

Last edited 1 year ago by Katharine Eyre
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Ever tried Horan International? Otherwise known as Knock?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

May I recommend a large G&T or pint of good ale in the ubiquitous ‘Spoon’ in most flight side lounges? Does wonders for my nerves and always at a keen price. It’s one ‘anywhere’ feature of the modern day UK airport that I truly value.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Ever tried Horan International? Otherwise known as Knock?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

May I recommend a large G&T or pint of good ale in the ubiquitous ‘Spoon’ in most flight side lounges? Does wonders for my nerves and always at a keen price. It’s one ‘anywhere’ feature of the modern day UK airport that I truly value.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago

“The airport is perhaps the ultimate non-place, a “discontinuous city, whose vast populations … are entirely transient, purposeful and, for the most part, happy.””
I can assure you that I am never, EVER happy when I am at an airport. I can’t stand airports and can’t wait to get out of them again. Leeds-Bradford is a place I’m especially keen to get in and out of quickly.

Last edited 1 year ago by Katharine Eyre
Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

This is the endgame of globalism, a world of standardized, homogenized, interchangeable non-places, where the world looks mostly the same whether one lives in Rio, Beijing, London, or NY, where every man is an island looking out at the same dull ocean. A world no longer underpinned by cultural values, but by the generic, sterile doctrines of academia, scientifically designed doublespeak. Emphasize tolerance by enforcing ideological conformity. Be inclusive by excluding contrarian views. Increase diversity by breaking down all the values and institutions that led different groups of humans to form their own unique civilizations. Eliminate race, religion, nationality, borders, political parties, languages, and so on until there’s nothing left but a bland, mass produced, vacuous monoculture. Fortunately for us, there are other forces in nature besides technology, communications, money, economics, and the designs of our political overlords, and this will never work the way some think it will. I’m inherently more optimistic than Orwell. Like a psychological corollary to Newton’s third law, there are reactions corresponding to every action. If one applies a force to an object, there is necessarily a counter-force reaction. The more cultures, religions, and ideas any system tried to suppress or replace, the more force it would have to apply, and the greater the counter-force would become. The end result would be a tense system filled with paranoia, suspicion, anger, and civil strife. Like an overloaded boat, the system would be under constant strain. Governing would be an exercise in constantly whacking moles, dousing fires, and plugging leaks. Even a stiff breeze would send the boat teetering dangerously, to say nothing of an actual storm. See COVID for example, which is and was not much more dangerous than the flu, a threat to the sick, the old, the immunosuppressed, and so on, but wrought havoc upon our economy, supply chains, communities, relationships, political environments, and even our own psyches, and its effects are far from over. IMHO, the fears of some Orwellian global state are misplaced. They can have no final victory, for the same reason we can’t turn off gravity, go faster than light, or herd cats. We should fear, however, the damage an elite class deluded by the promise of utopia can cause in the attempt.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

This is the endgame of globalism, a world of standardized, homogenized, interchangeable non-places, where the world looks mostly the same whether one lives in Rio, Beijing, London, or NY, where every man is an island looking out at the same dull ocean. A world no longer underpinned by cultural values, but by the generic, sterile doctrines of academia, scientifically designed doublespeak. Emphasize tolerance by enforcing ideological conformity. Be inclusive by excluding contrarian views. Increase diversity by breaking down all the values and institutions that led different groups of humans to form their own unique civilizations. Eliminate race, religion, nationality, borders, political parties, languages, and so on until there’s nothing left but a bland, mass produced, vacuous monoculture. Fortunately for us, there are other forces in nature besides technology, communications, money, economics, and the designs of our political overlords, and this will never work the way some think it will. I’m inherently more optimistic than Orwell. Like a psychological corollary to Newton’s third law, there are reactions corresponding to every action. If one applies a force to an object, there is necessarily a counter-force reaction. The more cultures, religions, and ideas any system tried to suppress or replace, the more force it would have to apply, and the greater the counter-force would become. The end result would be a tense system filled with paranoia, suspicion, anger, and civil strife. Like an overloaded boat, the system would be under constant strain. Governing would be an exercise in constantly whacking moles, dousing fires, and plugging leaks. Even a stiff breeze would send the boat teetering dangerously, to say nothing of an actual storm. See COVID for example, which is and was not much more dangerous than the flu, a threat to the sick, the old, the immunosuppressed, and so on, but wrought havoc upon our economy, supply chains, communities, relationships, political environments, and even our own psyches, and its effects are far from over. IMHO, the fears of some Orwellian global state are misplaced. They can have no final victory, for the same reason we can’t turn off gravity, go faster than light, or herd cats. We should fear, however, the damage an elite class deluded by the promise of utopia can cause in the attempt.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Referencing the ‘radical’ act of walking across the arrows in Ikea reminds me that the arrows we saw appearing everywhere during Covid became something to be contravened. Lockdowns became the ultimate experiment in atomisation.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Yup. There’s something even more creepy about mildly coercive settings like IKEA.

The tendency for them to avoid challenge, by trying to make YOU out to be the difficult one.

One challenge I did was to tender my enneagram results at a Myers-Briggs session at an employer. The awkwardness was hilarious.

Try something like that, or walking the wrong way through IKEA.

