this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
157 points (96.4% liked)
GenZedong
4186 readers
25 users here now
This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.
This community is for posts about Marxism and geopolitics (including shitposts to some extent). Serious posts can be posted here or in /c/GenZhou. Reactionary or ultra-leftist cringe posts belong in /c/shitreactionariessay or /c/shitultrassay respectively.
We have a Matrix homeserver and a Matrix space. See this thread for more information. If you believe the server may be down, check the status on status.elara.ws.
Rules:
- No bigotry, anti-communism, pro-imperialism or ultra-leftism (anti-AES)
- We support indigenous liberation as the primary contradiction in settler colonies like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel
- If you post an archived link (excluding archive.org), include the URL of the original article as well
- Unless it's an obvious shitpost, include relevant sources
- For articles behind paywalls, try to include the text in the post
- Mark all posts containing NSFW images as NSFW (including things like Nazi imagery)
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Do other Western countries have this insidious "lawn" culture too? Or is it an American thing?
It starts from the feudal castle mentality. Having a clear field around your castle so no attacking forces can sneak up to the walls was a strategy to retain power. Archers along the top of the walls could defend the castle because there was no cover or concealment available for a vast radius from the walls.
This later becomes the 'estate' of the royals. Eventually they would have manicured 'gardens' as well, but having a vast clear area around the manor or whatever was traditional at that point. Then suburban development uses this 'castle' mindset to create the single family home surrounded by a green lawn with very little landscaping or trees etc. A commodity form that gestures to the castle archetype for the 'middle class'. This is also why the 'white picket fence' was a crucial part of the original suburban ideal. It's a mini stockade.
Also most peasants and poorer people in general relied heavily on subsistence farming till far into the 20th century, and a clear field/“lawn” indicated you were rich enough to the point where you could buy your food and not worry about feeding yourself.
Yes, this alongside the enclosure that came along of common lands. It's the aesthetics of 'old wealth' repackaged for the common folk. This is partly why I recommend Ways of Seeing to new lefties all the time. So much of the cultural aesthetics of western capitalism has been directly lifted from aristocratic cultures of Europe and just slightly repackaged. There's even 'old Hollywood' aesthetics that are like a xerox of a xerox, etc.
The prevalence of children's stories involving kings, queens and princesses is something that has bothered me more than it should.
Virgin suburban house vs. Chad medieval castle
In The Netherlands and Belgium we have problems with people laying their entire garden full of concrete or tiles, or sometimes lawns. The tiles are responsible for hotter areas in neighborhoods who have to much of them and they also fuck with the ground water level.
This tradition is technically a European one and has been for probably over a 1000 years at this point. I would assume that it’s present somewhere in Europe.
We also have it in Denmark