Are Tescos the new cathedrals?

Recently I was in Blackwater, a small town situated within the London commuter belt, at a point where the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey all meet. It is a fairly typical English riverside settlement, except for one thing: just outside the town is a shopping centre called The Meadows, which contains two of the largest retail outlets in the country. One is a Marks and Spencer and the other a Tesco "hypermarket". Strolling through the latter (not a bad place to get some exercise, as it took several minutes to walk end-to-end), I was somewhat stunned by the bewildering variety of products on offer: bread in hundreds of shapes and sizes, myriad juices representing virtually all imaginable fruit combinations, cheeses from a host of different European countries, and so on and so forth. Not to mention plenty of non-grocery products: TVs, DVDs, books, toys, video games, cameras and more.

Why do I mention all this? Aren't such stores fairly common in the west, particularly in America? Perhaps they are, but they still amaze me, given that I grew up in a mid-sized Indian city where our notion of a big shop was one we could actually step into, rather than just standing outside at the counter and asking the shopkeeper to get us what we wanted. The thing that interests me most about these megastores, however, is how they seem to have become in a sense focal points of modern industrial society. Even the much smaller local supermarket here in Oxford is always teeming with shoppers whenever I go there; and there are constant streams of people entering and exiting. That one single building is surely by far the most visited in the entire city. Of course busy marketplaces have long existed in towns, both in the west and east, but they are more spread out and generally have a more leisurely feel. The concentration of such large numbers of people and products into a single confined space; the milling queues and constant rhythm of beeping scanners at countless checkout tills; employees rushing around trying to re-stock fast emptying shelves - these are all phenomena unique to the modern superstore. In general, they seem to be the biggest and busiest buildings in our modern urban centres, in the west and increasingly also in India and other developing countries.

Some of the most wonderful buildings in Britain are the cathedrals. You can find one in every prominent town: typically an ancient, massive and awe-inspiring stone edifice. Once upon a time, these were the great centres of urban communities, the places where people in their thousands would gather to pray, to interact and to learn. Today, however, in an increasingly secular society, they have become somewhat irrelevant and derelict, even a burden due to huge maintenance costs, and are often kept going largely by means of tourists paying for exorbitantly priced entry tickets. People once went to cathedrals for evening or weekend outings; now, they are much more likely to go the shopping mall or supermarket.

So cathedrals were once focal points of towns and cities, the biggest, busiest and most central buildings, somewhat like the local Tesco might be today. Of course, there are huge differences between the two, not least that most cathedrals were (and still are) incredibly beautiful, whereas most shopping centres are incredibly ugly. In fact, I think this is a reflection of one major way in which society has changed. It is hard to imagine any cathedrals being built today: they would probably be deemed too expensive, too time-consuming to build, of too little practical utility. And yet in an earlier era, people were willing to invest massive time and resources in them. Those who conceived of and funded a cathedral, generally royals or noblemen, would often not even live to see it completed. They were happy, however, to think that when finished it would be truly impressive, and their children and grandchildren would one day benefit from it. So they were willing to take a long-term view, and even display a sort of altruism. Today, on the other hand, we have much less patience, and our thinking is more utilitarian and predominantly on shorter time scales. The most important considerations for any new construction project are likely to be duration, cost-effectiveness and functionality, with aesthetics lower down the priority list. Our much faster lifestyles are also reflected in the actual usage of the buildings: a visit to a cathedral would be a relaxed social affair, and might involve participation in a service, listening to music and sermons, and talking to other people. Most shopping trips tend to be much more rushed, with the objective being to pick up everything one needs as quickly as possible.

Are these changes in our collective way of thinking, our increased focus on practicality and short-term outcomes, good or bad? I guess they have certain positive aspects, but it seems to me the pros are outweighed by the cons. So many of the great contemporary issues we face, whether it be environmental degradation, food and water shortages, growing social inequality and unrest, or climate change, ultimately stem from our failure to consider the long-term consequences of our actions. Don't get me wrong: I am not saying we should go back to the middle ages, and I certainly believe there have been very many positive social changes since then. My liking for cathedrals also does not stem from any religious beliefs. However, sometimes I do wish we would slow down our lives a bit; perhaps spend a little less time earning and shopping and consuming, and a little more enjoying stained-glass windows and towering spires.

200 years on

Let me start with a piece of trivia in keeping with the theme of the blog's title: two of the greatest men in human history, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. What are the odds on that? The coincidence doesn't end there, however. We normally think of Darwin as an apolitical scientist, but as a recent Nature article notes, one of the key motivating factors behind his ideas on evolution was his revulsion for slavery and his desire to debunk any purported scientific argument for racism. Just two years after the publication of Darwin's seminal The Origin of Species in 1859, Lincoln became the American President, and the abolition of slavery in the US followed soon after. It is unlikely that Lincoln was aware of Darwin's ideas; seemingly the two men on different continents were destined to be linked by their shared, visionary ideals. It is indeed fitting that the 200th anniversary of their birth has been marked by Barack Obama's inauguration.