As theorized by fin-de-siècle sociologist Georg Simmel, the term metropolis denotes less a specific scale of the city than the acceleration of stimuli therein, including traffic and advertising, the spasms of the business cycle, and the unending flow of pseudo-history in the news media. To ward off neurasthenia, Simmel argues, the urbanite develops a “protective organ,” a kind of mental shield, which blunts the force of sensation, subordinating aesthesis—the domain of perception—to the rule of reason. In other words, the faster things go, the less one feels.

Might we also add: the less