Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
131
diversity and social identities are part of the large scope of their research and teaching – for
which I would like to congratulate and thank my two colleagues on this occasion.
I do not have the ambition to deliver a substantial scientific contribution to the very rich
program of your conference. And since we are waiting for the
Apéritif riche
, you rightly expect
richness other than the words of a Rector. I do not want to test your patience – allow me, though,
to add two personal thoughts which came to mind as I reflected upon the fascinating topic of this
conference.
First, according to biblical mythology it is not the town, the urban condition, which is the
natural environment of humanity but the garden – the peaceful dwelling in harmony with a non-
aggressive nature. The town is linked with the condition of a ‘lost paradise’, with the struggle for
life, the search for protection within an environment which has become aggressive. I am always
impressed by the negative connotations the biblical tradition gives to towns. In this sense, towns
are
refuges in times of war
or even places in which murderers can take sanctuary. There is a
mysterious link between town and homicide. The first city is situated ‘east of Eden’ – it was built
by Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. The building of cities can be an expression of a claim
for the concentration of power and the arrogance of mankind: ‘Come, they said, let us build
ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves; or we
shall be dispersed all over the earth’ (Gen 11, 4). Even Jerusalem, the biblical epitome of a city,
does not escape this negative understanding of the urban condition. It is the city ‘that murders the
prophets and stones the messengers sent to her’ (Mt 23, 37). This contrasts with the true and new
Jerusalem – the city of peace, a mother for people from every race (Ps 87, 5), which refers to the
heavenly Jerusalem, where the negative sides of the urban condition are healed: no more
suffering, no more tears, no more danger – ‘the gates of the city shall never be shut’ (Revelation
22, 24).
Second, in its political philosophy, Greece has developed a less dramatic understanding of
the urban condition of humanity. The
polis
is born out of the naturally given fact that no-one can
exist in a self-sufficient, autarchic way. Everyone is called to contribute, according to their talents
and at the right time, to the practical organization of life.
Polis
is a form of life – a Lebensform.
In this sense, the
polis
precedes, as it were, the individual person; it offers the possibility, and the
right condition, for the individual actor to realize his or her aims in conformity with his or her
qualities. For Plato this ideal and just way of life is not guaranteed by a single or a collective
power but by knowledge – embodied by the king-philosopher. Aristotle emphasizes that, when it
comes to organize education, subsistence and the economy, the urban condition should be ruled
and organized through the freedom of those who accept the predominance, and the attendant
direction, of reason. I am always impressed by the fact that Aristotle insists on the importance of
friendship in the organization of the
polis
; where ‘friends’ are people who are willing to live and
to act together.
Polis
as an ethical way of living together in an organized society also implies the
logos
, which is at once reason and speech. Valuable, I think, in today’s world too, reason and
speech enable us to survive as human beings in changing urban conditions. Let me quote
