Confessions of a Flaneur

By Ken Evans

Confessions Of A Flaneur

These Confessions are offered in the same spirit as that of an old-time `Western` film, (for example `Unforgiven`), insofar as they both obliquely employ similar theme of an `aging outlaw`, who thought he would be able to hang up his weapons and retire; but because of the sin of pride, was unable to resist just one more shoot-out! And maybe his final and last chance to put right a few `wrongs` that had troubled his mind for some time!

So while you are reading this, and substituting the `Saloon` for the more dangerous and disorderly territory of the Seminar-Rooms of Academia, and Modernism for the small town `Big Whiskey`, and imagining this aging hireling, who is still sufficiently fast on the draw to enable him to survive; dont waste your pity on him, because he doesnt really expect forgiveness! But goes through the motions of pleading forgiveness anyway; just to show that sociology is faster than any hired-gun and more deadly than any bullet!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496997951

Ken Evans

Ken Evans has taught and applied ORM in English and French for 10 years. His know-how in data and process modeling and complex systems management comes from over 30 years in industry, including international jobs with IBM, EDS, Honeywell Controls, and Plessy and clients among the Fortune 500.

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© 2014 Ken Evans. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   12/01/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9794-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9795-1 (e)

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Confessions of a flaneur

Modernity & antimodernity

Climate change & the background-noise of everyday life.

The background-noise of everyday life.

Love from ascona

In the picture from another perspective!

Table talk

The dinning table

The ways of the flaneur.

Floyds

Afternoon tea

Scare home & other stations

All day english breakfast!

Macdo`s

Cheam

Bishops conference

Analysis and reflection

Disinchantment and disappointment

Victuals, rituals and manners

And on politness!

Persons and objects in evderyday life

The drawing room

Chicken consciousness

And of chicken soup?

What do fat arses tell us about our society?

Hard-heartedness and compassion

Compassion

Forgiven?

Confessions Of A Flaneur

A SENSE OF TIME AND PLACE

One of my sociological habits is to automatically contextualise my thinking in terms of time and place as a requirement to understanding just about everything and anything. And in the case of my notes this is especially relevant, as whatever is happening in and around the world impacts on populations and individuals, and in a sense forms part of a `background`, or rather `backdrop` to our everyday personal and shared lives. Global communications bring real-time internationalised human catastrophes to our immediate attention as well as the many small-time stories of bizarre human activities. These together provide a constant flow of positive and negative messages that underscores our personal everyday experiences and our sense of selves.

INTRODUCTION

When I first began this small private project, my initial intention was to concentrate on a few particular aspects of everyday life which, to my way of thinking had become too obvious for anyone to ignore. For example the decline of public manners in everyday interactions, which I thought would be worth exploring as a way of identifying the broader shifts in public social values, attitudes and desires, which lie behind recent changes in lifestyles.

Whenever I walked into town I was struck particularly by the over-sized bodies of young mums pushing `wheelers` with equally over-sized toddlers; both mother and child continuously stuffing their faces with remnants of their `take-aways` as they perambulate the pedestrian highways, and also as they enter and exit shops, clearly with no embarrassment or sense of shame.

I toyed with the idea that `eating habits` would reveal rich sociological pickings and began quizzing my friends and colleagues about general matters connected with the consuming of food, and eventually settled on the idea that ways that people consumed food is a clue to many other questions and an indicator individuals` central values of life in general.

It was in this that I had a hunch about the importance of the dinner table in the `order of things`, an assumption I needed to check out by quizzing my friends and colleagues with the leading question, What in your opinion is the most significant article of furniture in a family home? Some of them spontaneously replied, the dinner table, others were puzzled and prodded around, suggesting alternatives, but when I suggested that my choice was the dinner table they were puzzled, The dinner table…you mean the ordinary dinner table? Yes. I would reply, "The Dinner table, …the not so ordinary dinner table,… but indeed the cradle of intelligent debate, …the arena around which countless politicians initiated and developed their debating skills,… the favoured prop of Presidents and Prime Ministers negotiating international treaties and striking deals, …the focus of family kinship and disputes and disagreements, … emblem of polite manners and protocols, …the dramatic setting for social intercourse, … and a major setting for the conduct of everyday life!

For what people talk about around the family dinner table, and it`s equivalent in public spaces, is a measure of their concerns in their daily lives. And when they have exhausted the topics of communal life, they move onto more personal concerns: their work and their families, and eventually their liminal experiences: the odd, the unusual, the bizarre and the extreme, and even the imagined, for in these social spaces, sometimes a certain kind of magical intimacy holds, providing for even the humblest chats some highlights and lowlights of everyday life.

Some of my examples are drawn from the fleeting interludes of my own everyday experiences, the consequences of an oddly `mixed` career! Perhaps not so much a career, but more a lurching from one job to another, for the combination of social sciences teaching and research has provided both variety and privileged access to some unusual places. Among these; an Anglican Bishops Conference in Windsor Castle, a Television Celebrities` Bun-fight, an Oxford College High Table, and mealtimes in an exclusive Prep School, a `downtown` Elderly Peoples Care Home, and an all-day Breakfast `Caf` in East London.

