sympathy/compassion...forgotten in today's urban world

I am a city girl through-and-through. I grew up in a city and continue to live in one in Austin. I can find everything in a small area, nightlife abounds, cultures mix and truly, one can never be bored. Just as Hopkins’ “love for the city grows more ‘sweet-familiar” (course pack 633) so does my own as I grow older and learn to appreciate the dynamics of urban life.

[1] Woman on bike over looking a city

However, there are things that I dislike about large cities – the corruption of city life that is the suburb. I cannot agree more with Hopkins’ statement that “…ugly suburban expansion is portrayed as the product of commercial values which are inimical to the harmonious balance of town and nature.” (cp, 635) Suburbs, to me, are fake cities. They are simply extensions of a city which try to lay claim to a large and successful urban area while their inhabitants still “live in the country.” Cities are meant to be areas where land is sought after and where people live and work closely together; they promote the exchange of ideas, goods and services. The country is supposed to be a peaceful place, away from the smog of cities where its inhabitants can relax and enjoy nature. Often, people have two homes for both city and rural living. Suburbs take away the commercial aspect of a city and the environmentally-friendly aspect of life outside of cities, creating more traffic, aggravation, pollution and uniqueness.

[2] A joke about urban sprawl…cities keep encroaching on our natural resources!

As cities (and their suburbs) grow, they encroach further and further into the natural habitat of many plant and animal species without the least bit of sympathy towards these creatures. The people moving into KB home developments are not “affected by the suffering or sorrow of another” [3]

Hold on now, I am not removing all blame from inner-city dwellers. We live in urban environments removed from nature, and often forget where our food, clothing and supplies come from. Most of the meat we devour at five-star restaurants such as Smith and Wollensky in big cities comes from meat processing plants where animals are tortured before we eat them and use their products.

[4] Smith and Wollensky restaurant, Chicago

People today do not hold the same compassion for animals that people like Jude did because so many of us live in cities and suburbs, away from any farms or ranches. We do not possess the compassion Jude has for the pig he and Arabella kill. “Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have had to do this!” laments Jude just before he kills the animal (Hardy, 53)[5]. “As we have no immediate experience of what other [animals] feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.”[6] For those of us living in cities, we are so removed from nature that we cannot begin to imagine and sympathize with Mother Nature. We lead lives today full of hustle and bustle where, unfortunately, we find little time to actually question what is given to us, and we accept the easiest way out.

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[1] http://xtinacooke.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/woman-bike-overlook.jpg

[2] http://envplan240.pbwiki.com/f/carturbansprawl_wikipedia1_jpg.jpg

[3] http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/sympathy.html

[4] http://lynnbecker.com/repeat/06christmas/20061222wollenskychristmas7.jpg

[5] Hardy, Jude the Obscure.( New York: Barnes and Noble Books)

[6] http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/sympathetic%20imagination.html