A few days ago I realised that in fact I had a near total ignorance about philadelphia.
What does the name mean? I recalled another place by the same name in the middle east, and knew I wasn't right to think that someone imported the name to the us. (Aman, in Jordan, aparently was called philadelphia in greek/roman times..)
What are the stories of the place? I knew the us consitution was signed there, it has basketball team that used to be decent many years ago..
These kind of questions, I think, can be interesting to explore in thinking of projects in the place. Such considerations could add subtleties to various efforts...
So here are a few things I've learnt and that might interest some of us.
* Many of us are working with dialogical aesthetics to this level or other. Philadelphia was "made" by this guy called william penn who was an arch quaker, and quakers tend to base their religious meetings on relatively non-heirarchial forms of dialogues.
* William penn, according to the myth, purchased the land for philadelphia from locals of the lenape people. I say a myth because the story is in dispute. None the less, it is interesting that, at least in the imagination, the place that's today philadelphia began via a form of exchange, rather than taking.
The very fact that it is most likely to be imagination, in my mind, makes it potentially closer to PAW as well..
* If we continue in the realms of the mind, the name philadelphia conjures an aspiration, be it in a language of its time - and possibly meanings of days gone bye bye... The aspiration in the name is of brotherly love. This, in my mind, is a clear aspiration for a change - or an indication of the future possibility for certain social forms to live.
* With the previous point in mind, it might also worth to consider that philadelphia is one of the 1st planned cities in the us. Certainly the largest of the 1st 3 planned cities. This contrasts with the very ideas of freedom and equality that seemed to inform the concept of philadelphia. Indeed, one can argue that the prevalence of planned cities in the US is such a monumental contradiction.. There is also an interesting logic, cities are planned - economy isn't.. Though ofcourse, both are not entirely planned nor entirely unplanned..
Well.. Just like this post, am not entirely sure where it could go...
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