ABSTRACT
The image of the ideal distant place is a powerful symbolic ingredient of mentally dynamic towns and cities, and it is clothed in a wide variety of guises. Such an image only has force within a culture which has a persistent teleological motivation, which is perhaps an attribut ewhich Western society owes to the Sumerians. Moholy-Nagy (1968) makes the point that the Sumerians were an activist people, committed to the idea of progress. They set in motion the linear culture which was, until recently, the prerogative of Western man. By its nature urban civilization is teleologically biased; it must have goals to reach after, and new goals to replace the old. This teleological compulsion exerts a direct influence upon perception. It is a powerful psychological force which influences evaluation and so comes into this broader definition of aesthetics. A distant fragment of a special event conjures up images and perhaps activates symbolic 'force fields' deep in the collective mind. It compels movement to realize the goal and relate the image to the reality.
