[-empyre-] Re: empyre Digest, Vol 38, Issue 13

[John Haber]

Am I crazy, or does the "autonomy" in "temporary autonomous zones" when 
it describes something like the Gaza strip or anywhere with people 
suffering displacement, violence, poverty, and lack of voice in 
governance have to come with one heck of a lot of irony. 

There are limits to the concept of cities as uniquely constructed 
entities that should be mentioned.  It comes a little too close for 
comfort to the American myths that align oppositions of nature/culture, 
freedom/civilization, east coast and wilderness, and it also has a way 
of leaving out suburbs and highway culture, themselves sustained in part 
by government funding and in part by just those myths.  Returning to 
Smithson, one can see the earthworks, again, not simply as seeking the 
sublime outside the city but as dismantling the opposition.  I'd rather 
explore cities as both specific and multiple cultural sites. 

John