Pity the Right such a world. For this is the wrong landscape from which to take one s lessons, the wrong one on which to stake one s ground. It is better, wiser to look to the tutor of plenitude, city life. Cities tell us that plenitude is inevitable and that it is, within certain limits, benign. While the rural communities sought singleness, the city has always, blithely, created difference and variety.
Cities work in spite of plenitude.
They work because of plenitude. This is the symbolic landscape in which the real ideological lessons of the 21 st century are to be found. At the core of the Right s difficulty with plenitude is the quiet conviction that anyone who departs from convention becomes dangerous and uncontrolled. Interestingly, there is sound anthropology at work here. But this is just the second stage of the ritual.