Metamorphoses of the City: On the Western Dynamic

385 Pages·2013·1.029 MB·English

by  Pierre Manent, Marc LePain

METAMORPHOSES OF THE CITY

METAMORPHOSES OF THE CITY
On the Western Dynamic
Pierre Manent
Translated by Marc LePain
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2013
Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Originally published in French as Les métamorphoses de la cité by Flammarion,
© Flammarion, 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Manent, Pierre.
[Métamorphoses de la cité. En glish]
Metamorphoses of the city : on the Western dynamic / [Pierre Manent].
pages cm
“Originally published in French as Metamorphoses de la Cite by Flammarion, 2010.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 07294- 7 (alk. paper)
1. Cities and towns— History. 2. Cities and towns— Political aspects— History.
3. Municipal government—H istory. 4. Civilization, Western. I. Title.
HT113.M3613 2013
307.7609—dc23 2013006902
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Dynamic of the West 1
I
The Original Experience of the City
1 What Science for the City? 17
2 The Poetic Birth of the City 29
3 The Civic Operation 63
II
The Enigma of Rome
4 Rome and the Greeks 105
5 Rome as Seen by the Moderns 152
6 Cicero’s Inquiry 172
vi CONTENTS
III
Empire, Church, Nation
7 The Critique of Paganism 213
8 The Two Cities 274
9 The Stakes of Mediation 304
Notes 329
Index 365
METAMORPHOSES OF THE CITY

INTRODUCTION
The Dynamic of the West
We have been modern now for several centuries. We are modern and we
want to be modern. This is the orientation of the entire life of our societ-
ies in the West. There is frequent criticism of this or that aspect of mod-
ernization, and some even criticize “modernity” as such, but “conserva-
tive” efforts have succeeded only in slowing the movement at most, while
“conservative” endeavors in general have ended up accelerating the move-
ment. And so we want to be modern. We give ourselves an order to be
modern. But the fact that the will to be modern has been at work for
centuries means that we have not yet arrived at being truly modern. The
goal of the march that at several turns we thought we had reached
showed itself to be misleading, a sort of mirage; 1789, 1917, 1968, 1989
were only deceptive stages on a road that leads we know not where. The
Hebrews w ere lucky—t hey only wandered forty years in the wilderness.
What does it mean if this will, this command to be modern, does not
cease to remodel the conditions of common life, to make revolutions fol-
low revolutions, without ever arriving at its fulfi llment, without ever
arriving at a point where we could rest and say, “here at last is the goal
of our undertaking,” if this will or command never grasps its object?
How could we have willed for so long and allowed ourselves to be so
often deceived? Is it, perhaps, that we might not know what we truly
want?
As familiar as the signs or criteria of the modern may be for us, whether
it is a matter of architecture, art, science, or po liti cal or ga ni za tion, we do
not know what unites these traits or criteria and justifi es our designating
them by the same term. We are faced with a fact that resists explanation.
1