Sociological Aspects 
more troublesome than was supposed in the time of Shelley and 
Godwin. But no one can doubt that this remains the only way 
to create large human societies that shall be stable. No one 
doubts, for example, that one function of a gathering like this 
is that we meet as colleagues and we part as friends—which is to 
say that we have built up new relations which we carry on into 
our own social groups. Therefore I take it that we can all agree 
that any structure of a national or supranational society that 
we are to build in the future will be achieved not by uniformity, 
but by the integration of varied and individual groups. 
The second point that I want to make is that today the size 
of these groups need no longer be dictated by their geographical 
location. Technology now makes it possible for different 
community groups to live in small units and at quite large 
distances apart, yet still to make up a coherent society. 
MacKay’s paper reminds us that modern communication makes 
it possible for social groups to span geographical distances—as 
a meeting of this kind does, for example. 
I find this particularly important, because I believe that the 
major achievements of civilization have been created in city 
communities. As Glikson said, the best balance of mobility 
against sedentariness is struck in an essentially urban civiliza- 
tion. True, the world is full of academic admirers of primitive 
art who affect to despise city civilization; yet I notice that they 
continue to lecture to their students about Shakespeare, 
Leonardo da Vinci and Sophocles—none of whom was born in 
the bush. In my view, the only disaster in urban civilization 
has been to produce the enormous wens such as London, New 
York and Tokyo; however, they have now outlived their 
technological usefulness, in my opinion. The crowded cities 
were appropriate to the time of the penny post and the first 
railway engines, but they have no purpose in the modern age 
of communication. Today a community of 30,000—60,000 
people can have the imdustries and the goods, the libraries and 
the concerts, and all the sense of being part of a larger con- 
course, which only giant cities had in the past. There is no 
good reason today why people should live in Sheffield in order 
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