I was completely taken a few years ago when the fabulous local Bureau of Urban Living started offering T-shirts and posters which re-appropriated the old WWII British slogan Keep Calm and Carry On and introduced it as a slogan for the city of Detroit.
More recently, I was taken with how the old US phrase Home of the Brave, Land of the Free took on a completely different meaning, when applied to the city of Detroit. So taken, in fact, that I’ve tried putting it front and center on the Sustainable Detroit website.
What gives?
I think this two-data-point trend helped me see a pattern that highlights one of the central things I love about Detroit: life matters here. The recent recession has changed some of this, but America has been so comfortable for so long, that a certain malaise starts to kick in. Lack of purpose can become debilitating when a clear need is not present. Detroit has a clear need. Many needs. And some clearer than others — but the sense of need is clear. While this is seen as the source of much of it’s woes, many of us here know that it is also one of it’s sources of strength.
What we do here has an impact. What we do here matters. Of course, it matters in other places too, but it’s no big surprise to me how lost many progressive-minded folks in other parts of metro-Detroit or Michigan or Chicago or New York, etc. end up feeling. They know they want things to be different, but it’s hard to imagine that they can have an impact. Not so, in Detroit. We’re still one of the largest cities in the country, yet individual effort can still yield a noticeable and significant impact.
And so these slogans from a less cynical and jaded time (even though things like British war propaganda which would inspire Orwell’s dystopic visions often were good cause for cynicism) can actually appeal to progressives. And it doesn’t have to be ironic to be admired. Is it layered and not just a surface propaganda yes? But it’s layered with multiple levels of direct meaning, not just multiple layers of irony. For the irony-weary amongst us, this is just another indication of Detroit’s ability to deliver on it’s long touted ability to Keep it Real.
15:13, 06.04.2010
From a progressive-minded activist struggling for relevance in a large metropolitan area where bare life seems to matter a little less… thank you for this thoughtful post. But on another note, I wonder if the relative difficulty of having a significant impact in larger, and frankly more stable, cities might yield more group actions and social movements. Lurking in this post seems to be some desire to have the lone activist individual recognized for lone individual actions. Maybe the fact that individuals can’t make noticeable differences as individuals (but maybe only in collective action) is not always such a bad thing.
09:08, 09.04.2010
Great point, aubin. And to be sure, the dangers of relying on the hero-activist myth are frequently revealed in Detroit also. Many efforts (some of my own included) quickly either realize the necessity of collaboration and partnerships or else fall apart. Collective actions still retain much more power and effectiveness.
Nonetheless, the implication and truth behind the notion that individuals can make more of an impact (even though this is usually through collaborative and collective acts) and get something off the ground more easily here is not insignificant.
For example, see this NYT article about starting small businesses in Detroit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/us/10startup.html
The scale does make things more accessible for people to try out.
This scale issue is significant. It’s what makes Detroit such a stronghold of people enacting the notion that our city is a laboratory for the 21st century.
We need individuals to feel able and inspired to have an impact, while also recognizing the power and benefit of collective action is. At least in Detroit both of these necessities call for exploration, tapping both of these important drives.
20:28, 12.04.2010
This website sucks. It is full of bull shit hope that will never be realized. This “new Detroit” is much more akin tocity that was foretold by the soothsayer Paul Verhoeven in the movie Robocop.
I’m going to leave a light on now…all fucking day
20:52, 13.04.2010
fascinating…. i can’t tell if this is a serious comment or a joke.
21:34, 13.04.2010
To give the benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume it’s serious:
I don’t know where you’re hanging out in Detroit, or where sense of the place comes from, but regardless I have to ask: which bullshit hope are you referring to?
The post above talks about a sense of purpose that Detroit provides to many people. That’s not a hope for the future – it’s currently happening. And it’s not a blind or false sense of the current realities of the city. Some utopian visionaries in Detroit are unrealistic — but I’m guessing that many of us who find deep purpose in our work and lives in Detroit have a better grip on the reality of this city than you do — including a better grip on what the problems are. We know there are many! And often we know them very intimately.
So come back when you have something specific to say.
20:58, 14.04.2010
Hope is the opiate of the masses, amidst the other drug problems polluting the city. I think you are too high on it to realize that Detroit needs real change.
