The Crisis of Urban Civilization

Perhaps mankind’s only true pride lies in the capacity to hate. From this stark aphorism unfolds one of the most brutal truths of urban life: what is most intolerable to the modern human is the very existence of his neighbor.
 
A person, deep within, harbors a quiet, persistent resentment toward the other who lives next door. Perhaps the perennial solitude of city life germinates precisely from this unbearable envy, this pathological resistance to coexistence. We often say Bengalis are like crabs in a bucket—dragging each other down at the first hint of escape. But why stop at Bengal? This affliction of spite is pandemic across humankind.
 
The thinking man—conscious of his own flaws, often secretly remorseful—still wears, in public life, a stubborn arrogance sanctified by logic. The modern man would rather mount the gallows in broad daylight than admit fault. Instead, he builds a wall of arguments to defend even his most evident mistakes. Yet when it comes to another's faults—however minute—he turns into a forensic realist, magnifying the error under the lens of righteousness.
 
Today’s urbanite has become equally adept at moral judgment and moral betrayal. His concern for others is drenched in hollow condescension—as if generosity were his inheritance. He feigns outrage at war, poverty, suicide, politics, and romance—but with a detachment so shallow, it barely ripples the still waters of his comfortable life.
 
A modern, educated city-dweller builds his world on a mixture of newspaper gossip and character assassination. He has not read a book sincerely, loved a friend deeply, understood a country truly, spoken with clarity, or loved a human being with heart. And yet, he struts on—his intellectual performance propped up by clever fraudulence.
 
O city! O pride, vanity, and the grotesque grandeur of your false nobility. To "become a full human being" here means to be widely respected, or to hold a prestigious post. Behind the mask of pomp and arrogance parade the civil servants—some self-fashioned proletarians, others towel-bearing pseudo-intellectuals. These same elites treat the financially weak like slaves: calling an elderly rickshaw driver "you," docking a maid’s wages for days she was sick, stepping aside indifferently when a sick man collapses on the pavement.
 
And then there is the sacred cow of our times—the culture of incompetence—which breeds protests solely for salary increments. One satirist wrote that whenever bureaucrats protest, it likely means their wives are nagging them relentlessly about stagnant pay. A fine little local version of Stalin’s Bolsheviks!
We now live in a culture where even while skimming over newspaper reports of genocide, the brain remains fixated on MTV. Communal riots no longer arouse fear or passion—it’s the semi-nude models on Fashion TV that stir excitement. The rationalists now grant "high art" status to ramp walks. And so, in this city, truth cannot be said simply. Slick writers will complicate the simplest facts, intellectuals will tie them in knots, and decoding the knots becomes a riddle for another day.
 
One headline appears in seven newspapers in seven different forms. Sixty TV channels give birth to 3.5 lakh interpretations. If anyone tries to understand it all—they’ll need ten heads on their shoulders like some modern Ravana.
 
But are there no real people left in the city? Of course, there are. Only—they live slightly on the fringes, thinking of themselves as martyrs. "Poor fellow, nothing ever worked out for him," people say. I had a writer friend once—an unshakable believer in socialism. He was convinced that despite his capabilities, he would never become part of this crooked city's scheme. His stubborn vow: “I’ll do nothing. Not a thing. Food will find me.” This, he believed, was his rebellion against our broken urban condition.
 
With a sling bag, unkempt beard, and a cloud of marijuana, these Marxist dreamers award themselves the medal of martyrdom—while society scoffs at them as misfit lice-ridden youth. Their ideals? They don’t sell, they don’t serve. Socialism is dead.
 
Eventually, my friend collapsed. After much persuasion and behind-the-scenes family maneuvering, his parents got him into a multinational firm. Soon, he became a champion of capitalism. Today he is a marketing manager. Revolution and rebellion? Long incinerated. I once heard him speak passionately—in favor of free-market economics. Ah, how much can change in a decade! In this seductive city of indulgence, being a gentle deer is painful. Yet, not everyone can be a fierce tiger. And so thrive the cunning foxes—who steal the tiger’s prey with sly tricks.
Here, one can easily enjoy 90% of life without understanding its equations, without knowing oneself. The cunning man, they say, knows himself. But truthfully, he only knows his body. His senses. His appetites. Wrap this city fast in an air-conditioned cocoon—after expelling the prostitutes, hawkers, and beggars. This city is not for them.
 
Still, socialism can run just fine within air-conditioned chambers. So can protests. After all, the right to protest is every citizen’s birthright.
 
And then—driven by loneliness—man sets out in search of a woman. A romance. A partner. As he searches frantically, a wise narrator might ask: "Have you ever tried searching for yourself?" Ah! The same old question. One we keep repeating. And whose ancient answer we already know—yet find no new one.
 
Remember that schoolmaster, cane in hand, who once asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Doctor, engineer, pilot—the usual answers. After all the responses, he said, “Strange! Every one of you is a man’s son—yet none wish to become a man.”
 
The students looked at each other, confused. “A monkey's child becomes a monkey. A donkey's child becomes a donkey. So, a human’s child is automatically a human.” We've already been born human—rulers of the world. The teacher was dumbfounded. Perhaps it was too late for him. He could no longer keep pace with this civilization. So what do we do with him? Drag him to the square and make a martyr out of him.
 
In schools and universities today, only those teachers pass who write job application letters on behalf of their students—for a price. And these students say, “We don’t care about virtue or ideals—what we need is money to survive.” In this economic jungle, each man stands alone.
 
And so am I. Alone. Isolated. No family. No dear friend. I only know this much: life is about climbing the staircase of success. And to climb, one must endure no one. Love no one. Empathize with no one.
 
But how does a man become great?
 
Answer: when he can truly think like another. Of course, no one can fully inhabit another’s mind. But one can understand another. And sometimes—if only for a moment—one can forget oneself by thinking of another. Yet it is too late. Today, mastering the complexity of machines is more valuable than deciphering the human heart. The soul has been dethroned by survival. Life itself has become the highest commodity.
 
In a godless world, there is no rebirth. One life. That’s it. And so, to enjoy it fully is man’s greatest aspiration. He who doesn’t—he’s a fool. He will be our next martyr—strung up, crucified for being too human.
 
In the dawn of this civilization, every martyr-hero dreams of dying publicly. In torment. Burned alive before the eyes of the city. As he dies, he imagines the townsfolk rejoicing at his death.
 
His final pride?
That he could still hate them.
Albert Camus, in the last line of The Outsider, once wrote:
“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
 
But perhaps in our city, our end shall be more theatrical. We will greet death with raised fists—declaring not indifference, but defiance.