Architectural Geology of Rabat, Part 3: On Articulated Detail and Doomers

Architectural Geology of Rabat, Part 3: On Articulated Detail and Doomers | Morocco

At the entrance to the Kasbah of the Udayas. Gazing at the upper portion of the outer gate of the Bab Oudaya.

For the list of my primary sources for this series, see the bottom of the Part 1 essay.

At this level of scrutiny it’s vividly obvious that the stone used here, the locally quarried Salé Calcarenite, is an excellent carving medium despite its long-term preservation issues. It shares that virtue with its trans-Atlantic calcarenitic equivalent, the Salem Limestone of southern Indiana.

Besides the graceful geometric detail there’s an elegant inscription in Kufic and my favorite feature of all. It’s definitely of biologic origin, but I’m not really sure whether it represents palmettes or scallop shells. My Plant Kingdom bias notwithstanding, I hope it’s the latter, because it would be an appropriately marine reference to the tidal estuary (the Bou Regreg) and the great ocean (the North Atlantic) that lie just beyond the Kasbah’s walls.

In some recent posts I have emitted some dark and grumbling comments about my own species, which in truth is showing its worst side in many ways these days. But now, inspired by the beauty of the architectural ornamentation pictured above, I feel obliged to do a balancing act and come to humanity’s defense. Somewhat.

Recently I came across a rant by a YouTube personality, full of prideful scorn, who describes himself as a “doomer.” He is part of a community of people that makes a lot of hay out of the ecological overshoot and climatic chaos that is increasingly overcoming us.

There’s plenty of good science documenting these terrifying threats, but I personally can’t stomach anyone who chatters away about such things in online social-media settings and glibly suggests humankind should go utterly extinct so that Mother Nature can return to her pristine innocence. As if she ever had any.

The fact is that Homo sapiens comprehends surprisingly little, lives largely by delusion, and embodies many vile things that we often can’t admit to. And yet in our best expressions of art, architecture, engineering, and science we’ve also made amazingly close approaches to the sublime.

One of the reasons the great novels of the past are so important to read and read again is that they open up our understanding of the deficiencies, glories, and complexities of the human psyche. Here I think of the works of Melville, George Eliot, and Dostoyevsky in particular. And, as I recall, there was a certain Elizabethan playwright who also covered that beat pretty well.

But nowadays most people are blissfully uneducated in the way that matters most. Whether they’re PhDs or ditch-diggers, they stubbornly cling to the lowest level of their own intelligence and surrender themselves to self-justifying stories.

We believe humanity is so splendidly innovative that it will solve any problem the next century throws at it. Or, if you prefer to join this club instead, our species is a parasite or disease that needs to be eradicated so our poor suffering planet can recover. The doomer I mentioned above espouses that, in a vocabulary-starved outpouring of scatological insults. And his audience gleefully agrees with him. What he exposes, of course, is a seething self-hatred deflected outward to the whole human world.

The truth is that the Thanatos-worshipping doomers trumpeting their collective death wish are just as peabrained as the purveyors of that classic form of American stupidity, techno-optimism. No one seems to grasp that in our short history we’ve been very good, sometimes, and very bad, sometimes. So simple explanations do not reflect reality.

While our brains are clearly not adapted to the modern world we have so heedlessly thrown ourselves into, the fact remains that in the midst of murder, tribalism, and genocide we’ve proven ourselves capable of creating the transcendent. The Bab Oudaya, like many other human works I could prattle on about, makes that clear for us to see. We should take a little pride in that, whatever happens next.

To see the other photos and descriptions in this set, visit my my Architectural Geology of Rabat album.

Taken in: Morocco / Rabat-Salé-Kénitra / Oudaya (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 1976

Tags:

architectural_geology

architecture

geology

limestone

masonry

rock

rocks

stone

stonework

Morocco

Rabat

Salé Calcarenite

calcarenite

building materials

building stone

Bab Oudaya

Kasbah of the Udayas

Islamic Architecture

Moroccan Architecture « less

Sets appears in: • Architectural Geology of Rabat • The Beauty of Building Materials more » • Natural History: Morocco • Urban Exposures: La città esaminata « less

Camera: MAKER NAME 96660, f/1.8, 1/55 sec, 2.8mm, ISO 50 (more info) (hide info)

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Aperture:	f/1.8
Exposure Time:	0.018 sec (1/55)
Focal Length:	2.8mm
ISO:	50
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Metering Mode:	Average
White Balance:	Auto
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