I practice what I preach about
writing as a process. This weekend "The Pedestrian" essay I wrote
started to bug me. I realized that I didn't like the way it ended.
Check out the new conclusion and let me know what you think in a comment
to this post.
_________
Every day it happens. Every day I walk on campus, and every day I say hello to someone, and every day they stare straight ahead into the distance like I don’t even exist. That’s when I notice the little white pieces of plastic stuck in their ears, and I realize that, even though we’re standing right next to each other, we’re on opposite shores of a technology ocean. They’re listening to music, or staring at some stupid video on Instagram, or scrolling through endless messages searching for a sign of love or friendship or just maybe something that will help them forget that if they don’t hurry up some teacher will count them tardy.
It wasn’t always this way.
Phones and screens didn’t always dominate our lives or make us feel
alone even in the middle of a crowd.
People were more important. The
simple pleasures of life were more important.
Ray Bradbury knew the value of this. He saw the early trends of how we adapted to
televisions and cars, and he worried about what might happen if tools and toys
continued to isolate us. He
didn’t live
to see the rise of the smart phone, but he did see people isolate themselves in
metal boxes (cars) instead of taking buses, trains, or subways together. He noticed how populous neighborhoods began
to seem empty as people retreated from their streets and front porches to
shelter in dark rooms in front of their television sets.
Bradbury didn’t want that life. He didn’t drive. In the evenings he walked the streets near
his house. That’s a healthy thing—pick
up any magazine that emphasizes self-improvement, or sports, or creativity, or
business success, and you’re likely to find an article about how taking a walk
can help you physically, mentally, and even spiritually. The only thing weird about walking is the
fact that so many of us don’t do it when we don’t have somewhere to go.
But our communities are no longer built for walking. Everything is so spread out, and the
connecting tissues aren’t sidewalks but streets wide enough to make you feel
lucky to get to the other side without getting killed on the way. Traffic deaths are down, but bicyclist and
pedestrian deaths are up. I used to ride
hundreds of miles on my road bike every month, but it’s been in the garage for
years now because I’m terrified of drivers who are distracted by their screens as
they hurtle toward me in their speeding metal boxes.
In this context it’s easy to wonder why anyone would go for
a walk. One night, when Bradbury was
enjoying an evening stroll, the police rolled up and asked him what he was
doing. Bradbury said, “I’m putting one
foot in front of the other.” The officer
didn’t like that reply and the conversation became intense.
It can be intimidating to face a person in authority who
confronts us, especially when we feel like we’re right and we’re powerless to
call out the injustice. I imagine that
Bradbury felt afraid, frustrated, and angry.
When he got home, I picture him shaking with rage as the numbness wore
off and the adrenaline kicked in.
That’s when he sat down and wrote “The Pedestrian.”
When you read “The Pedestrian” you come away with a lot of
ideas. This is a major accomplishment,
because the plot itself couldn’t be simpler: a guy goes for a walk and gets
questioned by a police car, which arrests him and drives off. If you’re taking an English class I suppose
you could analyze this in terms of exposition (8:00 P.M. on a cold November
evening in 2053 A.D.), the inciting incident (the car turns a corner and shines
a light on Leonard Mead), rising action (the interrogation), climax (he gets
arrested), falling action (the car drives off past Leonard’s house), and
resolution (there isn’t one).
The thing is, Bradbury manages to weave his themes of
humanity, technology, and authority with a vivid description of setting and dialogue
that creates sympathy for the protagonist and a sense of tone throughout the
story.
[Stopped here to teach Second Period]
INSTALLMENT TWO
In my learning community we know that technology comes from
the ancient Greek word “techne” – cleverness.
The etymology of technology begins with people, not gadgets, and it
denotes a study of our cleverness in using tools.
Unfortunately, many people aren’t very clever in using
tools. They don’t know how their phone
works or even what the internet actually is, even though they use it all the
time. Watch people stare at their phones
and ask yourself: What are they thinking?
Have you ever walked into a dark room where someone is watching TV? They just sit there, slumped on soft
furniture, slack-jawed, staring emptily at the screen. They only notice you if you get in the way.
