2 ★ FTWeekend 18 July/19 July 2020 Life

I think of myself as resilient and was mayor of Minneapolis in the tenacious. I made it to Harvard from a summer of 1946. At the time, there was A lexicon of crowded Brooklyn public high school. a polio epidemic and local officials had I was a waitress and a house cleaner called for a voluntary quarantine, before I was a chaired professor. This mainly aimed at children, most Life & Arts has always reassured me: I think of vulnerable to polio. There would be no myself as my own back-up. Covid-19 in swimming pools, no summer camps, America challenged me. no baseball. Humphrey was reading First, there was an intimate children the Sunday comics to help Most in-flight challenge. Solitude. I built a career keep them indoors on the weekend. arguing that social media undermines I had a moment of nostalgia — the magazines our capacity for solitude, a precious government on the side of your health. thing. Not just for what it brings us in Then, on that same Minneapolis pitch to their terms of possibilities for creativity. website, I stumbled across a story from But also because it is so necessary for 1931 about a black family (the father advertisers on the intimacy with others. was a first world war veteran) who had I thought I had a gift for solitude. I’d purchased a house in an all-white basis of the number worked on it. Through psychoanalysis, neighbourhood. Night after night, yes, and more habitually, as a writer police tried to protect that family from of passengers and ethnographer, professionally an angry white mob. From the trained to stand a bit apart. The alone newspaper reports, it seemed that Travel, page 6 time of the pandemic was a stricter from early on, the black man promised lover. What I had mastered was how to he would sell his house; his only be alone in the hum of a busy life. demand was to prove that he had the Also, solitude and self-reflection right to buy it. Of course, there is no Genetic analysis of came easily when I wasn’t frightened. American Eden. The pandemic struck when I was viral mutations feeling young for my 71 years. I was So, what Covid-19 brought to me was back from a fitness holiday and was the depth of America’s ability to deny suggests that humans finishing a new book. And then, science when it is not politically suddenly, my age was the age of the expedient. Then the murder of George were first infected Covid-vulnerable. My migraines, under Floyd brought a historic, tragic lesson control for many years, thundered that we have refused to learn. in November back. My apartment building had I am an activist, a progressive, and sensible rules that now worked as afraid to be in crowds just as my Books essay, page 8 migraine triggers. No visitors. One country faces historic protests and a person in the elevator at a time. brush with authoritarianism more Disinfect before and after every ride. serious than any I have seen in my Masks and gloves. If you had a delivery, lifetime. Half of our elected officials Kanye West’s your doorbell would ring. You would and Supreme Court defend where we wait 30 seconds so that the porter are. One of our political parties will phantasmic tilt for would be gone before you opened the renominate an impeached president door. Ghosts. Amazon had no hand who holds democracy and American sanitiser or Clorox or masks. I stopped lives in contempt. the presidency must going out. Social media, my career-long object I have a summer house on the sea, of study, plays a complex and divisive rank among the most a wooden cottage with no heat. My role in this drama. It allowed the world daughter and her husband, New Hossein Fatemi/Panos Pictures to watch a real-time lynching, real- ill-conceived episodes Yorkers, packed a bag, bought some time police brutality, and a national extra space heaters, and drove out. and now international movement for of celebrity activism Was it Rebecca, working from home, social justice. Even as it publishes a cooking dinner? Was it living in my Dreams of an American Eden steady stream of lies about public Arts, page 11 house, or Ben, lighting a fire in the health, political protest, and the facts morning, or the ritual of preparing my of every matter. Facebook says it has classes on the large table facing the sea? us. I spoke to friends in France and plague-style public health threat. In the right to publish falsehoods and not The reflections in Was it the sound of the waves, always? EAST COAST Germany. They were confident in their retrospect, my surprise seems naive. tag them as such. I settled down. DIARY country’s test and trace plans for the But I understand it. It’s a legacy of The anthropologist Victor Turner Kapoor’s ‘Sky Mirror’ summer. My country went into summer being a child who grew up with the talked of liminal times, periods of I was no longer worried about getting with no plans, only incoherent ideas. fear of polio. I remember my disorder where old rules don’t work, sick. But as my first fears subsided, SHERRY I checked my sense of confusion with grandmother’s terror every summer. and new ones haven’t been written. conjure up an almost Covid-19 presented me with a new American friends. I wasn’t alone. And mine when she made a Traditionally, history