Nights in cities used to be much darker than they are now; the level of darkness can be best described as pitch black, where it was impossible to see even an inch ahead without moonlight or starlight.
Street lights are essential for urban life, as they ensure safety after sunset and play an important role in environmental conservation, but because they were installed as part of urban planning after World War II, there was almost no artificial light on the streets before their installation. Furthermore, the electric lights in homes that illuminate the streets, which today also function as city lights, used dim bulbs with low wattage such as 40 watts or 60 watts to save on electricity bills, so there was little light leaking from houses and the streets were dark.
It is believed that humans first started using fire around 1 million years ago during the time of Homo erectus. It is believed that at this stage, ancient humans did not yet have the technology to make fire, and used fires caused by spontaneous combustion such as lightning and forest fires to keep warm and heat food. Therefore, ancient humans prior to this time relied on natural light sources such as moonlight and stars for early forms of street and dwelling lighting, and it was only much later that they began to use fire as a source of light, and torches, oil lamps, and candles began to be used.
In fact, Kunio Yanagita (柳田國男, 1875-1962), the founder of folklore studies, mentions in his book “The Old Days of Fire (火の昔、1944)” that storing and keeping the starter fire obtained from spontaneous combustion constant was an important role of ancient women.
Evidence that humans intentionally started fires dates back to the time of Homo heidelbergensis, about 400,000 years ago, and based on remains of combustion and charcoal discovered at the Geshur Benot Ya’aqob archaeological site in Israel, it is believed that from this time onwards, humans developed various methods of fire-making techniques.
1. Friction fire-starting (rubbing fire)
A method of making fire by rubbing or rotating two pieces of wood together to generate heat.
* Bow drill method: A bow-like tool is used to increase friction through rotational motion. Used by hunter-gatherers in various regions.
* Drill method: A stick is rubbed with the hand to create friction. Used in Japan during the Jomon period and other places.
* Fire-starting board and stick method: A groove is made in a wooden board and a stick is pressed against it to rub it. Used by indigenous peoples of the Amazon.
2. Flint (flinting stone)
A method of making sparks by striking a hard stone (flint) against an ore containing iron (such as pyrite). It has been used since the time of Cro-Magnon man about 30,000 years ago, and was also widely used in medieval Europe and Edo period Japan.
* Sparks are transferred to dry plant fiber or tinder, and then burned by blowing on it.
* Ignition devices combining flint and iron were also used in 19th century firearms (flintlock guns).
3. Ignition by chemical reaction (use of flammable substances)
A method of starting fire using chemicals that ignite when rubbed or struck.
* Ignites by bringing a piece of wood coated with sulfur close to a fire source. Used in ancient Rome and China.
* A primitive type of match used from the 17th century onwards that uses the reaction between potassium chlorate and sugar.
In any case, it can be seen that starting a fire was not an easy task for ancient people, or even in times not so distant from today, and required ingenuity and effort.
Fire was once used as a light source for street lighting, so let’s take a look back at the history of city lighting.
The first lighting devices were hand-held torches, but their use as fixed objects dates back to 500 BC in China.
Street lighting using oil lamps is said to have begun in ancient Rome, when lamps were made from clay and had wicks made of cotton or linen that absorbed oil and brought it to the flame.
Medieval city streets were lit by torches made from dried wood soaked in oil and lit, or by lanterns made from metal or glass and fitted with a candle or oil lamp.
Gas lighting was invented in 1792 by Scottish engineer William Murdoch. Then, in the early 1800s, gas lighting was used in public spaces in several European cities, using a technique where gas was supplied to street lighting through pipes from a central source.
The first electric street light was invented by Sir Joseph Swann in England in the 19th century, and then, in the United States, Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent light bulb in 1879 paved the way for the widespread use of electric lighting for street lighting.
The first city to use electric street lighting was Paris, France, which was installed in 1878 at the Place de la Concorde. The system was designed by physicist Georges Claude and lit the city using newly developed arc lamps that produced brighter and more reliable light.
Besides the cobblestones, street lights are another iconic sight in Paris at night. Candles were used as light for about 100 years before street lights were available, but in 1763 oil lamps (levelbeurs) were adopted and are said to have been installed in 1,200 locations throughout Paris.
Levelbeurs, which reflect light downwards using a hemispherical reflector, were much brighter than candles and much easier to light, but had the drawback of damaging the eyes if you looked at them for long periods of time. However, after Paris’ street lights were changed to oil lamps, the security of the city at night improved considerably, and it is said that more people went out to have fun, not just night watchmen and criminals.