Confessions Of A Flaneur

Allow me to mention one positivistic-minded lecturer who first introduced me to sociological theory during my undergraduate days, who always referred to the original sociological theorists; Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emil Durkheim as the Holy Trinity; but I took him at his word and now make my confession to them for the relief of my sociological soul!

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Forgive me Marx,.. Weber,.. Durkheim,.. et al, for my many sociological transgressions inside and outside of the study and the lecture rooms; for my persistent rebelliousness (kicking against the pricks, etc), my intransigence and non-conformity, the disparagement of my betters and my disobedience, and for all of my other sociological sins of omission and commission, for which I now declare that I am truly…

Of course I realise there can be no forgiveness for such inconsequential transgressions ; but at least I thought there might be some benefit in sharing a few sociological thoughts with others; especially those brand-new shiny young things now tumbling off the academic production-lines, with their expectations of earning a dishonest crust from the possession of their Sociology Diplomas!

When I started there were no such academic production lines and too few universities; and sociologists thin on the ground, so thin in fact that most people had never heard of them or it, and my attempts to explain usually led to embarrassing questions, such as What use is it, and is it a sort of job? One answer after more than forty years of trying to teach, research, consult and write is - Yes, …Sort of!

Not really a job or a profession in any conventional sense; more a way of life, a way of viewing the world and people; an attitude of mind perhaps, and for some of us a way of Being! Now perhaps that might sound oddly pretentious to the many sociologist manqué I have rubbed along with; but I recall Gouldner`s distinction between those: ` who live off sociology and those who live for it`; the difference surely being one of commitment and involvement. Firstly as a commitment to sociology as a particular way of viewing social worlds, and secondly a way of (almost) being part of those worlds.

Two memorable world-changing events happened whilst I was an undergraduate student; `Watergate` and Gouldner`s Coming Crisis of Western Sociology most significantly his discussion of the contradictions and structures of sociology, which might easily have been an account of my Sociology Department at Bristol at that time, especially the contradictions and the conflict between Functionalists and Marxists. But it was part- four, The Theorist Pulls Himself Together, Partially, which really made me think about what kind of Sociologist I wanted to be; especially his discussion of Reflexivity which influenced me the most and caused me the most pain, because to honour Reflexivity I had to split myself in two! Sometimes I worked within the boundaries of institutional sociology, either teaching or managing social research, whilst at other times I would assume my other persona, that of the Flaneur, the fly-on-the-wall- come Private Investigator, which didn’t make much money but was more fun and more real, and permitted me from time to time to live with and for sociology; a hired gun so to speak!

My `Institutional`- Self worked in smart offices managing dull research projects for government departments and local authorities and required a conventional standard text-book mentality and methodology, which included fitting- in with bureaucratic protocols, (I even wore a tie and suit) but most importantly it also gave me access to institutions that otherwise would be impossible to penetrate, so of course at times I felt like a double agent, because whilst in my role as Research Manager I had restricted access to events and places, and was secretly imbibing other (secret personal and political) research evidence, which could not be collected any other way; in fact I was pretending to be one of them, a participant observer of sorts, a safe dumb and non-threatening worker at the institutional coal-face.

So I saw and knew the inside mentalities of government departments, of local authorities, of College Principals` and University Vice-Chancellors’ Offices, of Military Establishments, Hospitals and EMI Care Homes, of schools classrooms, and of many other behind-the scenes from other organisations; all without any oversight from Ethics Committees, and without ever being suspected of Spying! And I also kept my eyes and ears open and was occasionally made to listen to their sad domestic complaints! I do not consider any of these experiences as breaking any sociological rules, in fact quite the reverse, it was a more a radical approach to enquiring about institutional protectionism and the nasty tricks and bumbling inadequacies of very senior operators of the establishment.

How did this happen? I suppose all of the enforced reading and fine- tuning of dissertations as a student exposed me to investigative habits which led me always to feel discomfort of uncertainties, to the point that I always needed to know what else there was to be found; in other words what was beneath or inside whatever it was going on? And whereas most published sociological studies presented neat findings with statistics and discussion etc; as documents of social experience, they were `bloodless`! I used to suffer pervasive thoughts of `what if ` questions` which made me feel that there must be something hidden; my motto had become: there is always more to everything than meets the eye, and I just kept looking and usually something turned up! Most probably because most conformist researchers were tame `sociologists`, inclined to subscribing to an idea of objective, positivistic sociology; and lacked the instincts and intuition of investigative journalists and Flaneurs. There is a funny story relating to this matter; during my first undergrad year; there was one particular lecturer who clearly disliked me, and when eventually he got to set the essays, so delighted was he that he could hardly wait to vent his wrath on me. He returned my hand-written essays, marked with a