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Jane Jacobs deserves her reputation as one of our foremost, if consistently controversial, students of urban life. In Systems of Survival, however, she says little directly about cities. Rather, she tackles an even broader field. 'This book,' she begins with customary Jacobean clarity and terseness, 'explores the morals and values that underpin viable working life.' To this end, Jacobs delves into economics, politics, and ecology in order to understand how society might change for the better. From the realm of hunters and gatherers to the post-industrial present, from African tribesmen to Asian city-dwellers, Jacobs in her challenge to our civic conscience moves with ease across time and space. But it is a challenge few reviewers have taken up. In fact, though a best-seller in Canada, Systems of Survival has been little noticed in the United States.
Systems of Survival argues that two seemingly opposed ethical systems characterize Western civilization. One Jacobs calls the 'commercial moral syndrome,' the other 'the guardian moral syndrome.' The commercial syndrome informally codifies our day-to-day relationships with each other; it extols the essentially capitalist virtues of competition, industry, and thrift. The guardian syndrome presents the philosophic ideal of human behaviour set forth by the Greeks and modified by Renaissance and Enlightenment thought; it values discipline, fortitude, and honour. Society views the guardian syndrome as the ideal; yet most of the world practises the commercial syndrome. Which to follow? The basic argument, developed over the course of Systems of Survival, is that for society to function best we need to learn from each.
What can ordinary, decent, thinking human beings contribute to the great ethical and moral issues? That is Jacobs's relentless question. For her, the answer is 'Quite a bit.' Professionals either evade basic questions about society and ethics or do not have the perspective or curiosity to frame them. To present her argument, Jacobs creates five (initially six) individuals who engage in a symposium, or dialogue, 'primarily because this device suits the subject matter.' Dialogue as a literary form goes back to Plato. The goal in The Republic is knowledge of the Ideas or Forms, which for Plato are the only true reality; in Jacobs the goal is to understand the true reality of the moral life of society....