Idle Hands Make the Flânuer's Workshop

            In the closing portion of The Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin both defines the cause of the dominating feelings of alienation and isolation suffocating Paris in the latter half of the 19^th-century and provides a remedy for both abating said discomforts and finding hope in a dreary and decrepit environment. Whereas in the first portion of the Arcades Project he introduces the endemic afflictions without providing either a Patient Zero or root cause, Benjamin uses the second half of his work to declare this origin as a sense of idleness created by the increased industrial and technological capacities indicative of a commercial epicenter. Heavily influenced by Marx, Benjamin explains that the modern city’s technology and industry perpetually simplifies our daily routine until we are mechanical automatons desperately searching for purpose in the scant hours not devoted to production.           

Benjamin indentifies a crucial form of Marxist isolation: the conversion of labor into capital. Coupled with the aforementioned isolationist motif of the division of labor in the earlier portion of The Arcades Project, Marx explains the conversion of our labor into capital further removes us from our humanity and slowly changes us into automatons. Summarizing one of Marx’s observations of capitalism, Benjamin states, “With the purchasing power given to him in the form of a salary, the worker can purchase only a certain amount of goods, whose production required just a fraction of the labor he himself provided”[1]. Marx’s worker will never “break even” with his investment of labor. No matter how much labor he invests into the system, he will never receive the appropriate retribution. Sadly, he has no choice but to continue to disproportionately exchange his labor for capital if he hopes to sustain himself in a capitalist economy. Marx further explains, “The existence of capital is his existence…since it determines the tenor of his life in a manner indifferent to him. Production…produces man as a…dehumanized being”[2].

            Benjamin’s believes this dehumanization is an evitable consequence of progress. In his opinion, the industrial revolution forced Paris’ economy to grow so rapidly, its attention was focused on production and not the individual. For example, the construction of the railroads increased production capability exponentially. Prior to the proliferation of rapid, affordable mass-transportation, factory owners could manage their capital and labor force by themselves thus providing a slight degree for a possession of labor; however, the railroads soon “had the need of such massive amounts of capital that it could no longer be concentrated in the hands of only a few individuals. And so a great many bourgeois were forced to entrust their funds, which had never before been allowed out of their sight, to people whose names they hardly knew”[3]. With a large populous forced to seek employment in the factories, massive access to natural resources, and a newly established transportation network, Paris’ economy grew at a velocity that obliterated man’s every option save to accommodate its expansion. The inexhaustible supply of labor yielded unimaginable profits for the bourgeois factory owners who in turn enslaved their labor force through the means of providing goods costing a disproportionate price to the demanded labor investment in order to ensure subservience.

            Soon, the city itself began to reflect the disregard for humanity in exchange for more efficient means of production. For example, stores began to employ the use of mannequins to increase the sales of clothing. Out of fear for directing attention to anything but the merchandise, shop owners elected to use “female busts without heads or legs, with curtain hooks in the place of arms and a percaline skin of arbitrary hue- bean brown, glaring pink, hard black- [that were] lined up like a row of onions, impaled on rods, or set out on tables”[4] as opposed to a more realistic model. Not only did the shop owners elect to focus on the consumption of goods as opposed to the accurate depiction of the interaction between their product and humanity, the crowd itself approved of the removal of the human form in exchange for showcasing the industrial product in order to facilitate the refinement of the efficiency of the capitalist system.

            While the aforementioned example is one of an infinite multitude, Marx identifies the greatest contributor to idleness and alienation: synchronization. If a capitalist system is to be efficient, it forces all other schedules to evolve into their most efficient form all the while ignoring both the second-order effects of their conversions and the agendas of those affected by the schedule. In fact, Marx informs us that, “The clock was the first automatic device applied to practical purposes; the whole theory of production of regular motion was deployed through it”[5]. Our itineraries are subordinate to that of the collective whole. For example, you might be out of luck if you want to take a train at three in the morning from Topeka, Kansas to Ontario, Canada. It is not efficient to construct the necessary track and provide a train specifically intended to accommodate your travel plans. In stead, you must travel to several locations at times contrary to your choosing if you one-day hope to travel from Topeka to Ontario.

Benjamin using an unlikely example to demonstrate the forced synchronization in a city: prostitution. As Paris continued to develop its economy, even vice began to maximize its efficiency. For example, a clinic on Rue de Jerusalem would set aside one day a month to treat prostitutes’ venereal diseases for free. Oddly enough, one always found “the approaches to the station overrun by a large number of men awaiting the appearance of these unhappy creatures knowing, as they do, that those who leave by the dispensary have been deemed healthy”[6]. Furthermore, Benjamin states that the Parisian police of the 19^th-century continued to notice an increase in debauchery prior to the following holidays: New Year’s Day, the Feast of Kings and festivals of the Virgin. Why? “Because girls,” explains F.F.A. Beraud, “like to give and receive presents or to offer beautiful bouquets; they also want a new dress for themselves, or a hat in the newest faction, and, lacking the appropriate means…turn to prostitution”[7]. Clearly, Benjamin identifies human behavior, in this case soliciting prostitutes, independently adjusting its timeline to coincide with the established, efficient approved by capitalism.