For example, somewhere in this city a poor little baby child is born. It is blatantly obvious that the city cannot support it. The one thing that the mother doesn’t need is another hungry mouth to feed. Sad but true, someday that child is going to grow up and he learns to steal, and he learns to fight.
Because the hope for Detroit can’t be found from its crippling debt or appalling lack of civil services…
20:39, 15.04.2010
Okay – enough with the flames already. If you want to talk, let’s talk. Whatever made you leap to the assumption that I don’t support “real change”. And whoever said Detroit’s hope was to be found in its crippling debt or lack of civil services. Not I….
You appear to be on some sort of high horse about this. Many children are supported within the city just fine. And many are not and it’s a huge problem. And finding solutions for that problem is key. Finding solutions for those problems is called hope, and it comes in a lot of different forms and shapes.
Hope is not the opiate of the masses. Despair is. You’ve done nothing so far in these comments except feed the fire of despair. There is no solution in that.
22:12, 16.04.2010
How much longer , i'm getting old.
09:22, 17.04.2010
Right… well, that's one of the things that stands out about both of these slogan to me: they're not just blanket hopeful. They acknowledge that life here is hard. But lord knows, Jim, what you've done for the community matters! You've made a remarkable and noticable difference in the community and it's a much better place for it. In case you haven't gotten enough recognition for it, let me toss some reverence your way: revere! Revere! Revere! Seriously: thanks for all that you and Rob do and have done and have been doing for so long. We all owe you…
11:04, 17.04.2010
Despair isn’t the opiate of the masses. Opiates are supposed to make you feel good. Despair sucks, like the economy, civil services and infrastructure of the city of Detroit.
Perhaps we’d be better off if Sherman’s march was through Michigan and Detroit was burned to the ground, to rise like the Phoenix from its ashes. Instead, its just got a lot of crack and crack houses.
And while we’re on the subject, don’t you see the eerie parallels between Detroit and Sodom?
17:17, 17.04.2010
Schuck's Jacob thanks !
21:29, 18.04.2010
I'll agree, those phrases mean such surprisingly different things when applied to Detroit. I was at Eastern Market today and the positive energy there is awesome. I'll even say it was exciting. Detroit has this freedom, realness and also people potential that no other American city I've been to seems to have. Wouldn't it be cool if it evolved into a place like Amsterdam, Venice Beach – CA, London and traditional Detroit all rolled into one. I can see that happening.
09:21, 20.04.2010
@Call it like I see it:
Fair enough, despair as opiate doesn’t work as well as an anology. Nonetheless, despair can be a refuge. It’s a horrible refuge, but a refuge nonetheless. And it’s a refuge that fails to help anyone. It serves to protect those in the refuge of despair from taking any steps for changing what’s wrong.
Despair must be acknowledged. Same as the problems of Detroit must be acknowledged – and there are many. Same as the problems of Michigan must be acknowledged – and there are many. Same as the problems of America must be acknowledged – and there are many.
And then what? Annihilation is not a sufficient answer for any developed morality.
Again: finding solutions for problems is called hope. Some hopes are better than others. Some are red herrings, to be sure, and so we’re left with the task of determining which hopes are worth investing in. Discernment is key, and debate is essential.
Offer a solution.
09:23, 20.04.2010
And P.S.
No, I don’t see any eerie parallels between Detroit and Sodom.
22:10, 22.04.2010
I think if one were going to look for parallels it would be in the industrial north of England (Birmingham et al). They went down hard and have come back albeit it in interesting (and not always reassuring ways). Very interesting racial/immigrant divide, and the old “redo the city center shiny and touristy” tactic which always makes me a bit uncomfortable.
For example, Salford.
20:05, 29.04.2010
Absolutely, Cecil. There are some interesting parallels. Right, Cecil. And one of the problems with re-development is it so often is done in a sad effort to catch up with the other successful things that other cities have – like a sad attempt to get cool by mimicking what the “cool” kids do instead of doing your own thing. The very sense of unique place that attracts people to a locale is often built over with a generic vision of city life. And that danger creeps up in Detroit too.
That’s why it matters that we keep the conversation moving and active and take part in defining the city.