However, there were still many crimes in the dark alleys where the light did not reach or where the light was blocked, and the help of guides carrying lanterns was needed. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables also contains several descriptions that skillfully handle the light and shadow caused by the city lights. The street lamps were seen as symbols of the power overseeing Paris, and so they were apparently the first targets of attack when riots broke out.
In the 1830s, gas lamps replaced the Reverbere lights that had been illuminating the city of Paris. Gas lamps were far brighter than the Reverbere lights, and at dusk the lights were lit one by one by gas lamplighters holding long poles. With the appearance of gas lamps, lamp posts were installed that grew out of the ground, and gas was transported directly from the gasworks through pipes. This image of the Parisian cityscape has been passed down to this day, and many poets and nightcrawlers, including the solitary night-walker Baudelaire, began to enjoy strolling through the streets of Paris at night.
As mentioned above, electric street lights appeared at the end of the 19th century. In order not to spoil the cityscape, the lampposts were left in place and used, and the lighting method was switched from gas to electricity. In 1962, the last gas lamp was replaced with an electric one, bringing an end to the history of gas lighting.
The first automatic street lighting system was installed in Connecticut, USA in 1901, and used photocells to automatically turn lights on and off depending on the level of sunlight.
In Japan, it is said that lights that served as streetlights began to be installed at the entrances of buildings and at crossroads within cities during the Edo period (1603-1868), such as tsuji andon (辻行灯, lanterns) placed at storefronts of town houses and guard stations (辻番所), and wooden or stone lanterns (木灯籠, 石灯籠) placed in front of the gates of red-light districts. These lights were much dimmer than modern lighting that uses oil or candles as a source of light, but they are said to have played a role in preventing crime at night and as landmarks.
In the Edo period, electricity did not yet exist, so people faced the darkness and lived their lives with limited light, using lighting devices such as paper-covered lantern (行灯, andon), paper lanterns (提灯, chochin), garden lantern (灯籠, tourou), torches (松明, taimatsu), and candles (蝋燭, rosoku).
* Andon is an indoor light made of a wooden frame with washi paper pasted on it.
* Chochin is a spiral bamboo framework with washi paper pasted on it and a lit candle inside.
* Tourou are garden decorations made of stone or wood, and generally used rapeseed oil as fuel.
* Taimatsu were mainly made from bundles of pinewood, which is rich in pine resin.
* Rosoku were mainly made from wood wax extracted from wax nuts, and were a very expensive luxury item for common people.
In any case, the lighting fixtures used by Edo commoners only provided as much light as a small light bulb, but they lived without feeling inconvenienced, poor, or unsafe, and it was precisely because they lacked light that they focused on darkness, which led to the development of a unique culture.
For example, they made efforts to make things enjoyable even in the dim light of night, such as writing the characters of books in large letters with dark ink, and using printing techniques such as kira-suri for ukiyo-e (浮世絵).
Ueda Akinari’s Ugetsu Monogatari (上田秋成, 1734-1809, 雨月物語, 1776) has many passages in which various emotions are expressed through the contrast between darkness and light. In The Chrysanthemum Promise (菊花の約, Kikka no chigiri), the young man’s loneliness in the dark is emphasized in the passage about the moon shining only on him. In Reed-Choked House (浅茅が宿, Asaji ga yado), when the man returns home relying on the warm and nostalgic lantern leaking from the house, his wife, who was supposed to have died in the war, appears. The faint light in the darkness symbolizes a fleeting happiness. In any case, this can be said to be a literary rhetoric based on the contrast between light and darkness in the living space of the time.
In fact, gloomy nights, clammy humidity, and a cooped-up feeling are essential conditions for ghosts to appear, which is why ghosts appear in Japanese literature and in Shakespeare. Moreover, on Japanese summer nights, the damp humidity, muggy heat, and discomfort to sleep add negative emotions and grudges to the already scary ghosts, making them even scarier.
When the railway opened between Shinbashi and Yokohama in 1872 during the Meiji era, the station buildings were lit by oil lamps, but with the establishment of gas companies, gas lamps were installed in various places. A few years later, 85 gas lamps were installed between Kyobashi and Shinbashi, and it is said that a pale blue light filtered through gaps in the willow branches swaying in the wind, illuminating the brick walls and creating a charming scene.
After Edison succeeded in putting the carbon light bulb to practical use, the first carbon arc lamp in Japan was installed in front of the Okuragumi building in Ginza in 1882, but it was much later that electric street lights actually began to spread, after the fear of darkness following the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) led to the need for road lighting. In the meantime, 148 two-lamp round globe street lamps were installed between Shinbashi and Kyobashi in 1921 as the first modern street lighting.