When a system maximizes its efficiency, components not required for a specific purpose at a specific time are ignored while the system directs its attention to the appropriate resources and apparatuses. Accordingly, that which is not required by the system has nothing to do. Benjamin identifies that once urban denizen completed his labor for the day, one found that he had very little to do. Every aspect of life was becoming more efficient and thus required less and less attention and labor. Naturally, Benjamin states that people eventually became very bored and idle. Differently put, he states, “When all lines of are broken and no sail appears on the blank horizon, when no wave of immediate experience surges and crests, then there remains to the isolated subject in the grip of taedium vitae one last thing- and that is empathy”[8]. The empathy eventually perpetuates the notion of solitude. In other words, after working 10-12 hours at a job requiring only the most elementary, efficient movements repeated thousands of times, one comes home to an environment so efficient and advanced, he has very little to do outside of sleeping and eating to maintain his existence. His whole life revolves around sustaining himself to work in the factory. Nothing else matters. Thus, when one is not at the factory, he feels agitated while he impatiently awaits for the hour during which he will once again become useful to the city.

The idle components of the city’s machine soon begin to look for ways to make the vacant hours pleasurable before they are called to resume their labor. Corresponding to a previously identified yearning to break the perpetual monotony, Benjamin believes people search for a reliable source of shock effect: gambling. Eduard Gourdon claims, “I submit that the passion for gambling is the noblest of all passions because it comprehends all others. A series of lucky rolls gives me more pleasure than a man who does not gamble can have over the period of several years”[9]. Why is gambling so exciting? How are we able to glean such pleasure from gains of chance? Benjamin explains that it is one of the few mechanical processes that allows destiny to control one’s schedule as opposed to means of production dictating what we do at a certain time. Anatole France states that gambling produces in a single second the same changes “that Destiny ordinarily effects only in the course of many hours or even many years”[10]. Each hand is, as Alain explains, “independent of the one preceding…Gambling strenuously denies all acquired conditions, all antecedents…pointing to previous actions; and that is what distinguishes  it from work”[11]. While the green felt still demands mechanical repetitions such as the rolling of dice or placing a bet, we are unaware of what Fate has in store for us in the hand to come. This excitement sharply contrasts with a factory worker who knows exactly what is moving down the conveyor belt to his workstation. Instead, the gambler waits for Fate to shock him from omnipresent senses of malaise and route with either outrageous fortune or crushing failure. Differently stated, gambling offers the opportunity to perceive one’s surroundings as an environment governed by random chance as opposed to a structured production schedule. Albeit it being temporary, gambling liberates us from the monotonous pattern of life mandated by the city.

Gambling, however, has one distinct drawback: it requires some form of capital if one wishes to partake. And, mathematically speaking, one will eventually run out of money while playing games in which the odds favor “The House”. Accordingly, Benjamin identifies another approach to filling idle hours: flânerie. By strolling the city streets and observing both the crowd and one’s surroundings, Benjamin feels that one is able to gain an acute level of clarity that enables him to break the obfuscation of reality mandated by a system demanding its workers focus only on facilitating a maximum level of production. Instead of a Gordian Knot of streets, filth, and an unending stream of humanity flowing along the sidewalks, Benjamin feels that flânerie allows one to “transform Paris into one great interior- a house whose rooms are the quarters, no less clearly demarcated by thresholds than are real rooms”[12]. Where gambling temporarily alleviates us from boredom, flânerie permanently dissipates the feeling of isolation and universally connects one with his surroundings. As Baudelaire states, flânerie empowers one to “be at home, yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be the center of the world”[13]. While one may have difficulty correlating aimless wandering to the defeat of isolation, Benjamin quickly dissuades any doubt in flânerie’s ability to remedy our discomfort. “Flânerie,” he explains, “is the demonstration against the division of labor”[14]. The city is an unexplored labyrinth and offers a person a unique opportunity: to apply labor of his choosing solely dedicated to help him understand his surroundings. No one can help the flânuer understand a city; he is unable to delegate portions of his task to another and must do everything himself. For once, our understanding of our surroundings is our own. By separating ourselves from the crowd and viewing the city a whole entity as opposed to an infinite number of separate components, we are able to rebuke the city’s demand that we must accept alienation and confusion as terms of our existence within its urban limits.

While the city never allows us the opportunity to truly liberate ourselves from monotony, we are afforded the luxury for minor rebellions. Benjamin feels the best way to confront the city’s imposition of its will upon ourselves is to view it as a singular, collective entity instead of a billion different pieces. This holistic approach allows us to achieve a higher understanding compared to what we would gain by examining each component. For example, we can identify a car as exactly what it is and understand its purpose. However, if you remove its rear differential or a single piston rod and try to gain a total understanding of their purposes and how they relate to the entire car, you would more than likely become confused. As you continued to dissemble the car piece by piece, you would eventually become frustrated. When you are frustrated for an extended period of time, you become apathetic and stop caring about the cost of resembling the car as long as it retains a form once familiar to you. Once the mountain of separate pieces once again become a car, you can’t help but feel a sense of relief knowing that you are able to understand what you are looking at. For when you fully understand something, it is very difficult for that object to maintain absolute control over you.

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[1] Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press), 651.

[2] 652

[3] 577

[4] Ibid., 694.

[5] Ibid., 695.

[6] Ibid., 501.

[7] Ibid., 501.

[8] Ibid., 805.

[9] Ibid., 495.

[10] Ibid., 498.

[11] Ibid., 512.

[12] Ibid., 422.

[13] Ibid., 443.

[14] Ibid.,427.