Walkers in the City–and Everywhere | Hacker News Reader

Walkers in the City–and Everywhere

daily.jstor.org

33 pointsThevet15 comments

I live in a major city where I can walk or take public transportation anywhere I need to go.

90% of the people I share this city with are capable of doing the same thing, and it would be transformed in the process from an incomprehensible hellscape of noise and concrete into something reflecting any kind of human agency.

That this doesn't happen is not even because people are weak, stupid, selfish, feckless, and lazy, but because they are expected and incentivized to act that way. The article is a reminder that we don't need to.

Oh, I see. The vast majority is only acting like this because they are expected to do so.

But here's the thing: you and I are also expected to be like that, yet I don't even have a license.

Inconsiderate assholes act like they do because they are not being punished. It is as simple as that. Kind of the opposite of your incentive narrative.

Hmm, I commute by bike, but I think the people in their cars are being 'punished' in the sense that they were sold on the idea that having a car would make them free somehow, and now they're stuck in a traffic jam. In the US we allowed lots of city centers to decay and built suburbs, all far flung enough to require driving (since decent public transit would be tantamount to socialism, apparently). So it's a disaster of our own making., really.

Well, I live in Bulgaria which is nothing like the US. Country wasn't built for cars at all, especially the cities. Urban sprawl is nonexistent hete. And yet, there are more cars than people. The air is barely breathable, sidewalks are used for parking lots. It's been like that for decades and getting worse. Our public transportation is quite good.

Cars and cars culture made life here horrible but the masses want more cars.

"Flâneur" and "traceur" (parkour) are perfectly good words for admirable activities. No need for any post-modern angst or contrived socio-political analysis.

Yes, they are both mostly male pursuits, because the first requires free time, curiosity, and a little frisson of physical danger in a strange neighborhood. The latter requires free time, strength, agility, a certain obsessiveness, and outright physical peril - often realized.

Both are French words, for originally French activities, but I'm not sure why exactly. In what sense are these characteristically or necessarily French?

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37788875 (45 comments)

Spoiler alert: turns out this is not Walking Dead Fanfic.

>Imagine going for a stroll, unencumbered by a phone, preoccupied by the glories of the world around you:

>we have the opportunity to imagine new versions of the public sphere,

>psychogeography has become a ripe tool for analyzing environments, both real and imagined

>imagining post-Katrina New Orleans

>This malleability of psychogeography, from the literal concrete to the stretches of the virtual imagination

>it’s hard to imagine the impetus it would take for the observations made on a psychogeographical journey to have a tangible impact

>How can living communities be completely reimagined

>The imaginative potential of psychogeography can play an important role

I guess I lack the proper imagination to fully understand what this is about. I went through the article twice; I've also gone on thousands of walks all around my heterogeneous neighborhood, never looking at a smartphone screen (although I do listen to my favorite music).

What can or should I do with the information/opinions in this article?

> two Europe-based organizations that drew on anarchist and Marxist writings

This article is basically “capitalism bad”

That can’t possibly be your takeaway.

I genuinely think there's a super-majority of people who believe Marxism and Anarchism are nothing more than counter-capitalism, and that being Marxist or Anarchist means its your entire personality. That is is the only thing you would ever think about or that it influences every action you take. of course nobody thinks that way about capitalism.

Ignorance is pervasive when it comes to political philosophy or writing, because capitalism has had such an incredibly long run as the 'default' in the first world, for 60+ years.

Just how someone in a community of 99% the same race will view ANY other race as 'other' and with a hysterical level of ignorance, someone in a society that is 99% capitalist will view ANY other philosophy/system as 'other' and with a hysterical level of ignorance.

Thought and conversation ending quips like this basically ruin HN.

To me, the article is about the walking environment as art. ‘How does it make you feel?’

It’s promoting groups and activities which spark greater awareness of your surroundings while walking. And also, I think, to have a sense of ownership of the environs where you live.

I think the purpose of the article is to spark your imagination and make you think.

Having headphones in cuts you off from a wealth of experience around you, and having your phone on you connects you to the internet in a thousand different ways that cuts you off from where you are physically.

As a dog-owner who has walked at least 30 minutes a day down the same paths for 10+ years and who just recently started taking my headphones out and leaving my phone at home, I am continually amazed at what I was missing.

Bird song. A neighbor in their yard who I wouldn't normally wave to because I didn't notice. Sound from a window.

Leave your phone behind. You'll be more bored sometimes but that's good. It will force you out of your own mind.

There's a trend in academic writing, particularly in the humanities, where the author is clearly putting all of their effort into positioning themselves in a "field", relative to other "fields". I get a few paragraphs into these articles and then realize, "ah. This wasn't written for me, the reader. This was written by the author for the author." I've made the mistake of buying some books like this, from academic presses, and have been bored and disappointed.

I think I know what this particular essay is written in response to. A while back, I recall a few essays about the figure of the flaneur. They were written to problematize this activity, to emphasize the privilege of the flaneur, who expects to be able to go anywhere in the city without fear of harassment either by so-called "criminals" (whose expropriation of the flaneur's wealth may actually be just), or by the police who terrorize the marginalized communities on which the flaneur sets his gaze (and it is always a he -- spit).

(Obviously I am parodying these essays just a little in my last paragraph, but not very much.)

So this essay, by contrast, is seeking to rehabilitate the figure of the flaneur. Basically, because the author is trying to carve out a niche for themselves in academia, and in this niche they want to be able to identify with the flaneur without the moral opprobrium that's used within academia to take out competitors.

To say it again, they're just scared, looking for a niche, and engaging in some mimicry of the behavior they see around them. So I sympathize a little.

It's kind of a dumb game with small prizes, but if you've lived in academia all your life and that's all you know, then that's what you're going to do, just as surely as, if you've never known anything but a holler in West Virginia, you look for a job in the coal mine.

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