"The Soul of London"

Ford Madox Ford wrote The Soul of London (published 1905) to set down his impressions of London.  Much more than a mere travelogue, Ford evokes a London that is both familiar and alien.  In his own words, he wanted his account to be more than just "encyclopaedic, topographical, or archaeological."  

I found Ford's narrative enlightening for several reasons.  He lived and experienced the times under scrutiny in my thesis, and as such, can provide another dimension to the social milieu.  His writing verges on the poetic: he gives us his 'impressions' of the 'facts'.  Finally, in Soul one can easily detect those tendencies and early signs of change that later came to be known as Modernism.

Some extracts follow:

On the automobile

"... to come from any distance, say by a motor car, is to fly too fast for any easy recognition of the gradual changes from country to town.  […]  It is not so much that the speed is very great, there is always the statutory limit, a sort of nightmare; but the motorist is too low down as a rule, the air presses against the eyes and half closes them; he has a tendency to look forward along the road, to see more of vehicles and of pedestrians than of the actual country or the regiments of buildings.  He grows a little aloof, a little out of sympathy; he becomes more intent about keeping a whole skin on himself and on his car than about the outer world."

“This is doubtless no more than a matter of time, of ‘getting used to it’, or of thinking of distances, as it were, in terms of the motor car.  One has been accustomed to drive on a bus from Kensington to Piccadilly Circus in the half hour.  One has seen the tall flats by Sloan Street for some minutes, Apsley House for some more minutes [...].  These things have their familiar aspects.”

On the tram

“What the automobile is to the comfortable classes the electric tram is becoming to the poorer.  It is a means of getting into town.  It does not, however, produce the same psychological effects.  For one thing, the speed is not so great, and you have not the least anxiety as to what it may choose to run into; if you want to see things you are at a greater height, your range of sight is much longer.”

Retailing: chain stores vs. local traders

“Yet in many places within the Administrative County the tendency is all towards ‘localising’, or towards remaining separate centres.  In Hampstead, for instance, the older residents buy most things of the local tradesmen, and newer families imitate them for sentimental or for social reasons.  In poorer neighbourhoods this is much more the case.  […] And the people of the poorer suburbs do their shopping in their own High Streets.  Where great local emporia have not crushed out altogether the ‘local tradesman’, shoppers with string bags still nod at the greengrocer and the oilman when passing or when making their purchases.”

London's diversity, speed, ubiquity

“London, with its sense of immensity that we must hurry through to keep unceasing appointments, with its diffuseness, its gatherings up into innumerable trade-centres, innumerable class districts, becomes by its immensity a place upon which there is no beginning."

Vignettes also appear that 'humanise' Ford's London: the labourer whose hobby is teaching his chaffinches to sing; the wife of a cripple who made matchboxes at home to earn money, a home where all the wooden fittings had been chopped down for firewood.

Ford's account is, of course, highly subjective (can any piece of writing be otherwise?) but I see it giving us a good impression of the spirit of the times.  Some paragraphs convey the quaintness of an Edwardian London that has long since disappeared (talk of horse-drawn trams, for instance).  Yet other descriptions leave us shaking our heads and muttering, 'Some things never change.' 

Castells - Rise of the Network Society

Some random notes on 'space,' hopefully to be put to good use later.

Castells differentiates between space of places and space of flows, where space is a concept based on experience.

"If we look at space as a social form and a social practice, throughout history space has been the material support of simultaneity in social practice.  That is, space defines the time frame of social relationships."

The city is a "communication system" where physical proximity allows more communication.
A new form of spatiality is the space of flows: "the material support of simultaneous social practices communicated at a distance."

A connection exists between 

• society's changing technological character; and 
• its developing spatial forms.

Acceleration of time
We've all noticed it - too many tasks, not enough time.  There are still 'only' twenty-four hours in a day but quite often they aren't enough.  Our social practices are restricted within their time frames but are carried out in different places.  We use technology (mobile phones, computers, transport) to help us overcome the physical barriers, to the point where we almost reach "timeless time."  Timeless time (as opposed to clock time or biological time) is 

"the social practice that aims at negating sequence to install ourselves in perennial simultaneity and simultaneous ubiquity."  

In other words, trying to be everywhere, all the time, at the same time!

Manuel Castells.  The Information Age.  Economy, Society, and Culture.  Vol. I: The Rise of the Network Society (2010).

