The figure of the flâneur—the stroller, the passionate
wanderer emblematic of nineteenth-century French literary culture—has always
been essentially timeless; he removes himself from the world while he stands
astride its heart. When Walter Benjamin brought Baudelaire’s conception of the
flâneur into the academy, he marked the idea as an essential part of our ideas
of modernism and urbanism. For Benjamin, in his critical examinations of
Baudelaire’s work, the flâneur heralded an incisive analysis of modernity,
perhaps because of his connotations: “[the flâneur] was a figure of the modern
artist-poet, a figure keenly aware of the bustle of modern life, an amateur
detective and investigator of the city, but also a sign of the alienation of
the city and of capitalism,” as a 2004 article in the American
Historical Review put it. Since Benjamin, the academic establishment has
used the flâneur as a vehicle for the examination of the conditions of
modernity—urban life, alienation, class tensions, and the like.
In the ensuing decades, however, the idea of flânerie as a
desirable lifestyle has fallen out of favor, due to some arcane combination of
increasing productivity—hello, fruits of the Industrial Revolution!—and the
modern horror at the thought of doing absolutely nothing. But as we grow inexorably busier—due in large part to
the influence of technology—might flânerie be due for a revival?
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