Alfred Schutz refers to our "paramount reality" as the commonplace, ordinary, familiar and general taken-for-granted world in which we live (Shutz 2010, pp.21-22). The question then remains as to whether or not one can escape this world in the context of contemporary tourism.
Shearing and Stenning's article, "From the Panopticon to Disney World: The Development of Discipline" note that upon arriving in Disney World, a tourist has an altered state of reality that is completely shaped by the creators of the theme park. They note that from the moment on "arrives in the parking lot," they are told by the park staff exactly what to do and expect in the context of how these friendly employees are taught to act around park patrons. Handling the crowds in such an orderly fashion is a task that is enormous but handled with odd structure within the context of the park. Visitors are "exposed to an almost constant stream of directions by employees, robots, disembodied voices" and the like (Shearing and Stenning, pp. 346). The reality that a visitor is faced with within the confines of Disney World is clearly an escape from the reality of their everyday lives, but is no real reality in itself. Instead this reality is even more processed and monotonous than how the visitor's may perceive their lives outside of the park to be.
In the article, "The Tourist Gaze," John Urry looks at the connection between the field of tourism and the concept of modernism. It notes that in deciding to become a tourist, an individual is seeking out the opportunity to be modern and view the world through a lens they have not utilized before. Again, in this scenario, the tourist wants to break with reality and holds high expectations of the experiences that will occur....
Again, the belief that one can escape their paramount reality is the reason people engage in tourism, but the reality of what they encounter is far different.
In viewing the aforementioned articles one can see that though the prospects of escaping one's own paramount reality through tourism, the complete immersion into another perceived reality must happen fully. However, as seen, the experience of tourism aims draw away from the realities of the everyday world and place the tourist into a perceived state of other-worldly existence, if only for a brief time.
References
Cohen, S. And Taylor, L. 2002, Escape attempts: the theory and practice of resistance in everyday life, Routledge, New York, NY.
Sawyer, R. 2001, "Emergence in sociology: contemporary philosophy of mind and some implications for sociological theory," in American Journal of Sociology, 107(3): pp. 38-55, Retrieved from: LexisNexis Database.
Shearing, C. And Stennng, P., 1997, "From the panopticon to Disney World: the development of discipline," in Perspectives in Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of John LL.J. Edwards, Harrow and Heston Publishers, Albany, NY.
Shutz, A. 2010, Sociological aspect of literature: construction and complementary essays, contributions to phenomenology, Kluwer Academic Publishers Netherlands, Retrieved from: EBSCOHost Database.
Urry, J. 2002, The tourist gaze. SAGE Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA.
Precis and Analysis
