The publishing house Cossetània has just published Andar, una filosofía (Walking, a Philosophy), a small book by the thinker Frédéric Gros, originally from 2009, which has become one of the latest bestsellers of European philosophical literature. The popularity of the volume in question is not fortuitous: in a few pages, and through chapters that one can easily devour in bed before napping, Gros reviews the relevance that the act of walking has acquired in the life and thought of philosophical totems such as Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Kant, Thoreau or the flâneuristes of his country, and all narrated with an attractive and simple style, sometimes Wikipedia-like and in some points of a certainly offensive mawkishness even for a French author ("Walking permeates. Walking interminably makes one go from the fears of the skin to the height of the mountains when we face them for a long time, breathing for hours the shape of the descending hills").
Amendments aside, it is worth reading this volume if only to return to some of the magnificent authors Gros cites throughout the text, but also because the book's thesis remains relevant today: namely, the act of walking, especially in cities, has ended up being a reckless and countercultural activity. In other words, in a time where, despite the mobility restrictions typical of the post-Covid era, teleworking continues to force us to live permanently connected to email and mobile phone, immersed in an unhealthy hyperactivity, wandering aimlessly and with the simple objective of taking a walk is profoundly strange. I am not being metaphysical; think of any street in your neighborhood in Barcelona, if you saw someone walking there, you would think that the poor person lacks work and their wandering would practically be an affront to your very busy existence.
"Walking, nothing really moves: rather, it happens that presence slowly settles within the body. Walking is not so much that we approach things, but that the things from outside insist more and more on our body," the author rightly writes. Despite the fact that most Western cities (Barcelona's Eixample is a clear example of what I'm saying) have been urbanized with the dynamics of automobile mobility in mind, there is still no equal way to get to know the outside and get to know ourselves better with it than by walking. Moving by car dangerously resembles living in a video game; the inputs force us to tense our soul and it is necessary for our eyes to adapt to the speed. Walking is another thing, and we are so unaccustomed to it that most Western beings walk down the street glued like junkies to their mobile phone screens.
Walking is another thing, and we are so unaccustomed to it that most Western beings walk down the street glued like junkies to their mobile phone screensA little over a year ago, the privileged brains of the Barcelona City Council deployed what in their particular idiolect they call "tactical urbanism" and precisely in many places in the Eixample, traditionally car-oriented roads were pacified, now reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. You will remember the change, because the appearance of bollards, plastic barriers, concrete areas and ---above all--- streets painted with blue and yellow flowers allowed Barcelonans to exercise our favorite sport: protesting. Aesthetic and political preferences aside (whatever you think, it is a clear ---and sanitary--- reality that access for automobiles in the center of the world's cities must be limited if we don't want to end up with calcined lungs) the most curious thing about all this was to see how the areas designated for pedestrians were and still are a desert: nobody walks where the little flowers are.
The fact is very natural and is not only explained because the paintings I just mentioned are one of the most meritorious examples of ugliness on the entire planet, but also because the act of walking has been denaturalized from our habits in an unquestionable way. If you browse the latest City Barometers (surveys, by the way, very improvable in terms of presentation and rigor), you will see that traffic and mobility are endemic problems for most citizens. In the last issue of said survey dedicated to the topic (July 2020), we note the fact that despite an overwhelming majority of Barcelonians (77.9%) would like to have more space for pedestrians in the city, only 19.2% of citizens habitually travel on foot through it (28.9% do so by car and 15.1% by motorcycle). I would say that teleworking will make these data favor an even more sedentary and lazy citizen.
The act of walking has been denaturalized from our habits in an unquestionable way. I would say that teleworking will make these data favor an even more sedentary and lazy citizen.A very indicative fact from this type of survey is that, when Barcelonians are asked about their favorite leisure activities (going to the cinema, museums, etc.), the act of walking is not even mentioned. As I said at the beginning, walking has become an eccentricity typical of a homelessthat lives thirsty for someone to vindicate it.Curiously, the walker has gone from being a flâneur who seeks to distinguish himself with his haughty aesthetic in an increasingly populated and depersonalized city, to a kind of vagabond who circulates through the city streets with a misunderstood face and yearnings of a false revolutionary.I don't exaggerate, and I would say that the post-Covid world will still increase incomprehension. Try to walk, believe me, and your recklessness will be examined with a magnifying glass by a citizenry increasingly hurried, a victim of stress and, say what you may, thirsty for a car.
Walking is a recklessness. And I, lord and master of this Punyalada, today sing it louder than ever: let's be reckless!