Eli 10 Revelations

10 revelations

1.     Roads are everywhere, but they used to be nowhere.

“Eighty percent of everything ever built In America has been built in the last fifty years.” (Kunstler 10)

Though I’ve always known this, this class has sometimes me very conscious of this when I see a road. A few times this semester, when walking to school, crossing Pearl Street, when looking to the Adirondacks across the lake, I’m automatically reminded that the street I’m crossing used to be untamed land. Then I’m in awe of how huge the highway system is, and how much we dependent on it, even though it’s so new. It’s so big that even when we’re away, it’s never too far…Seiler said that we are never more than 22 miles away from a road.

2.     Roads are here for a reason.

“…the interstates [can be characterized] as a massive piece of propaganda expressing what one 1966 commentator called ‘the intense dedication of our age to motion.” (Seiler, kindle loc 916)

Geography of Nowhere began the story of the road with the colonization of the United States, describing how different settlements structured towns differently. His story goes on to present day, overlapping with Seiler’s Republic of Drivers, which explains what led to the highway’s permanence. The government posited the highway as a means of acting out freedom and autonomy, which everyone really wanted when industry was so Taylorized, when the US was so preoccupied by communism. Many cities would later phase out significant amounts of their public transportation, notably Detroit. Everyone’s to blame - the government and the citizen. Both knew very early on that cars were the future, but recklessly accelerated the path to the future by making sacrifices, thus increasing our overall dependency on the car before we knew how to handle it.

3.     Roads have reorganized culture and have made lots of places less interesting.

“The car, is the other connection to the outside world, but to be precise it connects the inhabitants to the inside of the car, not to the outside world per se. The outside world is only an element for moving through, as submarines move through water.” (Kunstler 167)

Kunstler described in great detail the death of the American town, how there’s more land in the US taken up by towns containing gated communities and strip malls and parking lots, and less land taken up by towns with their own unique character. Many people drive to work, alone from their suburban home every day, not feeling the need to stimulate the culture of their town of residence. The American middle class has diluted their own sense of place, because they don’t do most of their work or living where they sleep.

4.     Roads have changed the meaning of convenience.

“…Americans have been primarily basing their decisions about where to live not on the length or difficulty of their commute but on the real and perceived value of their housing.”  (Lutz 132)

Nowadays convenience seems to be more synonymous with “cheap,” than with “nearby.” People drive to big box stores and buy cheap items at high quantities. Sometimes, there is no nearby locally owned store that person could shop at if they wanted to.  Again, suburban sprawl and the rise of corporations led to this sort of behavior/lifestyle.

5.     Roads are dangerous, and most people don’t think about the danger.

“Tens of thousands of motorists die in cars every year, yet Americans have a strangely detached attitude about it…The road is now like television, violent and tawdry.” (Kunstler 131)

We sacrifice safety to drive, and though it’s something most drivers are aware of, it’s not at the forefront of their minds. As described in Carjacked, drivers are often more overweight and are exposed to PBDE’s and exhaust. As consumers, we trust car manufacturers – “an internet poll conducted in 2003 showed that car buyers believe that if corporations market an auto or an option, and the government permits it, then the product is probably safe.” (Lutz 174) We also like the idea of cars that are “safe to crash.” (Lutz 195)

6.     Roads restrict freedom and are used as a means of expressing it.

“As one auto executive put it, Americans love ‘the idea of driving’ more than they love the reality of driving.” (Lutz 143)

We think that cars and the open road will grant us freedom through mobility; instead our vehicles restrict our lifestyles. Lengthy commutes and road rage & frustration make driving annoying, and driving is necessary for many. It’s interesting how some people spend so much time deciding what car to get, what car is most “them,” and then using it to do things they don’t really want to do. This definitely isn’t the case for most people, but there are a number of people who like the idea of driving more than doing it. In more abstract terms, Seiler suggests “the act of driving…as the crucial compensation for apparent losses to autonomy, privacy, and agency.” (Seiler loc 200)

7.     Roads have hierarchies.

“Mobility relies on immobility.” (Seiler loc 1372)

In Republic of Drivers, Cotten Seiler describes how white men are favored on the highway. Police make preconceived judgments about persons of color. Persons of color used the Travel Guide and Negro Motorist Green Book to find routes and places to stay where they wouldn’t find trouble. As for women - even when they were finally included on the road, their driving was seen as a symbol of domestic tasks, where as for men it was a symbol of freedom.

8.     Roads contain human identities.

“The auto industry has encouraged the consumer’s idea that the car should be an expression of who he or she uniquely is, as competing makers segment the market, trying to carve out certain demographic groups for their different brands.” (Lutz 27)

Many drivers use their cars to express their identities, or to create an ideal version of themselves. Drivers feel the need to express themselves on the road for many reasons, from feeling no individuality at work, to being oppressed by American society. This brings up the concept of the individual creating their identity by buying things that are in line with the way they want to see themselves. Sometimes buying a car will make someone happy. I was really not excited for Todd’s Tesla talk but I enjoyed it in a weird psychedelic way…for an hour my opinion of consumerism shifted to one where buying something can be good for people. I was struck by how happy everyone in the class was during the talk, all because of a car and what that car means.

I was thinking about limousines at some point this semester…how they’re kind of a relic of the past’s view of futuristic luxury. Now, they’re just impractical and for feeling luxurious. It’s the most vain automobile someone can ride in, representing no freedom of mobility, just freedom of spending.

9.     Roads have changed the way Americans think.

“Driving requires and occasions a metaphysical merger, an intertwining of the identities of driver and car that generates a distinctive ontology in the form of a person-thing, a humanized car or alternatively, an automobilized person.” – Sociologist Jack Katz (Lutz 153-154)

Carjacked talks a lot about this, and car radio plays a huge role. Advertising causes people to make spontaneous shopping trips. American conservatives have taken over car radio. Driving also makes people angrier – keeping the concept of car-as-extension-of-self in mind, drivers take it personally when something bad happens to them on the road.

10. Media power tools.

“’The buyers are liars,’ one retired auto executive stated bluntly, repeating an industry adage. ‘They’ll tell you this is what I want, and that’s what they want…they think. But that’s not what they’re going to buy.’…The professionals who help car companies craft their products’ images understand this well.” (Lutz 40)

Watching Mad Men made it so I have to analyze every ad I see, and now I always think about shifts, persuasive techniques, made-up facts, etc., too. I liked how much time we spent on the deep dives, and I learned a lot by hearing analyses from my classmates that I didn’t catch. We have all been around cars our entire lives, and people have been trying to sell us stuff our entire lives, and I am glad I/we were all able to share our feelings on these topics, within the context of a cars & media class. I have a pretty analytical personality and these tools made it easy to analyze in a new way.