The Automobile Society
- Aidan J
- Jul 17, 2018
- 2 min read
Carpools, buses, trains, planes, taxis, rideshares are examples of transportation that alleviate the responsibility of driving. It’s fantastic for saving time and resources and in cities with congested roads.
Yes, vehicles are tools. Yet, they’re the most sacred tools we have. We imbued ourselves in this technology, and thus they deserve and serve as the binding factor in society for much of the United States.
When vehicles are tools, they influence commerce across all 50 states. While walking is normal in New York City, and biking in a college town like Palo Alto, many metropolitan hubs require cars for business commutes, and use trains or planes for company retreats. Transportation is required for our modern society to run, with the vast spaces we’ve developed for specialized usages.
Transportation is the passive view of driving. Of course, driving itself is an action from an individual, but I endeavor to say that driving is the ability that transforms the person into an individual.
Driving with people creates a microcosm of society, while driving alone creates agency in the individual.
People on transportation adopt roles, creating a caste system. For instance, on a road trip, the person riding shotgun gives direction and provides entertainment, while the backseat individuals strike up conversations. When someone oversteps their bounds, say someone in the backseat gives directions to the driver, or criticizes him, he is judged. He has now become a Backseat Driver.
Driving alone is simple. The driver can yell any expletive he pleases at the rude car in front of him. The person waiting in line for an ice cream cone cannot. The driver can adjust his mirrors to see behind him with ease. The party guest who is told “not to look, but… “ cannot. Driving provides a framework to extend the self beyond the body. The driver becomes the mind, while the car becomes the body. The car sharpens the driver’s mind, granting clarity due to the delineation between the driven and the driver. Somehow, direction a twenty ton hunk of metal along a stretch of asphalt at extremely fast speeds is spiritual.
The vehicle is baked into our identity as workers in society, while also creating its own sort of society and maximizing our own agency. Perhaps this explains why people revere cars so much. With so many magazines, shows, advertisements, and debates over the best car, the automobile has earned its place as mankind’s only artificial companion. People remember their first car in the same way as their first love.
However, this definitely explains why the Cars franchise is brilliant. We anthropomorphize cars because they make us more human. Cars are our creations that we aspire to be. To be faster, to be cooler, to be prettier, to be more gas efficient.
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I would say that those are symptoms of living in a city environment, and cars only help facilitate the interaction in that sort of environment. It also creates a class that is able to commute from outside the city, and separate themselves from interaction, but that's a symptom of the growing population as well: more space required. Thanks for rating my blog so positively, even if you disagree with my points!
Cars are an affront to God and the reason why we are in an industrialized society from which we can no longer revert, causing the advent of great and new human suffering which has never been seen before. The creation of the car has led to obesity, sluggishness, pollution, and a decrease in the idea of a human community. I hope someday the revolution happens and cars are burned at the stake. Overall 10/10 great blog.