Solnit writes about walking and it's transformation throughout time. She introduces the concept through a historical point of view, describing how the industrial revolution transformed the way individuals experienced their body and mind in time and space. This reading seems relevant today because of the speed at which technology is advancing and replacing itself, making our own lives and the way we experience time speed up.
Solnit's purpose in the text seems to me like she is trying to convince me that machinery and other technological advances have made walking obsolete, that as humans we are loosing the sense of our body and the experiences it can bring us in the immediate environment (outside of home) we live in; that we have lost the experience of our body as a tool to knowledge, to travel, to work and not "work out".
She takes an apparent objective stance by citing other texts and not introducing her own opinions. However at some points she writes that the reason for her argument(s) is not merely to be nostalgic about the farmworkers' life, but to bring attention to how activities have transformed. She also acknowledges reasons for people to use a gym, for instance, or a treadmill which makes me think that she regards the reader as someone who first of all is cognisant of the industrial revolution, then knows what a gym is and has experienced time in a train; but will be resistant to her point of view in regards to technology as diminishing the power of the body, the power of walking.
She appeals to our emotions by depicting the destruction of family relationships during the industrial revolution and creation of suburbs. She also appeals our common sense by thoroughly describing how we are willing to perform movements with our bodies as if pumping water to enhance our musculature at a gym, but are not willing to actually pump water for the efficiency and production of every day life necessities. Solnit uses very descriptive words and adjectives, as well as a somewhat sarcastic tone to enthrall and convince the reader to accept her point of view:
"The most perverse of all the devices in the gym is the treadmill (and its steeper cousin, the Stairmaster). Perverse, because I can understand simulating farm labor, since activities of rural life are not often available - but simulating walking suggests that space itself has disappeared. That is , the weights simulate the objects of work, but the treadmill and Stairmaster simulate the surfaces on which walking takes place. "
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