Class self-segregation in cities makes citizens’ views of others hostage to fantasy

Evidence

The middle class feel threatened by the level of violence in the city centres and respond to it by withdrawing from public places. The home or street or suburb is intensively secured, perhaps placed under the surveillance of a private security firm, and is cast as a place of retreat from the hostile city. And the office or workplace, even if it is situated in the city, is increasingly insulated from it; there is direct access from private parking areas and lunchtime services are provided within its walls. The emerging pattern is one that bodes extremely ill for public life, for it ensures that the view which people have of others in their society, in particular the view that they have of those who do not belong to their own class and coterie, becomes hostage to fantasy. Lacking direct experience and contact across the different divides in their society, people can easily lose any sense of what is a matter of general belief and expectation in that society. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 759

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the noise/silence material on how segregation of experience erodes shared knowledge of society; connects to Carey on communication as the basis of shared public culture. — connects to: Urban self-ordering enabled humans to relate to far larger numbers of others; Segregating others forces self-segregation and breeds fascination with the denied; Gated rich communities and ghettos are mirror images sustaining segregation (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Segregating others forces self-segregation and breeds fascination with the denied #expands (0.85)
• Gated rich communities and ghettos are mirror images sustaining segregation #expands (0.80)
• Individual-level projection theories cannot explain consensual stereotypes shared across a society #complicates (0.75)
• Urban self-ordering enabled humans to relate to far larger numbers of others #expands (0.70)