Metropolitan life forces a rational over emotional response to protect the psyche

Evidence

The psychological foundation, upon which the metropolitan individuality is erected, is the intensification of emotional life due to the swift and continuous shift of external and internal stimuli. Man is a creature whose existence is dependent on differences, i.e., his mind is stimulated by the difference between present impressions and those which have preceded. Lasting impressions, the slightness in their differences, the habituated regularity of their course and contrasts between them, consume, so to speak, less mental energy than the rapid telescoping of changing images, pronounced differences within what is grasped at a single glance, and the unexpectedness of violent stimuli. To the extent that the metropolis creates these psychological conditions—with every crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic, occupational and social life—it creates in the sensory foundations of mental life, and in the degree of awareness necessitated by our organization as creatures dependent on differences, a deep contrast with the slower, more habitual, more smoothly flowing rhythm of the sensory-mental phase of small town and rural existence. … Thus the metropolitan type—which naturally takes on a thousand individual modifications—creates a protective organ for itself against the profound disruption with which the fluctuations and discontinuities of the external milieu threaten it. Instead of reacting emotionally, the metropolitan type reacts primarily in a rational manner, thus creating a mental predominance through the intensification of consciousness, which in turn is caused by it. Thus the reaction of the metropolitan person to those events is moved to a sphere of mental activity which is least sensitive and which is furthest removed from the depths of the personality. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 749

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the psychological basis of the metropolitan type before the blasé attitude is introduced.
• XREF: connects to: Urban exactitude suppresses irrational, instinctive, sovereign impulses — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 751; Extreme urban noise can override a person’s own self-image and defenses — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 32; Feelings accumulate from experience while emotions are immediate survival reactions — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 244 (+2 more)

Related

• Urban exactitude suppresses irrational, instinctive, sovereign impulses (similarity 0.83)
• Antipathy is a protective element essential to urban living. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Urban exactitude suppresses irrational, instinctive, sovereign impulses #corroborates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 751
• Extreme urban noise can override a person’s own self-image and defenses #expands (0.55) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 32
• Feelings accumulate from experience while emotions are immediate survival reactions #expands (0.50) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 244