The Flâneur and the Resistance to the Modern World

It has been widely acknowledged that the concept of the flâneur illuminated by Walter Benjamin in his discussion of Baudelaire and Poe has indicated an important direction in urban studies. In my observation, it is not far too wrong to take the concept of the flâneur as the initiating point of current studies of urban culture.

The flâneur, according to Benjamin’s definition, has the “leisurely quality” (36) that makes him roaming in the arcade at the pace he sets for himself (“take turtles for a walk” (54)). It is at the street (or the arcade) that the flâneur feels at home (“he is as much at home among the façades of houses as a citizen in his four walls” (37)); it is the street that he finds “the favorable sojourn” (37) for strolling. That is, the street has become sort of a dwelling for the flâneur.

The observation of the flâneur poses a possibility of detachment from the modern and the industrialized world in the time of Baudelaire (or in the time of Benjamin as well). While the flâneur is indulged in his roaming in the city, he remains attentive to the surroundings, to the passersby, to the shops in the arcade, to the commodities displayed in the street, and in a sense, to take the crowd as a form of commodity. The flâneur stays in the street, he is part of the street, but he is highly aware of his difference. In his detachment from the crowd, the flâneur remains his distinguished identity from the crowd, because “he is a prince who is everywhere in possession of his incognito” (40), to quote after Baudelaire.

The detachment further provides a possibility of resistance: the kind of resistance coming not from confrontation or subversion, but from the awareness to stay away from “the administrative control process” (48), and to remain unbound by the gloomy “uniformities” of the modern society. The flâneur sees the overwhelming control power over the construction and mapping of the city, while he is capable of demonstrating a penetrating walk in the city. In a sense, the turtle walk is a form of protest to the fastening pace of people rushing for works; the walk at night and the right to take the street as an intérieur both demonstrate a form of freedom. While the crowd is subject to the “dehumanized” process that allows them to “express themselves through anything but a reflex action” (53), the flâneur preserves the autonomy to stay away from the sway of modernization (or capitalization or industrialization or urbanization). The detachment of the flâneur is an autonomous detachment.

For no reason, when I was studying Benjamin’s flâneur for this week, I thought of the assembly-line worker played by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. (Don’t blame me for this far-fetched imagination. I know this association is far too wrong.) It is clear that the distinction between the leisure class flâneur and the factory worker acted by Chapin (with his familiar small Derby hat, mustache, large boots, baggy pants, tight jacket and cane) has been drastic. The settings (the arcade and the factory), the time (the Second Empire and the Great Depression) and the social class (the leisure class and the proletariat) are all different. Yet both the Chaplin factory worker and the flâneur pose a form of detachment to the environment and to the society they are living. In Baudelaire’s flâneur, he poses a free will at the time of material decay, while in Chaplin’s case, he acutely accuses the unemployment, poverty, and hunger. Both are doing their resistance at their own pace, both remains their autonomy by remaining detached. It is just that one is posing his resistance in mockery, the other in silence.

My point is, are these forms of resistance valid? Can their gestures or awareness of resistance lead to any fruitful result or display any effective influence? In a word, can they make things changed? The answer could be a dismissive NO. (Why should all forms of resistance valid in their effect?) As Chaplin returns obediently to the hilarious assembly line after the chaos and as the flâneur takes his random walk after the decline of the arcade and the rise of the department stores, everything remains the same. It seems not to make any difference in their resistance. Can we count the non-effective resistance also as resistance?