¶ Aesthetics of Uniformity (2)
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Index Entry
Aesthetics of Uniformity:
"of soldiers’ sons born with a half a face blown away, or with three legs.
"Individuality goes far deeper than these surface manifestations with which people have sought to deceive one another as to the relative importance of their status and in the bitter struggle to validate one’s right to live. Those who were powerful but ugly and lazy paid for fine clothes and fine surface architecture, and a superstition has persisted that people who could afford to pay must be superior individuals. The powerful have whipped the weak for centuries on end to instill that superstition. As long as might excelled over right that superstition had to continue. Now that we propose housing to be produced by an industry in which right makes might at less than a pound per horsepower the superstition is obsolete.
“There is no individuality in conventional houses. They are all four-square boxes with varying lengths of rotting wood Greek column, nailed on to the front, every house so similar and the streets so similar that without signboards the stranger cannot tell the difference between one American town and another,”