Simmel and space

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was a German sociologist living during the period of time I am studying.  As such, he should be an interesting person to read, but it is frustrating that he never makes explicit reference to telecommunications; how could he not take a scientific interest in the new communications medium?  He lived through what was, for us, an exciting era but he remained tantalisingly silent.  By way of contrast, Walter Benjamin wrote of his childhood memories in Berlin at the turn of the century with a wealth of detail about his domestic arrangements, with frequent references to the telephone.

Simmel did write, however, about space.  What follows is based on an interpretation of Simmel's work by Lechner.

Space is not just a place where individual can "be together" [reminiscent of Thrift's whales - see earlier post] but this interaction of "being together" is what fills the space and thus, the individuals share the space.

Simmel adopts a via media between social construction and spatial determinism.  Space is to some extent socially formed but not a complete social construct, nor does space determine or have causal effects on society. 

He elaborates on five social aspects of space:

1. Exclusivity - social groups want exclusive rights to 'their' space.
2. Partitioning of space - boundaries are important.  A social order that occupies a space with a clear boundary makes that order more concrete (less abstract).  "High fences make for good neighbours" - a partition effects relations with those on the other side.  Simmel stresses that boundaries are sociological, not spatial.
3. Fixity - space offers fixity to social forms.
4. Distance - physical proximity has consequences.  
5. Movement through space has social significance - e.g. a nomadic tribe has strong integration.

Effects of social forms on spatial conditions

• Political forms of organisation are spatially ordered - people are classified by location and not by ties of kinship.
• Authority over people is exerted as territorial control.
• Sharing a place with someone affirms communal ties - sometimes being bound to a particular place denotes members of a social group.
• Even an empty place has social significance.

Simmel observes that societies deal with space as an abstraction.  This means you don't have to be physically present, concrete spatial settings are no longer so important.
Spatial abstraction - we don't have to share space in order to be together, because we're always together in the same global space.

Thrift, Part II

Continuing Thrift's point about the stubborn persistence of technological determinism in accounts, such accounts rarely placed these technologies within a framework of linked social practices (other connected technologies and humans).  Instead they would be looked at in isolation.

Accounts need to remember that technologies belong to a history of social practices.  As such, we cannot separate the technology from the practices.

Thrift, "New urban eras and old technological fears" - Part I

I am a fan of Thrift's writing, not only because of his analysis but also due to his fresh style of writing; he cuts through all the hype and myths and tells it as it really is.  A professor of geography would seem to be a strange academic to read when one is studying the history of technology and telecommunications, but Thrift has done important work on space/place/time.  This has a direct bearing on my thesis: people's perception of space and time gradually altered in the late nineteenth century, thanks to various developments in society and technology (more efficient public transport; greater awareness of time - pocket watches, factory shifts, official bureaucracy, train timetables; telephony).  The telephone, of course, was not the sole factor in changing notions of time and space, but it did play a role.  Generally, things were speeding up and everywhere around them, people saw spaces becoming smaller (i.e. distant places were not so distant any more) and the time needed to achieve something became shorter - but isn't that just as true for us today?

What follows are some extracted notes from Thrift's article.  There is no particular structure to the notes selected: they merely made a strong impression on me and they are notes that I find relevant to my thesis.


What is 'new'?
We all talk about new concepts, technologies, etc. but never really examine if these things are genuinely new, or just an evolution of something older.  'New' also means 'modernity' and the two are joined at the hip with communication technologies.
Relationship between man and machine
This ought to be re-evaluated - perhaps there shouldn't be a hierarchical relationship between the two, rather both should be on equal footing in actor networks (per Latour).
Modernity
Thrift advocates abandoning Modernity as a historical concept and looking instead at historical change as slow, disjointed [i.e. not linear and teleological].
History of telecoms is evolutionary
Today's digital culture is not 'new', despite all the geek rhetoric.  It is not something that appeared out of thin air with no connection to the past or its technology or artefacts.  Today's 'new' technologies are nothing more than digitalised versions of the old ones.

• Old and new technologies live together side by side; the old is not discarded when a new version comes along.
• Technologies are cumulative; they build on the success of their predecessors.

"space of information"
Writing about 'new' telecoms technologies uses a new dimension, that of the "space of information".  But discussions of this information space omit the social element.
Technological determinism
Discourse on technology originating in the nineteenth century was prone to technological determinism.  We might forgive them their sins as they didn't know as much as we know today (!) but we must not be smug - we still commit the same sin today, even if we don't acknowledge it.  [It has been a hard habit to kick and one that has become so ingrained that we don't even realise it.  How many times have we read or talked about how 'the Internet is changing the way we work and study?'  Or (my personal favourite) 'Television is ruining our children's intellect?'  Such determinist thinking is rife in all domains.  Haven't we learned anything from the past?]