has looked at challenge. Less intimate, more TURKLE Everyone seemed to be waiting to see contraption to secure the upper these chaotic times and only seen filmic parade of political. We are on a path where the what their employers would ask of casement windows in my bedroom so social pathology. In the 1970s, I studied irrational and rational seem oddly them before figuring out how to with Turner, who trained me to see optical illusions matched, where science and lack of respond. As summer began, many Liminal times, periods of something else: moments when Arts, page 13 reason each have their team. parts of the country reopened, even as something new can be born. He spoke It had been reassuring to trust my Covid-19 cases were increasing. The disorder where old rules of communitas. Boundaries between employer MIT’s response to the Covid- virus came roaring back. Airlines don’t work, are also people dissolve and they see each 19 threat. There is a crisis. We follow opened up service, with guidelines other not in their social roles, but as We once believed the the science. We put no one at risk. advising passengers to wear masks — moments when something human beings. After a professional lifetime of but airline personnel had been told not new can be born When the government no longer criticising the overzealous promotion to be confrontational. Masks became a plays by the rules, people want more busy social life a sign of online education — I always think political issue. Now, the White House, than a return to order. My generation that the most significant mentorship darkly, is undermining the reputation that I could sleep with my head of protest made dust fly and left the of success, spurred takes place with a professor in the of its chief epidemiologist, seemingly outdoors during polio season. It was, system intact. Today, we hear echoes of room — I set myself the task of because he has told the truth about the after all, a potential guillotine, secured the pandemic of 1918, the protests of on by visual displays becoming as competent an online reality we face. by clothespins. Despite being a child of 1968, and for me, the rise of fascism in educator as I could possibly be. the 1960s, with all of the scepticism 1938. We are offered the chance of of hedonistic Then, incredulous, I saw my What I suffer from now is something that brought, I grew up believing that something genuinely new coming out government push scientists to the side. I didn’t anticipate: Covid-19 political the government saved my life in 1955 of the crucible of our current disorder. nights out on Whether people wore masks became trauma. Even though the US long ago when it brought the Salk vaccine to all a political statement. People claimed turned away from a fact-based American school children. Sherry Turkle is a professor at MIT. She is Instagram to be “tired” of confinement. Public response to the environmental crisis I was brought back to that state of the author of the bestselling ‘Reclaiming messaging became odd, sometimes Read this week’s column and every day allows the pollution of mind when, on the recommendation of Conversation’. Her new book, ‘The Joy Lo Dico, literal non-sense. The economy could by Simon Kuper, page 15 its drinking water and air, I thought we historian Jill Lepore, I listened to tapes Empathy Diaries’, will be published by back page not tolerate what the virus was telling would behave differently faced with a of Hubert Humphrey, made when he Penguin Press in spring 2021 Welcome to the 15-minute city

Continued from page 1 mobility, points to recent research with Below: Carlos Moreno; Paris mayor land values are high, and live in a place geographically. He concluded that prox- the LSE that challenges the narrative Anne Hidalgo cycling in the city last where land value is cheaper. That needs imity to competitors was a benefit four months I was struggling to stay that “those who are willing and able to month. The Sorbonne professor has to be factored in; workers will try and rather than a threat because connec- patient, in spite of the strangely Medi- move to areas where the opportunities been influential in the mayor’s exploit that mismatch . . . I think [the tions and shared information created a terranean weather. are will reap the highest rewards”. implementation of pedestrian and coronavirus fallout] will only increase valuable pool of new ideas. On the basis of the lockdown experi- London’s place in the popular imagi- bike schemes — Getty Images the importance of London.” “Historically, with the invention of ence, there are aspects of a “15-minute nation as the city where people “make Part of Breach’s reasoning for London the telegraph, phone, internet . . . every The Bodley Head/ city” that I would struggle to welcome — it” is not quite the full picture, according as an ever more dominant city is the time there’s technological progress peo- FT Essay Prize not least an overfamiliarity with one to Lampl. He notes, “While London strength that comes from its specialised, ple predict we will all be able to work in landscape, even if Moreno’s concept also since the 1980s has cemented its posi- skilled workers being close to one the countryside. But the attractiveness Are you a young writer