-- from which I had, approximately, this view of Chicago and Lake Michigan --
--and where I was staying, for two nights, for free.
Ah, the (occasional) perks of being a (usually very low-paid) choral singer.
But I'm not writing (just) to brag about my accommodations (as fun as that would be). I'm writing because, as you can imagine, with a room like that, I spent a lot of time looking out those windows at that spectacular view, and I think you know me well enough to guess that it wasn't long before all that looking turned into some pretty deep and not-altogether-pleasant thinking.
From my vantage point up there on the 40th floor -- which felt very strange, given that most of my experience of Chicago was on the first floor of a cheap apartment on the South Side -- the city looked amazingly beautiful. The imposing skyline of huge, architecturally striking buildings; the interplay of roads, buildings, river, and lake; the radiant colors and lights; the endless cars pulsing down tangled roads in a seemingly seamless ballet, etc. I could not help but thinking, "What amazing things we humans have created!" Then of course, I immediately (perhaps even simultaneously) checked myself: yes, but think of all the suffering, all the poverty, the oppression and exploitation, the segregation, the environmental destruction (especially apparent at this moment, as I watch the news about Japan's nuclear plants), which maybe I couldn't see from my fancy rich-boy hotel room, but which made possible all the "beauty" that I was enjoying!
My only response: yes. Yes to both. Yes to the overwhelming, amazing beauty. Yes to the disgusting and awful suffering. Both are true. I won't say they're "equally" true, because I don't know what that would mean -- you can't put stuff like this on a scale or into an equation. I will say, rather: they're dialectically true. As in, they're both part of the same truth, each a part of the other, the thing and its opposite, maybe even a thesis and an anti-thesis.
If Ahmed showed us Hegel at his worst (see his post, and my comment, below), this might be Hegel at his best. His concept of dialectics gives us, I think, the only productive way to deal with contradictions like this. You can't discount the beauty, the progress, and the grandeur of human achievement. (At least I can't -- and, I will argue, it's not particularly helpful to do so, whatever your politics.) Nor can you discount the destruction and suffering that such achievement has caused. (Again, at least I can't -- and those who can, I think, are either very naive or very cynical. That includes Hegel himself at his worst moments; remember the boot trampling on the "innocent flower".) You have to see them both as true, dialectically true, tied up in the same historical acts and movements.
And then, at least if you're me, you have to fight, not to destroy humans' technological progress, but to create a world where everyone has the comfort, security, and privilege to be able to behold Chicago's beauty from their own room on the 40th floor of the Swissôtel.
Thoughts, ideas, and criticism welcome, of course.
Just a few favorite moments from this post:
ReplyDelete-"The imposing skyline of huge, architecturally striking buildings; the interplay of roads, buildings, river, and lake; the radiant colors and lights; the endless cars pulsing down tangled roads in a seemingly seamless ballet, etc" [You're a poet, Ben.]
-Your willingness to admit that inevitably, the enjoyment of said "beauty" was quickly met by thoughts of suffering. [Not an easy thing to come to terms with, but nonetheless honest and real.]
-Made me aware of the dialetically true status of these things of beauty and suffering. [Super deep.]
-Your diction, syntax, and Finkian tone is always entertaining and furthermore, appreciated.
Twas a fun read. Thanks :)
My dad works on the 45th floor of the CNA building just east of Michigan avenue with a similar view and I can never figure out how he gets anything done. Your moment on the 40th floor looking out at Chicago is one that I have often had. Riding on the L when it approaches the loop (Im thinking the Brown line from the north side) as the train winds between the second stories of buildings and across the river at night is mesmerizing. I look in the windows of apartments and at the bricks of buildings and cannot help thinking that every tiny brick, every window, every kitchen and living room exists from a plethora of tiny actions and movements that have amounted to something of a scale that is almost incomprehensible.
ReplyDeleteI love the dialectic nature of the city (and the suburbs surrounding the city that can often be considered cities in their own right). I love south Cicero Avenue with its tacky (albeit scary) motels and industrial development just as much as north Michigan Avenue with its overpriced coffee and Louis Vutton handbags. As I wrote about in my BWA #1, many aspects of this beauty/ugliness can be seen at the same time or in similar experiences. Spending the night in one of the worst (and filthiest) hospitals in the state of Illinois surrounded by the poor, forgotten and homeless and then being able to go home to a wealthy suburb is no accident; these realities exist simultaneously and are codependent. Systems of power that empower and oppress are evident; the city has a raw quality to it wherein the stains of oppression, pain and inequality exist alongside the wealth they have produced and reproduce.
To experience great wealth and great poverty, inequality and oppression characterize Chicago and the city exists and is constructed upon infinite, insurmountable tiny actions that together construct and reproduce "reality" (whatever that is).
Minneapolis to me does not construct or maintain the same dialectic beauty/ugliness as Chicago. Everything is more toned down and balanced, to me nothing seems quite as real. People dont ever quite say what their thinking. Emotions and thoughts are quieted and experienced internally; nothing is quite what it seems. What imperfection exists is well controlled or hidden from view (why are there never on-duty policemen stationed at the Nicollet mall Target, but there are at the University ave Walmart?) This city intensifies my longing for my own home state where people yell on the streets, the cops are aggressive assholes, where employees at shady Italian beef and hot dog places bark out orders, traffic is horrible and people honk and cut off others, where shit gets taken care of. I laugh when Minnesotans tell me to keep away from Lake street because "black people and Mexicans" go there; they have nothing beyond monitored, normalized white hegemonic experience with which to construct their truth (a fairly harsh criticism, but none the less I have had it happen too often to go unnoticed.) I miss unbalanced and corrupt city and state governments. I miss Lou Malinatis; i can no longer accept the mediocre-at-best taste of Dominos. In Chicago, imperfection is evident, emotion is evident. It makes me feel alive.