Part II will follow shortly.


Square brackets indicate my own thoughts, not those of Thrift.

Nigel Thrift.  "New urban eras and old technological fears: reconfiguring the goodwill of electronic things."  Urban Studies 1996 33:  1463.

The decay of manners

Conservatives (with a small 'c') of every age despair of the lowering of standards and the disruptions-intrusions that innovations bring to their hitherto cosy little worlds.  1913 was no different to any other era.

"R.F.S." writes in The Academy (21 June 1913) of how manners have decayed, thanks to that "most domestic of the great inventions."  Looking first at business use and then domestic use, the author would seem to concede that the telephone has indeed been domesticated, since it was first viewed as a tool for business.  If it was installed in a private residence, it was only because even businessmen sometimes have to go home and rest.


Deterioration of business manners
The author finds it objectionable when he is consulting a lawyer or doctor and he doesn't enjoy that professional's undivided attention, because the lawyer makes or receives telephone calls during the appointment.  The visitor feels as if the professional is

interviewing another, an invisible client

and,

the [client] is troubled by the imaginary presence of a third party, by the obtrusion of a piece of business with which he has no concern.

The phenomenon is a familiar one even today.  You're speaking with someone (friend, consultant, colleague) and his phone (mobile or landline) rings.  He breaks off to answer and you stand around, feeling uncomfortably, not knowing where to look until the call is over, and trying to appear as if you're not listening to the one-sided conversation.  I think this is true when you are a visitor, then you are obliged, in a way, to eavesdrop on the conversation.  At least I personally feel uncomfortable when in these situations and if the call seems to be dragging on, then I go and wait outside till its over.  In a similar vein, how annoying it is when a stranger talks (usually loudly) on his mobile in a public space and we're all forced to listen to his petty private details.  It is a distraction to which we find ourselves drawn.  But I digress.


Deterioration of domestic manners
The author asserts again that those physically present with us take priority over someone else who is merely present 'in spirit' or on paper, hence the custom that people should not read their letters at the dinner table.


New technologies mean that our definition of "present company" must be revised and "R.F.S." does admit that this definition needs to be enlarged to accommodate those who are 'present' via a telephone connection.  Here we can apply Thrift's discussion on "being with" others and his whale example.  In pre-telephone days you could only be with someone who was physically present (though the telegraph was quicker than letter writing, it was still nevertheless like written correspondence in the sense that there could be no immediate interaction with your interlocutor - the two people communicating do not share the same space or time).  In the telephone era, communication was immediate; you don't wait for a response to your comment.  Both parties occupy the same simultaneous time and space (not physical space, of course, but rather the 'space of flows' [Castells] or to be more prosaic, the same piece of copper wire).


So, to conclude, the telephone forced Edwardian society to re-evaluate just what they meant by "present company".  Their rules of polite society dictated that you give your full attention to those standing in front of you.  If you turned to someone who wasn't there in the flesh (represented by a letter or phone call) then that was rude and the other party was an intruder.


The writer censures hosts who worsen established rules by getting up from the dinner table to answer the telephone.  Have you ever tried to ignore a ringing telephone, either at home or work, or even a public phone in the street?  It is very difficult.  (I think the only exception would be if I knew the caller's identity - thanks to caller ID - and it was someone I didn't want to speak to.)


The writer equates letters with phone calls: we read our correspondence at breakfast time so that might be a good time to make a telephone call.  However, morning is not the usual time to make calls or receive callers - we know that 'morning calls' are made between 3.00pm and 6.00pm.  


Social invitations by telephone
When organising a formal event that required lots of forward planning, the host should really send out written invitations.  A telephone call only gradually became acceptable for very informal occasions, organised at short notice, and when inviting close friends.  The writer finds telephone invitations issued at the last minute as "less honourable."  Reading between the lines, it sounds as if a person invited at such short notice is being used as a stop-gap or a last-minute replacement to make up the numbers, someone from the 'reserve list.'  'If you deserve an invitation, you get a fancy card to display on your mantelpiece.'  Otherwise, how can you demonstrate your social credibility as an invited guest if you've only got a telephone invitation, which leaves no evidence.