As Leonard Mead walks past the houses in his neighborhood,
he imagines the people inside, staring blankly at screens full of comedies, dramas,
and murders. How can a human being watch
a murder and not be affected by the brutality and the tragedy? Bradbury’s
description – the cold stillness, the soulless blue flickers in “tomb-like”
houses – makes us realize that our focus on entertainment interferes with our understanding
of reality. We are losing our humanity
and our connection to each other. As
“The Pedestrian” unfolds, we begin to feel like Leonard Mead is the only
thinking, feeling, living soul in the city—this experience suddenly becomes sad
when Bradbury mentions that three million people live in Mead’s city and drive
around every day.
Because of this contrast, Leonard (who otherwise seems like
a pretty ordinary guy) stands out as beautifully human. He truthfully answers every question he’s
asked. He doesn’t get upset when he says
he’s a writer and the car insults him by saying “no profession.” We sympathize with Leonard when the car asks
if he’s married and he says, “No one wanted me.” That statement is so deeply human and so
vulnerable; everyone wants love and secretly wonders if they deserve it.
Not only does the car not respond to this, but when Leonard
is told to get in, he walks around and confirms his suspicion – there is no one
in the car. Today that idea isn’t too
farfetched. I can “drive” my Tesla even
if I’m standing 50 feet away from it.
But Ray Bradbury wrote this story nearly 70 years ago, and the idea that
a car could show up with no one inside it was pure science fiction. And poor Leonard: to whom could he
appeal? There was no one there. No one to reason with, argue with, laugh
with, or learn from. No one even to
fight with. Just a cold, metallic
threat.
[Stopped here to teach Fourth Period]
INSTALLMENT THREE
As readers in 2019, we experience a version of this impersonal
society every day. Maybe we sit on hold
while an automated recording tells us to “listen carefully because the options
have changed” (yeah, right). Maybe we
sit in fluorescent-lit boxes while teachers tell us what page in the textbook or
what to do if someone comes to shoot us.
Maybe we have to run across five lanes of traffic and pray some idiot
looks up from her text in time.
Ray Bradbury was a visionary. He wasn’t a rebel for taking a walk; he was
doing what has come naturally to human beings for thousands of years! He was, however, an effective storyteller,
and in that way, now he seems like a spokesman for humanity in a society that
increasingly focuses on material things and obedience.
The tone of “The Pedestrian” is lonely and sad. Bradbury’s setting and dialogue leave no
doubt that his attitude about our society is concerned. It’s clear that Bradbury believes we have
forgotten some very important things about what makes us human, and what makes
us humans able to coexist with each other.
Besides caring as individuals and connecting with each other
in public spaces, our relationship with technology and authority has
changed. Many of us no longer use our
tools; our tools use us. Studies suggest
that we check our phones more than 70 times each day. If we forget, push notifications demand that
we serve these tiny masters.
Our relationship with authority has also changed. The side of every LAPD patrol car says, “to
protect and to serve,” but many people understandably don’t feel that way about
the police anymore.
In “The Pedestrian” there was only police car left in the
whole city—not because people were nicer or less inclined to commit crimes, but
because they were off the streets, sitting alone in their houses. That’s confinement, not freedom. Bradbury’s vision of the city seems like a
massive, open-air prison where every house is a cell. The police car wasn’t there to protect or to
serve. Its only purpose in the story was
to judge the last free man for walking instead of staying inside and watching
TV. Its only purpose was to control
Leonard Mead and to get him off the street.
As you get to the end of this essay and go back to living
your life, you will make choices about technology that will determine your
future and your relationship with your community. “The Pedestrian” was a warning. If we succumb to the influence of our devices
(phones, computers, self-driving cars) or the influence of authority figures
(which include police, but also educators, religious leaders, peers, social
media influencers and others), we give up our free will. We become willing slaves.
# # # #
[Finished at 12:54]
[UPDATE 29Oct2019 8:36 A.M./ Nah, that can’t be how it
ends.]
That last phrase-- "willing slaves" -- is where I was going to stop. The last moments of “The Pedestrian” seem
hopeless for Leonard Mead, and it’s easy to look around our lives and surrender
to the idea that tools and obedience have stolen our free will. But I think that does a disservice to
everything Ray Bradbury wanted us to consider in reading this story. We are still human, and we still have the
power to make decisions. Let’s reclaim
the original meaning of technology. Let’s
use tools to create, build, and solve problems so that we can improve life for
our children and our community. Start
small: put down your phone, go outside, look around, and take a walk.
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