who includes ideas to promote a greater tion as the epicentre of the elites, we another geographically. Digital home- of city centres only increases; the infor- would like to see your work “amour des lieux”, or attachment to found that socially mobile people tend working will not quite bring a revolution mation that can only be exchanged face on our pages? This might be place, with pop-up galleries in markets to build their careers near to where they either, Breach says. “There are special to face becomes more valuable in rela- your chance. Every year, the FT and The and more city gardens. grew up. The Dick Whittington vision of qualities about information exchanged tive terms,” Breach says. “There’s not Bodley Head, one of Britain’s leading The friction between personal con- moving to the capital to move up in the face to face which video calls have not enough housing in the countryside publishers of non-fiction, team up to finement and public benefit made me world is largely a myth. Those that ben- been able to replicate. We can observe either. We don’t build many houses in find the best young essay-writing talent think back to The Glasgow Effect, a book efit most from opportunities in that demand in the price that people are the UK, full stop.” from around the world. published last year by Ellie Harrison, an London were either born willing to pay to live and work in Lon- Back in medieval Milan, it was the Now in its eighth year, The Bodley artist who tried to explore the relation- there or are the economically don. It means there is something about pious archbishop, Carlo Borromeo, who Head/FT Essay Prize Competition has ship between literal mobility, the envi- privileged from other parts that city centre and its intangible bene- provided the leadership that saw the been the springboard for many exciting ronment and social mobility by of the country.” fits — Alfred Marshall called it ‘some- city through its bubonic ordeal. He writers. This year we are joined by two staying in Glasgow for an In this context, Lampl says, thing in the air’ about 100 years ago.” modestly said the recovery came about new judges: the award-winning writer entire year and only “The success of working from Marshall, a 19th-century economist, “not by our prudence, which was caught Yiyun Li and leading literary agent travelling by bike. home during the lockdown asked why companies from similar asleep”, but because God himself Emma Paterson. The project, for vari- has the potential to widen industries tended to cluster together stepped in. Entries for this year’s prize can be ous reasons, was wildly access to opportunities.” There is a sense that cities, if not all submitted at ft.com/bodley2020. The unpopular in its test- Though Moreno and others caught asleep by coronavirus, are prize is open to anyone between 18 and bed city. To those who do not prohibit movement mostly waking up sober and in a differ- 35 years of age. Our judges are looking could not afford to leave Glasgow in any beyond the 15-minute mark, the aspira- ent place. Moreno says the vision of the for a dynamic, authoritative and lively scenario, Harrison’s Creative Scotland- tion to contain work within this dis- 15-minute city is akin to an ancient idea essay of no more than 3,500 words in funded “lockdown” seemed in poor tance still seems potentially problem- of a “ville vivante” — a living city in which English, on any subject. taste. But it touched on an interesting atic. Not everyone will have the luxury more of life is on a human scale. For this The winner will receive: £1,000 cash question: is the ability to move about of choosing a home close to their pre- to work, we’d have to celebrate what he and an e-publication with The Bodley and switch locations integral to ferred industry, and not everyone will calls a “big bang of proximity”. Head, publication in the FT of their advancement? Is staying in one place have a home that could double as a long- Not quite Alfred Marshall’s type of winning essay and a mentoring session the same thing as being stuck in term office. creative proximity, but a nearness and a with The Bodley Head. Two runners-up another sense? localness against which other explora- will win £300 cash each and an Many people may accept a long com- Anthony Breach, lead analyst for tions could be offset. It’s still hard e-publication with The Bodley Head. mute could be necessary for a fulfilling housing and planning at the Centre for to imagine, but as a pandemic will The competition closes on Thursday job, but it is possible to achieve signifi- Cities, says that what Hidalgo is doing in teach you, we never know what is com- September 24, at midday GMT. You can cant changes in circumstance without Paris is “exciting” but he believes the 15- ing next. find all our previous prize-winning moving to a new city. Peter Lampl, minute principle “would go against the essays at ft.com/bodley. Terms and founder and chairman of The Sutton grain of what we know about city life. Natalie Whittle is FT Weekend’s conditions apply. Trust, which campaigns for social Workers want to work in places where development editor

JULY 18 2020 Section:Weekend Time: 17/7/2020 - 16:09 User: andrew.higton Page Name: WIN2, Part,Page,Edition: WIN, 2, 1