However, due to power shortages during and after the war, people continued to be unable to get adequate lighting both indoors and outdoors.It was not until 1951 that two-lamp pole-head streetlights incorporating fluorescent mercury lamps were finally installed on Ginza Street, providing enough light to read newspapers at night.
The fluorescent lamp was invented in 1927 by Edmund Germer and others as a new lighting technology to replace incandescent light bulbs. This technology converts ultraviolet light generated by discharging electricity between two electrodes in mercury vapor into visible light using a phosphor coated on the inside of a glass tube, and sodium lamps (1932), high-pressure mercury lamps (1934), and fluorescent lamps (1938) were invented one after the other.
Fluorescent lamps had little energy loss due to heat, could produce three to five times the amount of light as incandescent lamps for the same amount of electricity, and had a long lifespan, so they rapidly became popular from the 1960s as an energy-saving, bright, white light source. HID lamps, which were developed later and had an output several dozen times greater than fluorescent lamps, came to be widely used for outdoor lighting on streets, roads, buildings, baseball stadiums, etc., and discharge lamps became the main source of lighting in the second half of the 20th century.
As an aside, recent lighting equipment for film productions includes small, lightweight, yet powerful LED lamps, but the old lighting equipment up until the early 1980s consisted of bulbs housed in cast iron frames, and 5kW or 10kW lights were very large and heavy, and got so hot that you could get burned if you touched them carelessly, so the appearance of small lighting equipment such as Arriflex lighting kits and HMI (Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide) was a revolutionary development.
In 1974 Fuji Film released its revolutionary ASA400 16mm high-speed film, but before that, film speeds were low – ASA200, ASA100 before that, and ASA40 before that – so obtaining enough light with lighting equipment was necessary for filmmaking.
On cold winter days, the film crew would sometimes gather around the lighting equipment to keep warm, but since film lighting is based on three-point lighting or Rembrandt lighting, there are anecdotes about how the lighting was so intense that actors’ contact lenses dried out and couldn’t be removed, so the actors must have felt very hot during filming at the time.
Let’s get back to the topic of street lights.
In any case, the city lights and night views that have come about as a result of the spread of lighting are not just visually stunning, as landscapes illuminated by light standing out against the darkness, but they are also a fusion of our innate, unconscious comfort with light and the artificial beauty brought about by civilization, and can be said to be part of the epic tale of humanity that continues from the primitive age to the future.
It is often said that a landscape enveloped in sparkling lights naturally makes people’s hearts leap and puts them in a special mood, and this is because city illuminations have a psychological effect and an uplifting charm.
* City illuminations have a calming effect, and warm-colored lights in particular are said to create a feeling of warmth, and the appropriate brightness and colors are said to reduce stress and soothe the mind. In addition, pink light is a symbol of love and security, and calms emotions and relieves anxiety and tension, while yellow and gold light brings warmth, happiness, and familiarity, blue light has the effect of calming, trust, and healing, and red light is said to have the effect of drawing out vitality.
* Illuminations that completely change the everyday scenery provide an extraordinary experience and at the same time stimulate a sense of excitement.
* In places enveloped in light, the force that draws people together is amplified, naturally inducing a sense of symbiosis and connection.
* Exposure to light promotes the secretion of serotonin in the brain, increasing feelings of happiness and helping to maintain a positive mental state.
Perhaps due to this psychological effect and the stabilization of electricity supplies, from the 1950s to the 1960s, cities with breathtaking views known as “million dollar night views” were born, where the city lights of the setting sun lit up the streets, creating a fantastical atmosphere, such as Hakodate, Hong Kong, Naples, and Kobe.
On the other hand, cities are places where large numbers of people gather to live and work, and they are places of daily life, culture, and social interaction, with commercial facilities, residences, and public transportation. From afar, the city appears beautifully illuminated, but as you get closer, a complex structure and reality emerges, with residents, visitors, workers, and the stakeholders who support them all overlapping and co-creating one another.
Charles Chaplin (1889-1977) once said that life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot, and so in the city, opposing situations, emotions, and values such as prosperity and decline, joy and sorrow, morality and decadence coexist and interfere with each other to form a society.
As modernization progresses in cities, poverty and social inequality become more apparent, inducing feelings of alienation and powerlessness, and social pressure and stress increase mental fatigue and feelings of isolation, which may lead to a decadent perception.
Nietzsche (1844-1900) saw the loss of traditional values and sense of emptiness brought about by the rapid transformation and progress of ideology and technological innovation as nihilism, an inevitable passing point, and advocated the creation of new values to overcome this and find meaning in life. This means that nihilism should not be lamented as a phenomenon to be deplored, but rather that it can be seen as an opportunity to create new values and put them into practice, which can lead to living a fulfilling life.
