I've been reading The Great Good Place by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. It's an interesting commentary on our need for public places, or "third places" as Oldenburg terms them; places besides home and work where people can gather and hang out. These may include coffee houses, cafes, bookstores, hair salons, bars, bistros, etc. Most of these places have been destroyed in our culture and replaced by "nonplaces" that look superficially the same, but aren't. As Applebee's replaces the local bar and grill, Rite Aid edges out the corner drugstore, and Borders quashes the downtown bookstores, we are left with fewer and fewer third places and more and more nonplaces. An excerpt:
“Where once there were places, we now find nonplaces. In real places the human being is a person. He or she is an individual, unique and possessing a character. In nonplaces, individuality disappears. In nonplaces, character is irrelevant and one is only the customer or a shopper, client or patient, a body to be seated, an address to be billed, a car to be parked. In nonplaces one cannot be an individual or become one, for one’s individuality is not only irrelevant, it also gets in the way. Toby’s Diner was a place. The Wonder Whopper, which stands there now, is a nonplace.” (The Great Good Place, p. 205)And later...
“I find it irritating when those to whom I talk on the subject relegate third places to the past. “Oh,” they’ll say, “you mean like the old neighborhood tavern or the soda fountain that used to be in the drugstore.” They are, of course, more right than wrong. The third place does belong to the past in the sense that most of them are to be found “in the debris” of a previous order. My response is well rehearsed by now and it goes like this: We don’t want the past. We can’t have the past. We don’t need the past. We need the places!” (The Great Good Place, p.209)
You can read more about Oldenburg's work at http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/roldenburg.
3 Comments:
As a geography student, I learned a lot about the value of place and how modern culture had taken that away. I agree with the author. Suburbia is full of non-places. You may be able to obtain the same goods or services, but the experience (which I feel is essential) is less meaningful. You're just shuffled through as another sale.
I'll have to hunt up my articles about front porch culture and how its loss affected American culture. It's true we don't want or need the past, otherwise time would freeze, but we do need the places that keep important values in our culture--places that remind us to slow down, be sociable and do good things.
Very thought provoking! :-)
If you find those articles, let me know--I'm really interested in this topic. I have another Oldenburg book sitting on my reading pile. He puts into words what I have felt but not been able to explain about modern American culture.
I've been looking for a couple days and have even e-mailed my old professor. No luck. :-(
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