The Influence of Minds
I used to live in a central-city apartment but would never again. The problem is that in apartments you are in close proximity to many other people - on either side of you, above you and below you and there is a constant background 'mind noise'. Most people are probably unaware of this but nonetheless it influences their behaviour.
Of course in some places, such as Singapore and Hong Kong a house is a luxury
that few can afford, but the close living of the populace effects ideas. Because
the minds are so close to each other, especially during sleep, it makes people
more conformist and therefore easier to govern. Even within a country, people
in cities tend to have more conformist views. This may not be obvious but it's
interesting to note that during the Second World War when the Nazis were herding
Jews into concentration camps the most compliant were the Jews from the cities.
In fact when the Germans created the Warsaw Ghetto, which was the first stage
in removing all Jews, the Jewish elders were quite amenable to the idea. If
Jews were all confined together then it would keep the Jewish community alive.
Jews wouldn't marry outside of their religion. Even when Germans started gassing
Jews most of the community didn't believe the reports
A relative of mine, who I'll call Rachel (not her real name), was living in Poland and she, her family and friends were taken in a cattle train to Auswitch. The door was ajar and the crowded train moved slowly. It came to a stop at one point and Rachel said to her friend that they could escape through the door. Her friend was aghast at the thought. Rachel escaped and her friend died in the concentration camp. Rachel went on to marry another concentration camp survivor who I'll call Solomon. He also escaped. He had been taken with two other people from the camp to a place where the Nazis could perform experiments on them. On the way back they were escorted by two German soldiers. Solomon could speak excellent German and understood when one soldier told the other he was going off and the other soldier was to escort the soldiers on his own. After a short time the other soldier told his prisoners that he was going off and they were to go back to the camp on their own. Solomon said to his companions that here was an excellent opportunity to escape. They said they weren't going to risk it and ran back to the camp. Solomon escaped and was able to travel to freedom.
There is another reason why country people tend to be less compliant than city people and that is that people who farm, who are in touch with nature, have a different way of looking at the world. They are more in touch with their own feelings. Of course some people living in cities develop a survival instinct, after all it's been said that cities are a jungle, but this often takes the form of paranoia, and I mean that in the true medical meaning of the word.