Let’s compare nihilism with Nietzsche.
1. Passivity vs. Positivity
Nihilism: A passive stance that believes life has no meaning
Nietzsche: An active stance that creates meaning and value for oneself
2. Values
Nihilism: Lamenting the collapse of values
Nietzsche: Seeing the collapse of values as an opportunity to create new values
3. Possibilities
Nihilism: Falling into despair and a sense of helplessness, giving up
Nietzsche: Striving to maximize potential
4. Dependence vs. independence
Nihilism: Dependence or submission to others or an external value system
Nietzsche: Aiming for autonomous and self-contained values
By avoiding the fall into ressentiment and not being swayed by circumstances or fate, and by each individual using their own will and strength to carve out their own future, searching for their own identity and the meaning of life, and achieving a truly free and creative way of life, they will be able to live a richer life.
There is a line in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940): “We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.”
Chaplin satirically portrayed a society where comedy and tragedy coexist, from the perspective of a commoner, depicting social absurdity, true love, pure kindness, courage, and the preciousness of living to the fullest no matter what hardship you are in. And even the humorous scenes are sometimes wrapped in pathos because of the seriousness of life, and can even appear sorrowful or melancholic, and they continue to have universal value that gives courage and inspiration to live beyond time.
City Lights (1931) was produced during the Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash on Wall Street in New York in 1929 and spread throughout the capitalist world in the 1930s. It portrayed how true love and human warmth can be a saving force, even in the cold social reality of poverty, and gave people courage and hope.
Let me summarize the story.
—–
On the day of the statue unveiling ceremony, a tramp named Charlie buys flowers from a blind flower girl on a street corner.
That night, Charlie saves a drunken millionaire who is about to jump into the river and commit suicide. The millionaire ends up drinking with Charlie, who saved his life. However, when the millionaire sobers up in the morning, he has no memory of Charlie.
Charlie buys all the flowers from the blind flower girl who is selling flowers near the millionaire’s house, and drives her home in the millionaire’s luxury car. Like a gentleman, Charlie shakes the blind flower girl’s hand and cheers her up before parting ways. The blind flower girl thinks that Charlie is a kind, wealthy man.
When the millionaire gets drunk at night, he remembers Charlie, but when he wakes up the next morning, he has completely forgotten about the previous night and kicks Charlie out of his house.
Charlie learns that the blind flower girl who lives with a frail old woman in a small room is facing eviction due to overdue rent. In an attempt to somehow raise some cash, Charlie enters a fixed boxing match, but contrary to what had been agreed upon, his opponent is a strong fighter and he is defeated.
Charlie is at a loss, but he does not give up. At that moment, he is reunited with the millionaire who only remembers Charlie when he is drunk. When Charlie explains the blind flower girl’s rent and eye surgery expenses, the wealthy man generously hands over the large sum of $1,000.
However, two robbers are also in the room, and the millionaire is hit hard over the head by the robbers and loses consciousness. Charlie immediately calls the police, but when the police arrive, the robbers have fled, and the police assume that Charlie, who looks shabby, is the culprit and frame him. When the millionaire regains consciousness, he has completely forgotten about Charlie and does not even try to defend him.
After barely escaping from the millionaire’s house, Charlie goes to the blind flower girl’s house, hands her $1,000, and leaves, but is soon found by a detective in the street and arrested.
Time passes, and the blind flower girl regains her sight through surgery, opens a flower shop, and spends her days thinking about Charlie every time a wealthy-looking man comes to buy flowers.
After serving his sentence, Charlie was released from prison and was walking aimlessly around town looking even more shabby than before. He happened to pass by the flower shop and was frozen in place when he saw the blind flower girl in the shop window.
As Charlie was about to leave, the flower girl, feeling pity for him, stopped him, offering to hand him a flower and some coins. Taking Charlie’s hand to give him the coins, the flower girl realized from the feel of his hand that Charlie was her benefactor.
—–
The light, darkness, and shadows created by the city lights symbolize the state of mind and state of consciousness.
Light is an element that becomes consciousness, hope, and positivity, and represents spiritual growth, awareness, happiness, self-affirmation, and the satisfaction of achieving a goal. If we pursue only light, we will ignore the darkness, that is, we will only see the ideal and not face reality. Conversely, if we are too biased towards light, we will be trapped in superficial positive thinking and idealism, and will induce a state of detachment from reality.
Darkness represents the unknown, negative emotions lurking deep within the heart, and the unconscious realm, including fear, anxiety, trauma, past wounds, guilt, and repressed desires. If you are too caught up in the darkness, you will lose hope, that is, you will fall into self-denial and despair. Conversely, if you are too caught up in the darkness, it will induce a state in which anxiety, fear, and trauma are too strong and you are unable to act.
