Ten Revelations from Cars, Culture and Media: Final
By Heather Scammon
1.
Automobility is the ultimate freedom
“In a sense, rail travel set the same restrictions on the
enterprise of travel as Taylorism imposed on the process of work. A man on a
train…is a man in a straightjacket.” (Seiler pg 46) With the ownership of a car
comes a freedom so large it is difficult to compare to other circumstances. The
driver has the freedom to go, or escape, anywhere that he pleases whenever he
wants. “The voluntariness of departure, the freedom implicit in the
indeterminacies of mobility, the pleasure of travel free from necessity, the
notion the travel signifies autonomy and is a means for demonstrating what one “really”
is independent of one context or set of defining associations – remain the
characteristics of the modern conception of travel.” (Seiler pg 21). I had
never put this into perspective and realized the immense power of automobility
and the impact it has on one’s life before this class.
2. Cars are terrible for our health
I am guilty for loving the smell of new car, as I’m sure many other Americans are. I had no idea until reading Carjacked just how toxic many aspects of a car can be- one of which being the fumes they release from the mix of retardants and phthalates which destroy human organs. I never truly associated obesity with driving cars, and I also never considered jobs that have extra exposure to exhaust as particularly dangerous to one’s health. The entirety of chapter 8 had my eyes wide and my mouth open in shock, making me not want to touch my mom’s brand new fully-loaded Nissan Murano with a ten foot pole. “Recently diagnosed with incurable bone cancer, she was at pains to point out that cancer does not run in her family, and as a result she is suspicious that the fumes she breathes in each day are its cause.” (Lutz pg 170). Not to mention they are incredibly dangerous and car accidents have a huge fatality rate every single year.
3.
Driving
on the highway, everyone is equal
I was amazed that the ownership of a
vehicle had the power to help escape racism and oppression of any group of
peoples. It does not matter who you are or what your ethnicity is on the
highway where, not only will people not notice, but every car is treated and
acts in the same manner. The highway and car can act as sort of a “safe haven”,
if you will, and helped to move equality forward. "The interstate highway, set
apart from and above the landscape and local culture through which it cut,
provided the spatial opportunity for the obscuring of one's identity from the
scrutiny of others." (Seiler pg 126)
4.
Car advertising is genius
After carefully constructing and
deconstructing many different car commercials and ads of our own, it is now
easy to be able to identify which areas of the human brain and which persuasive
techniques the auto industries are using to sell their product to us. It is
ridiculously complicated, and sometimes the viewer does not even fully
understand what is so successful about the commercial. This to me is mind
blowing, and an intricate science that has been perfected.
“… but we often ignore our research and
bend to our emotional needs for attention, status, or power, and our desires to
please our families or impress our friends—drives with which the auto industry
is very familiar and which make it easier to sway or even swindle us at the
point of purchase. “ (Lutz pg 78) "We become attracted to a class of car or a brand because
of the 'soft' or emotional appeal of its marketed image; then we use the hard
information available to us not to evaluate or test our decision to buy that
brand but to rationalize it" (Lutz pg 41). For example, in a peer’s presentation of
his commercial where everyone is laughing, I literally could not even force
myself to not join in and giggle, making me feeling light and happy and… well…
thinking about VW.
5.
There were electric cars before gas powered cars
I am not much of a car person to begin
with and definitely did not know much about car history, so I was pretty
shocked when I learned that the earliest automobiles (and for awhile
afterwards) were actually electric. The movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
opened my eyes to this, as well as the incredible shift to gasoline and diesel
fuel. I think it is incredibly ironic that these amazing freedom machines were
originally created in a more sustainable manor and how they are now modified to
run on fossil fuels. Sounds a little bass ackwards to me. “If every driver in
America drove just 1,000 fewer miles per year, as a nation we could save more
than 10 billion gallons of gasoline annually.”
6.
The “design” of where you live matters for your
character
This was a huge revelation for me,
because it is something I have never put my mind to. I was born in NYC and
lived there for my early childhood, however I did not think that it makes me
incredibly different from my three sisters who never lived in the city.
Automobility has made it simple, easy and desirable to live far apart from one
another, which, in turn, hurts us socially as humans. We avoid contact,
conflict and confrontation losing these skills that we need for human
interaction. “Where city life optimizes the possibility of contact between
people, and especially different kinds of people, the suburb strives to
eliminate precisely that kind of human contact.” (Kunstler pg 189).
7.
Driving/owning a car is SO expensive
As a young adult I have made goals for myself, mostly trying to make
good decisions and striving to be like my parents. One of my goals was to
purchase my own brand new model-of-my-choice car with my own money and handle
all of the expenses on my own. “The average American family is spending $14,000
a year without realizing it because most consider only a portion of the total
when making important decisions about what car to buy or whether to drive
somewhere.” (Lutz pg 210) HA! This class completely opened up my eyes to what a
waste of money brand name, sexy, expensive cars are- your car never increases
in value after you drive it off the lot, and yet we invest so much into them
with zero return. I am doing a palm-to-forehead- pump and abandoning my dream
to have an amazing car, and going to instead invest my money in something that
might actually benefit me in the future.
8.
We need a complete lifestyle shift
I
have always believed this to be true, however I did not understand what an
enormous impact better public transit could make on society and bettering our
modes of transportation. Richard Watts in his guest lecture that he presented
to our class, as well as his article wowed me with how much more important it
is to have an entire lifestyle switch as opposed to purely transferring to
electric vehicles. It makes sense though, because switching to electric would
mean basically telling people that they can keep doing business as usual in
terms of their consumption patterns. “Technology solutions are easier for
policymakers, because they don’t require behavior change. But switching fuels
does not address other issues associated with driving, such as the impacts on
human health, land use and the social
fabric of our communities.” (Watts article pg 2)
9.
The Auto Industry is very powerful… too powerful
This revelation was brought about by more
than one aspect of the class. It was demonstrated throughout the “Who Killed
the Electric Car?” film as well as in many of our readings, and was discussed
in class as government corruption as well. Because these are the big money
makers and “very important” for our country to run as it should, the government
practically bends over backwards to protect this industry and keep them “happy.
This is not a new occurrence and began from the start with the very first
success of cars. “By contrast, streetcar companies received little government
support, and the organized auto interests conspired to actively kill them off.”
(Kunstler pg 90)
10.
Mobile Decretive Cargo comes with fancy cars and
status
This semester
we saw multiple different music videos/videos that featured expensive
decked-out cars, which represented a high status. People define themselves by
their possessions and are able to clearly portray exactly which level of
society they are currently thriving at by what they wear or drive etc. In the
case of “Ride Wit Me” by Nelly, he is showing off his success and telling his
story with his song- sending the message that he’s made it, check out the car,
and the mobile decretive cargo also come with the gig. It was fascinating for
me to fully “deep dive” into that music video and find the meaning and the
techniques used behind it all, whereas before I just thought it was a catchy
2000’s hip hop tune. People really do pride themselves by what they drive. For
example, my dad drives a BMW and to him it is his 5th child that he
bathes, talks to, and pampers in order to keep it in tip-top shape. “’… they
often drive by me and see my M5, which is the race car engine version of the
BMW 5 Series… and will give me the thumbs up.’ Jens’s status reference group is
such a small, exclusive one that they will know … how rare and expensive his
car is, a clear signal that he is one of them: a member of the elite.” (Lutz pg
30).
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