How close are American gated communities to idea of the Epicurean garden, where people can live among those with like interests, enjoy tranquility and live without fear? Or are they in fact signs of a breakdown of social cohesion?
How close are American gated communities to idea of the Epicurean garden, where people can live among those with like interests, enjoy tranquility and live without fear? Or are they in fact signs of a breakdown of social cohesion?
Gated communities seem innocuous enough and you can’t stop people wanting to live with congenial neighbors. However, social cohesion seems to be disappearing in the US and I don’t think it is a good thing for the country. In other countries the rich live among poorer people, businesses are scattered among residential areas and poor, middle class and rich intermix. A disagreeable tendency of the 20th century was to zone business, industry and residential neighborhoods. We should be going in the opposite direction.
What has this to do with Epicureanism? Epicureanism stands for social peace, friendship and mutual cooperation.
Robert: You raise an interesting issue; I have lived in a gated community in atlanta for 10yrs; It is comprised of mainly wealthy business people,entertainers and athletes (altho I am neither!); I did not choose to live here because it was gated; I chose to live here because it has a championship golf course, it was 5 minutes from my office, and it was a great investment.
I suppose as with anything, we always need to look at the reason we choose a certain action. Is it to shelter us from the “great unwashed”, or is it for other reasons. Either way I guess we choose the action based on whether it gives us pleasure, which is the ultimate reason for life according to Epicurus, is it not?? Besides the principle of living simply, is there anything in Eism akin to Jesus’ admonition to the wealthy man to sell all his possessions?
I don’t know the answer, but as a matter of great interest I will try to find out and report back. What is your handicap?!
It is a 14, but I dont seem to be able to make a putt when I need one. By the way, we seem to have many younger couples in our neighborhood who have children ages 1 and up; this is a world where children can attend the community theatre, arcade, pool, and can order ice cream from the clubhouse, all on mommy and daddy’s dime; many attend private schools; our kids were 14 and 11 when we moved here, plus they attended pyblic schools so they were exposed to many different types of folks. My wife and I often wonder how some of these younger kids will cope wth the world when they leave these gates and their private schools.
THanks for the post on yahoo; it will be interesting to see the responses; In fact, I wish that from time to time some of the more knowedgeable folks would expound on each of the Principle doctrines of epicurus as applied to modern life.
I brought up my two sons in England, not in a gated community, but the town itself was a large gated community of 80,000 (only in retrospect do I realize it!). The older son is very successful, but has abandoned the “gloss” that private education gave him, and has learned to speak Estuary English (a variant of cockney it is now essential to master) when it is necessary to be one of the lads. He talks football and is thoroughly modern. The other (charming, gentlemanly) son hasn’t adapted so well, struggles and seems out of place in the modern capitalist world. Maybe they would have turned out the way they have regardless of what I tried to do for them. Who knows. They are great guys in their different ways- – decent and honest, with all the other good virtues. But I do understand your concern for the privileged and over-protected kids in your community. It is rough out there! Will they adapt?
Glad you keep an eye on the Yahoo site. The problem with it is finding time to keep abreast of it. One can spend an hour a day on it if you are inclined. I don’t have the time and fall behind the postings, some of which are too long, too verbose and also too serious. I would like to use this blog for more general discussions, as opposed to wholly philosophical musings, and try to uncover the relevance of Epicurus to “real” life. Well, that’s the idea! One can at least try.
Yes that is why I like your site, Some of the postings on Yahoo are way too long and use way too many syllables to keep my interest!