Seating Estrangements
One of the primary facets of a fear-based society is a narrowing of worldviews and a clenching of moral emotions, resulting in hyper-vigilance to threats, yet there is still an undercurrent of peace and trust in some individuals, but too small a number.
Rupert Sheldrake, from Science Set Free:
"On my database there are 842 cases of human premonitions, precognitions, or presentiments. Of these, 70% are about dangers, disasters or death; 25% are about neutral events; and only 5% are of happy events...dangers, death and catastrophes predominate." (Science Set Free: Dispelling Dogma. Crown Pub, 2012. p. 251)
How people interact in public spaces is probably a human universal:
Several years ago, Chicago deployed new train cars with bench seating configurations that face each other. When I take the El into the loop, I often take note of how people choose the seats the farthest away from one another. As the seats become occupied, people will typically choose the seat one seat removed. Some people choose to stand rather than sit next to a stranger.
In some ways, suburban development is a manifestation of this and was studied in this recent paper, Enduring Features of the North American Suburb: Built Form, Automobile Orientation, Suburban Culture and Political Mobilization
In retrospect, I realize this was the idea behind my painting Tribes:
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