Quote: “ever-busy, ever-building, ever-in-motion, ever-throwing-out the old for the new, we have hardly paused to think about what we are so busy building, and what we have thrown away.” (Kunstler 10)
The very moment that movement was made possible, made fast, made accessible the shape of the country changed, but more importantly the structure of society changed, drastically.
Transportation had a major impact on the formation of society, the culture of consumption, sprawl increased and communities decreased. This modern era is now facing a contradiction between the accessibility and convenience of mobility, and the separation with community, and nature. How society developed is destructible, how we’ve damaged the land, grew outward and and damaged our relationship with each other. Through sprawl citizens spend more time in the car, transporting between strip malls and suburbia, decreasing their interactions with humans. On average, Americans are choosing to drive even short distance because of the convenience and the social norm it’s becoming, but communities can only be developed through human interaction, walking to local stores, supporting local economies, which lacking in our type of society. Thus, through this class I’m torn between the benefits of transportation and the social costs of transportation to our society.
2. Self Curation through Cars / Identities
Quote: ‘What do I like about this car?! I like the way I look in it.” ( Lutz, 2)
One theme that has always been present throughout my interaction with vehicles, without really realizing it has been the idea of self curation. Driving down the familiar streets of my hometown in high school, arms would flail outside windows to passing cars for living in a suburb meant excessive driving, but it also meant we all could identify individuals by the exterior of their car without even seeing them. Car’s mean more than their use of transportation, cars are a statement. In American Graffitti we saw this as each character was remembered and acknowledged by their car, we met the cars before we met the drivers. Cars are a form of self expression, especially since society is designed and structured in a way that unfortunately promotes driving. It’s similar to the way we dress, we get to choose the clothes that go on our back with a mission of making some sort of statement, if we realize it or not. Are we clean cut, with a sleek car, or grubby with a broken down junker. Cars can even express power, the way we choose to drive our vehicles can reflect parts of our personalities that we might not even realize. Cars are both a way of expression and curation. We can be what we want behind the wheel. We’re designing the look and feel we exhibit, or wish for people to interpret of us, as drivers, and as personalities.
3. Issue of race
Quote: “...midcentury guidebooks Travelguide and The Negro Motorist Green Book...directed black drivers to hospitable roadside lodging, restaurants, and mechanical assistance...” (Seiler, 106)
I think this concept of individualism and freedom is completely contradicted by this new idea of power of the road, what was meant to serve as each mans form of freedom suddenly has this separation of power and control of the road, and this power of the white. I think it was interesting that African Americans emerged from the civil rights movement with a degree of equality and now were faced with a new concept of the right to freedom of the open road. Something meant to be an escape, to be free, was now diverging into a new road, a road of separation. Here we’re witnessing an era of racial profiling of drivers, the roads suppose to be free, but it doesn’t deliver to all. What shocked me the most about this idea though was later in Seiler's book was the quote that read, “The increasingly affluent, numerous, and mobile members of the black middle class, the guidebook editors suggested, were more identifiable by their status as consumers than by their race.” (119) This wraps all back into this whole culture of consumerism, that we created this unnecessary battle, but altered it only to better the economy and wealth, but increasing African American’s rights to drive so they could consume...
4.Individuality / conformity
Quotes:
A) “individuality was ‘an expression and confirmation of social life’. And thus “expressive individualism” goes hand in hand with “consumer culture,”so what does individualism even mean?”
B) “Permeating this discourse was the dread of conformity...a number of cultural critics diagnosed what Archibald Macleish called, ‘a massive, almost glacial, shift away from the passion for individual freedom and toward a desire for security of association, of belonging, of conformity.” (Seiler, 76)
Semi related to the topic of self expression and curation there is this big idea of individuality and the beginning of the era of open road, that has filtered into this question of conformity. After spending some time thinking about this topic in Republic of Drivers and carrying the past into the future, in the sense of self curation. Seiler quotes, “its characteristics were mobility and choice; its embodiment was a driver.” (35) Individualism is not necessary one expressing themselves in their own means, as we thought, but its more the way society perceives them and therefore the way they wish to be perceived. Therefore while their expressing their individuality their confirming and responding to social life. Thus we’ve developed this idea of a consuming culture, especially as I mentioned above in self curation, we strive for individual identities yet we’re gathering the resources their consumer culture supplies us with, through coincidentally advertisements, and thus conforming to societies false ideas on the need to define one self by their expression and individuality. I almost see it as a trap, this is what happens when society experiences advancements, increases consumption, then struggles for individuals to see who they are in this culture. Thus, I struggle now with the idea and difference between individuality and conformity, it’s almost a cycle. The car fosters the illusion of individuality but creates the collective.
5. Escape / Freedom
Quote: “...automobility provided the crucial illustration of American freedom.” (Seiler, 81)
Initially while we began reading Seiler, we are introduced to the road in the early stages, finding freedom requires mobility, and mobility requires specific rights. So here we have this illusion of freedom, we have the introduction of the highway system and this idea of open road, but at the initial stages this could also be utilized by some and not others. So it’s essentially a freedom for only some through an unjust system, but as rights change we now currently have everyone utilizing the open roads. I think prior to the advancement of technology the car was indeed a space for escape, it was a way to free oneself from an issue, to escape a situation, to use this vessel to transport out of a place of dislike to one of like, or just to drive, the freedom to go anywhere. However, as we watch modern commercials, like the one above I feel as though we’re losing the initial idea of escape of freedom the car once supplied. Phones are being built into cars, emails can be read by an automated voice while once drives, we’re taking the stresses of life with us. In chapter seven of Carjacked, Lutz, also brings up the idea that urban sprawl has taken away our freedom and increased the amount of time we spend in our car, affected our physical and mental health as well as our social lives. Which could send me on another rant of the loss of community due to the car, but overall I feel the car is struggling to serve the purpose of escape in an advancing world.