The writer's solution to retard the decaying process?  Regulate telephone usage: custom should dictate when the time is appropriate to make a telephone call, as was the case with personal visits.  He wouldn't have been very pleased with 21st-century manners: they are not only decaying, they are positively putrid.

R.F.S.  "The Telephone and the Decay of Manners."  Academy and Literature, 2146 (21 June 1913), p786.

"Being with others"

Thrift gives the example of whales: "'being with' other whales might mean communicating with whales who might be hundreds of miles away."  Compared to human space, whale space is obviously much larger, but when we say "I am with someone" we mean that that person occupies the same space as us, regardless of the vastness of that space.

"Being with person X"  could mean that person is in the same room as me, but it could also mean he is a thousand miles away.  New technologies have allowed this increase in distance.  We have become "beings who can live with distant others as if they were close to."  In these newly enlarged spaces that we share with distant others, we find "new kinds of social relation."

In the early days of telephony, a message by letter or telegram could reach much further than a telephone call, but sending a letter could not constitute 'being with' the recipient: communication between sender and receiver was not simultaneous, instantaneous.  A message by telephone, however, is.

*What kinds of new social relations came into existence with the coming of the telephone?
*How were existing relations altered?
*Were there changes in hierarchy: master/servant; male/female; company/customer?

Nigel Thrift.  "Space."  Theory Culture Society 2006: 23, 139-146.

Dematerialization of telecommunication

How does "being connected globally" affect local development?

Appearance and spread of telegraph coincided with:
*growing global trade links [connections]
*increasing volume of trade [quantity, volume]

A close link exists between:
*development of telegraph in a region
*the region's position in world trade
            Global spread of telegraphy has positive effects on world trade.

When communications and transport are separated a new virtual space is created.
In this new virtual space, relations between time and space are changed.

A new technology will spread and be adopted only when:
*there is a demand for it
*the new tech. offers clear advantages over the other alternatives
Public demand must be balanced against the effects of "technological inertia" (Mokyr).

Railway expansion created need for telegraph in order to co-ordinate trains.


per Castells
A network has no centre and therefore no periphery.
No single node is essential to the network.
If a node fails, the network reconfigures and works around the failed node.
Some nodes are more important than other nodes.

Telegraphy spreads quickly:
*Railway companies see the benefits and (no longer put off by high costs) erect lines along railway tracks [---> cumulative action of technologies; ---> mutual benefits for both telegraph and railway companies]
*Newspapers exploit telegraphy for obtaining news more quickly
*Law enforcement forces use telegraphy to fight crime -- a telegram is quicker than a murderer!


Parallels can be seen between social networks [connections among people] and telecommunications networks.  In both networks, some nodes are:
*more important than other nodes;
*closer to the flow of information than other nodes.  
A word of caution re. the analogy of social networks for comm. networks.  The connections in social networks only register when interaction/communication between two nodes occurs.  A similar connection between two nodes in a comm. network registers the potential for communication, i.e. the nodes exist but a flow of information may not be present during our examination.  The infrastructure is in place but the information flow is not necessarily present or continuous.


In order to describe a country as a communications centre, it needs:
*an advanced domestic telegraph system
*good connections to other foreign networks

Roland Wenzlhuemer.  "The dematerialization of telecommunication: communication centres and peripheries in Europe and the world, 1850-1920."  Journal of Global History (2007) 2, 345-372.

Thrift on Space

"Space" in Theory, Culture and Society (2006)

Approaches to 'Space'

1. Everything is spacially distributed and has its own geography.  A sense of 'where things are'.
2. There are no boundaries - spaces are porous.
3. Every space is in constant motion, nothing is static or stable.
4. 'Space' exists in many forms - there is no one kind.

Four more ways of thinking of space:

1. Space as a place where everything comes together; a place of transcendence
2. A place of metrics-measurement-calculation
3. A place separated from movement
4. A place separated from time

Harvey

David Harvey.  The Condition of Postmodernity.  An inquiry into the origins of cultural change.  Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996 [1990].

The experience of space and time
Enlightenment thought
Time and space as sources of social power
Time-space compression
On Kern's "culture of time and space"
Public (vs. private) time

Forum

Four functions of the Roman forum:

1. meeting place
2. market
3. expression (locus for political discourse)
4. legitimising (place for symbols-monuments)

Analogy with public networks/telecoms as virtual public spaces

Melody, "Living in the information society: public network as public space."

 [in Time-Space]