The interactions can be very funny, and uncloak the true believer.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dumetrius
Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Yup. There’s something even more creepy about mildly coercive settings like IKEA.

The tendency for them to avoid challenge, by trying to make YOU out to be the difficult one.

One challenge I did was to tender my enneagram results at a Myers-Briggs session at an employer. The awkwardness was hilarious.

Try something like that, or walking the wrong way through IKEA.

The interactions can be very funny, and uncloak the true believer.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dumetrius
Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Referencing the ‘radical’ act of walking across the arrows in Ikea reminds me that the arrows we saw appearing everywhere during Covid became something to be contravened. Lockdowns became the ultimate experiment in atomisation.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

Really doesn’t live up to its title.

Why exactly are non-places robbing us of life, when looked at superficially they seem to provide us with a frictionless world centred on our needs? Why then are they so alienating, at least to some, while others love the reassurance that wherever they go they will get the same bundle of shops services and facilities (or tourist book versions of “otherness”) without ever coming up against any resistance. Where does their unreal quality come from – so striking to some of us, those I suppose who draw back and observe, or experience these places in ways they were not designed for – while others look perfectly, if oddly, at home.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

Really doesn’t live up to its title.

Why exactly are non-places robbing us of life, when looked at superficially they seem to provide us with a frictionless world centred on our needs? Why then are they so alienating, at least to some, while others love the reassurance that wherever they go they will get the same bundle of shops services and facilities (or tourist book versions of “otherness”) without ever coming up against any resistance. Where does their unreal quality come from – so striking to some of us, those I suppose who draw back and observe, or experience these places in ways they were not designed for – while others look perfectly, if oddly, at home.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

The picture looks like an Edward Hopper.

Anthony Roe
Anthony Roe
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Ed Ruscha.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Ironically it is most definitely a “place”.

Anthony Roe
Anthony Roe
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Ed Ruscha.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Ironically it is most definitely a “place”.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

The picture looks like an Edward Hopper.

Jake Prior
Jake Prior
1 year ago

Kind of interesting, although it doesn’t seem to expand much on Durkheim’s description of anomie from the end of the C19th. Maybe history really has ended.

Jake Prior
Jake Prior
1 year ago

Kind of interesting, although it doesn’t seem to expand much on Durkheim’s description of anomie from the end of the C19th. Maybe history really has ended.

Graeme
Graeme
1 year ago

I enjoyed this, and think that’s because the author is a scholar of Ballard, whose novels (I think) prefigure such an anthropology of non-places. (“Supercannes”?). I read Ballard when I was too young to understand him properly; this piece makes me want to re-read the later works.

Graeme
Graeme
1 year ago

I enjoyed this, and think that’s because the author is a scholar of Ballard, whose novels (I think) prefigure such an anthropology of non-places. (“Supercannes”?). I read Ballard when I was too young to understand him properly; this piece makes me want to re-read the later works.

Mark Kidel
Mark Kidel
1 year ago

Great to see Marc Augé acknowledged in a British context. His book was one of those works that changed my life. What the Englsh translation the title misss out is that ‘non-lieu’ n French has several meanings. The main one is legal and refers to a case that has ben dismissed. That adds a richness to the psychogeographic anomie that characterises so much modern living and architecture.

Mark Kidel
Mark Kidel
1 year ago

Great to see Marc Augé acknowledged in a British context. His book was one of those works that changed my life. What the Englsh translation the title misss out is that ‘non-lieu’ n French has several meanings. The main one is legal and refers to a case that has ben dismissed. That adds a richness to the psychogeographic anomie that characterises so much modern living and architecture.

Michel Starenky
Michel Starenky
1 year ago

We are widgets produced by the Industrial Widget Corporation.

Michel Starenky
Michel Starenky
1 year ago

We are widgets produced by the Industrial Widget Corporation.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago

Interesting article. I think most of us oscillate between the home and the journey, the somewhere and the anywhere. Life is a journey after all. Modernity though pushes us relentlessly into consumer units. If I have a sense of home, then being a passenger is quite pleasant. I like airports and bland hotels, watching people going to different places for all sorts of reasons, while there is not much else I can do. Maybe another coffee? Well, in small doses, I appreciate home so much more when I get back.

G K
G K
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Exactly, Abraham call or going camping in modern terms

G K
G K
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Exactly, Abraham call or going camping in modern terms

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago

Interesting article. I think most of us oscillate between the home and the journey, the somewhere and the anywhere. Life is a journey after all. Modernity though pushes us relentlessly into consumer units. If I have a sense of home, then being a passenger is quite pleasant. I like airports and bland hotels, watching people going to different places for all sorts of reasons, while there is not much else I can do. Maybe another coffee? Well, in small doses, I appreciate home so much more when I get back.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

This article misses the biggest non-place of them all: school.

G K
G K
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Oh, so true.

G K
G K
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Oh, so true.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

This article misses the biggest non-place of them all: school.

Marsha D
Marsha D
1 year ago

Ah… this sort of thing is one of the reasons why I read UnHerd. De Certeau and Augé gave me news eyes on my world. A timely reminder to re-read.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

A good example of inhabiting non-places:

https://youtube.com/shorts/8DQpSdGuWyA?feature=share