6. Electric Cars
Quote: "Electric cars should be part of the solution — but the focus should be first on reducing use, providing real alternatives to the car, building communities that enable walking and biking, and living in ways that reduce our auto-dependence." (Richard Watts)
Electric Cars were certainly a topic of interest in this course. I personally support the idea of the electric car, while I still strongly encourage mass transit, and carpooling over each individual driving, but if we had the resources for everyone to drive an electric car I support it. I think watching the first movie, Who Killed The Electric Car, it was so interesting to realize the combined efforts of oil companies, consumers, and the government had on this topic. While learning a lot about renewable energies this semester in another course and listening to Tim Dechristopher discuss his ideas of renewable energies and the power oil companies have in keeping them from gaining speed, I understand why it’s challenging to make progress. Again, we face this issue of society always choosing the easiest cheapest option, and oil companies are concentrating the wealth of the world within this small groups of people and making this shift near impossible. We need an entire discombobulation of the way the economy and the politics work, we need to shake things up to make renewable energies emerge successfully, and electric cars to catch on.
7. Biking and Anthropology
Quote: "For example, sociologist Robert Putnam found that every additional 10 minutes spent driving cuts community involvement by 10 percent: “The car and the commute ... are bad for community life.” (Richard Watts)
Oh goodness, this might be my favorite topic. After spending five months exploring and experiencing the beauty of Complete Streets in Copenhagen, Denmark I have this building energy inside me to change the way America’s streets are designed. I think our society is too dependent on the vehicle, and we possess this access to simple change, the bike. Biking is excellent for the social good of everyone, reducing our use of gasoline, it’s affordable for almost all, its convenient, great for health and it increases community!
8. Advertisements - Media - power tools
Quote: “From the perspective of carmakers, the ideal consumer is one who is unhappy with what he has a year later.” (Lutz, 34)
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Spending two semesters working with you, Rob, I’ve completely changed the way I look at advertisements. Their powerful tools that hook the viewer that we rarely notice as consumers of advertisements, but spending hours in the classroom analyzing just how they’ve used these persuasion techniques is fascinating. Media has a crucial role in sustaining this societies habits of consumption and it’s ironic how much money in spent in advertisements, only for people to spend more in the products, society is structured off quite a cycle of consumption. While I intended for this observation to be on the idea of power tools, I think overall it’s just been very interesting semester observing how the cars and media have shaped our culture and society mostly in relation to a consuming society.
9. Pop Culture, Cars, and Beautiful Women
Quote: “The auto was born in a masculine manger, and when women sought to claim its power , they invaded a male domain.” (Seiler, 50)
Recently I was shown a video on how women in the 21st century are depicted in society. While I think women have made great strides through the years, I think it’s fair to say that media and gender stereotypes, and specifically for this class, men and their “decorative mobile beautiful cargo” appear constantly in media, car commercials, the hit songs of modern times, and especially in movies. However, I recently watched another film, The Signs of Sex Appeal, and in this case the way woman look at men. The film essentially explained woman and their material influence. Woman will woman will go for less attractive man who are financially stable, because its a desire to take care of their child and they believe that if their husband is less attractive than them they won’t leave them and thus will continue to care and help with their children. And this idea was further related to their attraction to nice cars (see clip above- The Signs of Sex Appeal), they don’t focus on the image of the man, but instead of the image of the car - thus the attraction and judgement directed through materialistic culture. Overall, I’m torn between trying to understand the female incentive towards a financially stable male based on his car, compared to the depiction of females simply being beautiful cargo and nothing more. I think society deals again with this values in consumption, and thus causing women to objectify their men while simultaneously men objectifying women through media... an unhealthy balance.
Recently I was shown a video on how women in the 21st century are depicted in society. While I think women have made great strides through the years, I think it’s fair to say that media and gender stereotypes, and specifically for this class, men and their “decorative mobile beautiful cargo” appear constantly in media, car commercials, the hit songs of modern times, and especially in movies. However, I recently watched another film, The Signs of Sex Appeal, and in this case the way woman look at men. The film essentially explained woman and their material influence. Woman will woman will go for less attractive man who are financially stable, because its a desire to take care of their child and they believe that if their husband is less attractive than them they won’t leave them and thus will continue to care and help with their children. And this idea was further related to their attraction to nice cars (see clip above- The Signs of Sex Appeal), they don’t focus on the image of the man, but instead of the image of the car - thus the attraction and judgement directed through materialistic culture. Overall, I’m torn between trying to understand the female incentive towards a financially stable male based on his car, compared to the depiction of females simply being beautiful cargo and nothing more. I think society deals again with this values in consumption, and thus causing women to objectify their men while simultaneously men objectifying women through media... an unhealthy balance.
10. Consumption
Quote: "not movement as such, it is access to people and facilities” (Seiler, 23).
Quote: "not movement as such, it is access to people and facilities” (Seiler, 23).
Overall, rereading all my revelations thus far, we have racial issues, societal infrastructure issues, individualism versus conformity issues, and feministic issues, that all appear to relate back to this culture based on consumption. What I conclude is that media and cars have created the culture of consumption that we live in now. The road that the car has brought us down, has been a long winding confusing path, that created it’s own problem and issues, but I think it’s also brought us freedom, mobility, and connectivity on a global scale that wouldn’t have been possible without it.
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