Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)

The driving idea for this book can be summed up this way: “we have overlooked the fact that a life without stable containers would fall to pieces” (p. 250). That’s right: containers.

Mumford’s founding premise is that we have collectively developed a mistaken understanding of human development due to an oversight about the archaeological record: things like stone arrowheads, plows, and grindstones are materially durable and have lasted through time. Things like reed baskets, art, show more stories, traditions, and rituals are either materially fragile or immaterial and do not last over time. Hence, we over value the importance of tools because they persist in the archaeological record.

The questions, then, is how do you extrapolate modern human civilization, with our obsessions about organization, efficiency, duty, and industriousness from a chipped stone axe? You can’t, unless you trace a parallel history of containers, by which Mumford means containers like clay pots, wine skins, baskets, etc., but also containers like stories, images, rituals, art, and written language.

Material containers hold things, allowing them to be transported over space. They also preserve things (think about fermentation, curing, preserving) which allows transport over time. The more metaphoric containers like ritual, art, and language are containers of experience, values, and beliefs, which also develop over time. When we add this piece to the historical development of tools, we start to get a better overall picture of the development of civilization.

Importantly, our development of the “technics” of civilization (i.e., technologies, practices, know how) is possible and only sensible when seen as a parallel development of both the technology and tools and an appropriate sociological mindset (e.g., one that values work and efficiency). Containers are vitally important to the development of the sociological mindset. Consider, alone, the connection between religious belief and work ethic. And how does religion persist over time without containers to transport it (e.g., icons, books, rituals, concepts). If we ignore the development of containers, the history of humanity as a tool-wielding species is a lopsided one.

Mumford is meticulous in this first volume (of two) tracing this parallel history. He carefully ties together the development of tools with social organization with the development of values. The scope and depth of research alone merits high stars, but my goodness, this was a tedious read at times. show less

After one false start three or four years ago, I picked this up again early last year. I'll admit, it was pretty rough going for me, but that's largely because the first half of the book doesn't concern the "megamachine"--my main interest in Mumford's thought. His roundabout phrasing structure also makes for reading that sometimes feels something like a maze and can be difficult to settle into. There were still enough significant insights to justify reading it. Some standouts below.

Mumford show more on the historical origin of the problem of death: "The desire for life without limits was part of the general lifting of limits which the first great assemblage of power by means of the megamachine brought about. Human weaknesses, above all the weakness of mortality, were both contested and defied.
"But if the biological inevitability of death and disintegration mock (sic) the infantile fantasy of absolute power, which the human machine promised to actualize, life mocks it even more. The notion of 'eternal life,' with neither conception, growth, fruition, nor decay--an existence as fixed, as sterilized, as loveless, as purposeless, as unchanging as that of a royal mummy--is only death in another form....(T)his assertion of absolute power was a confession of psychological immaturity--a radical failure to understand the natural processes of birth and growth, of maturation and death." (203) Deny that, Ernest Becker!

On the workers of the megamachine: "Each standardized component, below the top level of command, was only part of a man (sic), condemned to work at only part of a job and live only part of a life. Adam Smith's belated analysis of the division of labor, explaining changes that were taking place in the eighteenth century toward a more inflexible and dehumanized system, with greater productive efficiency, illuminates equally the earliest 'industrial revolution.'" (212)

On the burgeoning scientific/capitalist mind and its eventual costs: "These technical premises seemed so simple, their aim so rational, their methods so open to general imitation, that Leonardo never saw the need to put the question we must now ask: Is the intelligence alone, however purified and decontaminated, an adequate agent for doing justice to the needs and purposes of life?" (288) show less

A survey of the roles that urban gatherings have played in Human history. We have enjoyed the city, and of course found great dissatisfaction with it. Mumford's survey gets frequent reprints, and is full of insights. I am sure the 19 year old me was a little out of his depths with these work, but mightily impressed with it.

I was looking for a city-planning book, but he spends most of his time on architectural aesthetics, like complaining about the "contrast of gray concrete and yellow London brick...spoiled by the housewives' passion for pink and blue curtains".

He had some interesting ideas about designing spaces that are protected from motor vehicle traffic (pointing to Rotterdam as a good example), and "mixed neighborhoods, able to sustain more than one urban function and demanding far less vehicular show more transportation". He also had some ideas I didn't like, such as building small "New Towns" outside large cities to draw people away and avoid the need to build tall apartments in the big cities.

With a title like "The Highway and The City" I expected there to be more about transit, zoning, governance, and the like. show less