Shadow is an intermediate entity between light and darkness, and refers to repressed emotions within yourself and another aspect that you have unconsciously, symbolizing the qualities that you are unaware of but certainly exist. Consciously acknowledging the shadow is also about knowing your true self and being in balance, which leads to growth. If you are not aware of the shadow, you may unconsciously suppress your own shadow and problems may arise.
Therefore, it is essential to maintain a good balance between light, darkness, and shadow.
It was Nietzsche who encouraged us to listen to our own inner voice, to make an effort to find the meaning of life, and to seek and carve out the meaning of life with our own hands, rather than relying too easily on existing values. “Imagination means nothing without doing” is one of Chaplin’s famous quotes, and it can be said that the little tramp generously dedicated all his imagination and energy to making someone’s hopes and dreams come true.
Light pollution from city lights has come to be recognized as a serious issue among experts since the World Atlas of Night Sky Brightness was published in 2016. This is because excessive or inappropriate use of artificial lighting has had a negative impact on human health, the ecosystems of plants and animals, and the nature of night itself.
Light pollution disrupts the body’s natural circadian rhythm, affecting physiological processes and reducing the secretion of melatonin. As a result, light pollution is said to be associated with a variety of health problems and lifestyle disorders, including lack of sleep, fatigue, headaches, stress, anxiety, as well as obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, decreased daytime activity, effects on hormone production, and increased risk of certain types of cancer.
Furthermore, light pollution disrupts natural light cycles such as the day-night cycle and seasons that have been engraved in the DNA of all plants and animals over billions of years, changing the behavior, physiological functions, and biological rhythms of living organisms, causing serious and widespread ecological impacts and disruptions.
Moreover, recent smart street lights are said to be equipped with functions such as reading car license plates and monitoring every movement of ordinary citizens, which seems to be bringing about a rapid transition to an extreme surveillance society.
In his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975), Michel Foucault (1926-1984) provides a sharp analysis of the changing forms of power exercised in modern society and the nature of power, revealing the process by which power has changed from visible, violent control to invisible control through discipline and surveillance, becoming more subtle and pervasive.
According to Foucault, punishment in Europe shifted from physical punishment to mental punishment in response to humanitarian considerations, and this was not an advancement in punishment but rather a change in its form, leading to the emergence of a new form of power.
Foucault explained this new form of power using the concept of the panopticon, a circular prison devised by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. A panopticon is a structure in which all the prisoners can be monitored from a central watchtower, and it is said that the awareness that the prisoners may be under constant surveillance helps them discipline themselves even if they are not actually being watched.
Foucault points out that the concept of the panopticon is a power mechanism that is applied not only to prisons but also to various institutions and systems in modern society, such as schools, factories, and hospitals.
In fact, in modern society, it can be seen that technologies such as surveillance cameras and social media that constantly monitor and discipline commoners have permeated the world, but it can also be said that “The Birth of the Prison” made it clear that the common sense and norms that are taken for granted in society were historically constructed in accordance with the intentions of the rulers.
Chaplin’s film clearly visualizes the images, disparities, and contrasts of power.
In City Lights, the millionaire is portly, indecisive, and selfish, in contrast to Charlie, who is skinny, shabby, but good-natured. In The Kid (1921), the policeman, who represents power, is several times larger than Charlie and has an unpleasant personality. Charlie is poor, but he is desperately trying to live for someone or something and is trying his best to live in the moment. In A Dog’s Life (1918), he puts a dog’s tail into an almost empty milk bottle, soaks it in milk, and lets the dog lick it, sharing even his meager food.
The Club of Rome clearly stated the limits of growth in 1972. Since then, city lights may have played a role in guiding plebeian society to the limits of physical and mental survival.
According to Carl Jung (1875-1961), the law of energy also applies to human psychology. Suppressed energy moves into the unconscious realm and leads to phenomena such as meaningless irritation, sudden tears, and emotional breakdowns. When one loses motivation, the energy does not disappear, but is simply hidden from the surface of consciousness deep in the unconscious, and it transforms into complexes such as jealousy and anger.
This movement of energy into the unconscious is not necessarily a bad thing. Artists can use this mental energy to get new ideas, and the energy used inside the mind seems to be essential for psychological health and the development of creativity.
Commoner society may be faced with further hardships in the future, but it will be essential to maintain inner energy and keep the light of the heart burning, until the day of freedom and liberation arrives.
Sincerely grateful for your financial support.
Sources and references:
Smart street lights now being rigged with license plate readers to spy on your every move
