Can we support ourselves
by driving to each other ?
Collective and Private Transportation:
How the Automobile has Affected Us,
What Collective Transportation Does
Differently, and Why.
A Chreseological Suite in Eight Movements
by
Per Otnes
Institute for Sociology
University of Oslo
Oslo
1994
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Summary
5
I Apertura
Political Things
An Incomplete Cathedral
7
9
II Allegro Sognando Ma Non Troppo
Autopsy of a Dream
A Dis-cuss-sect-ion of 25 Assertions About the Automobile
(l) The Automobile Eliminates or Expands Local
"Gemeinschaft"
(2) The Automobile Allows for Increased Independence
and a Larger Radius of Action
(3) The Automobile Gives You Freedom
(4) The Automobile is an Equalizer, Now That Almost
Everyone Has a Car
(5) The Automobile Brings the Family Together:
On Four Wheels
(6) Mastering the Automobile is a Demanding and
Challenging Task
(7) The Automobile Makes Life Easier
10
11
13
14
17
18
20
21
III Lento Grave
The Automobile, Health, The Environment
22
IV Vivace Risvegliando
An Iron Cage of Irrationality
25
l. Esposizione:
(8) In Its External Form the Automobile Resembles a
Giant, Brachycephalic Skull with a Low Forehead
(9) The Automobile is Space-ineffective - And it Hides
Us
(10) ‘No One Can Bother Me Here’
(ll) The Automobile Weakens the Senses
(12) The Automobile is a Mobile Extension of the
Home
(13) The Parking Garage is a Meta- or Super-Entrance
25
26
28
30
32
33
2. Stringendo:
Freedom and Compulsion in the Traffic Jam
34
Stretto:
(14) The Cummuter Driver is Not Under Anyone's
Supervision
(15) The Traffic Jam is More Egalitarian the Slower
it Moves
(16) The Traffic Jam Spreads the Responsibility It is not the Individual's Fault
(17) The Traffic Jam, the Automobile Itself Makes Us
Passive
35
35
36
36
Invertito:
(18) The Automobile Hinders a Traditional Form of Crime
Control
(19) The Male has Become an Automobile
(20) Rush Hour Traffic, Traffic Itself, Provides
Service Only When it Stops
(21) "Sneak-Privatization"
(22) It is Impossible to Control Traffic
37
38
39
39
42
3. Finale Estenso:
(23) The Automobile Creates a Middle Class
(24) GMC: General Motors Corp. = General Middle Class
(25) Car Salesmen's Tactics: A Precedent for the Sale of
Other Products
V
43
45
46
Largo Gran Vista:
The Automobile and Theory
48
VI Andantino Alla Marcia:
Air, Sea, Rails
Speed Takes the Trains
Our Daily Tram
A Collective Habitus
The Collective as a Liminal Phase
Anguish of the Quasi-Acquaintance
50
52
53
55
56
58
VII Allegro Misterioso. Risoluto. Finale.:
Why the Automobile ?
The Automobile Industry Larger than Agriculture
AUtopia: The Automobile = Progress
The in-Car-nation of success
Does a Reduction in Private Transportation Necessarily
Mean Economic Crisis ?
VIII Coda
Bibliography
60
61
64
65
66
69
70
Summary
"Can we support ourselves by driving to each other ?" is a chreseological
work, that is, a study of the uses and users of both private and public
transportation. It is written in an as-if musical suite form with themes
and counter themes, in several tiers; not unlike a Les contes
d'Hoffmann (Offenbach) fairy tale of dream, dawn and awakening,
albeit based strictly on scientific research. The idea was to try to avoid
the "ideal versus reality" model or ideology criticism, substituting postor a-modern forms for it instead: fragment, trope, division. Though
there may perhaps be traces of relapse, the ideal sought after is "irony
versus reality", where they coincide and where they differ, rather than
"ideal versus reality".
The subject is first and foremost "political things": the motorway as
challenge and assembly line. Thereafter, the automobile as godsend to
Humanity, as collective delirium, constipation, equalizer, and as class
generator.
Further, airplanes, trains and other forms of public
transportation, as "conduits" but also as arena for and liminal zone
between public and the various private spaces; between focused and
unfocused interaction. Finally, the automobile's position in the world
economy: must major economic crisis ensue if the automobile age were,
slowly, to wane ?
In short, it is a discussion of our use and abuse of private and collective
transportation; our conceptions and misconceptions thereof; its state of
being; and the possibility of change.
*
The original Norwegian text dates from early 1991, published first by
NORAS, our Applied social research council that Autumn. When their
edition ran out, the Oslo university Institute of sociology printed another
in their Working paper series a year later. Translation work, funded by
the NORAS, done by Francesca Nichols, was completed the same year.
Sole blame for later delays must be borne by the finickiness of the
author, going slowly and painfully through every word and phrase,
delighting in the numerous adornments added while allotting kisses of
life to quite a few molestations on the way, as well as making several
small updates and changes. Done now, hopefully some of the original's
freshness is retained.
Thanks are not only very due but very cordially offered as well to said
NORAS, personified by my two main interlocutors there, Tor-Einar
Edvardsen and Kjell Abildsnes, for their numerous services rendered
combining prodding and patience in gentle style.
Oslo, February 1994
Your author
I
Political things
"Reality" is a frail and capricious thing, something most of us may
have to put up a fight for, time and time again. Small wonder then that
we react with anxiety, anger and dismissal when someone tries to tell
us that we can view it quite differently. A spade is a spade and a car is
a car; that's final. Don't come here and tell me that a car is "a tool for
creating distance and closeness" or that it is an "entryway on wheels
with sofa". Rend my spark plugs - what nonsense! Just empty words.
But it does move, and they do move us. Whether we drive or just
stand here, we can do no other; we cannot avoid the fact. "Empty
words" is a form of submission which can on occasion be overcome.
It is an old and well-known claim that human beings are political
animals (Aristotle). It does not mean that everyone takes an interest in
politics. Polis means city/state/citizens in Greek. The human being is
a State, or a Social, animal; that is, totally dependent on other
humans. An isolated human individual is an abstraction: theoretically
thinkable, but as unable to survive as a bee without a hive, or an ant
without a hill.
Applying the same idea not only to Man but further to Man's
Products is much less frequently done. Yet the things we produce
have also become "political things", although in a totally different
sense than the old delusive "everything is political". Our artifacts or
things are more than what meets the eye. They are inter-related, most
of them, linked to each other and to us, the people who produce them;
we who intervene, change, redo almost all aspects of our
surroundings. Things are less often really independent, isolated,
chattels, or movable objects, and more often inter-connected clusters
or sets: Object Links or Networks; Thing-Systems; or separate Use
Provinces, Spheres of Operation.
Hence the human being as a "political animal" is a creature dependent
not only on other humans but also on their/our products. We are not
only body and spiritual culture; we are also inextricably bound to a
material world of tools, instruments, machines, which have become as
if a part of the human being; "detached limbs" (Françis Ponge 1961)
that change, strengthen, refine, or brutalize the biological.
Man is, briefly, the only creature totally dependent on tool chests: we
live in one, work in one, and travel around in one.
The interrelations of humans and the material world will vary in many
ways, one important distinction being as follows:
l. Let us say that two blacksmiths are making a knife, or two
journalists, an article together. The object, the product they're
collaborating on emerges visibly, materially present between them:
forge, hammer, anvil, and blank, workpiece, knife etc.; or again pen,
paper, screen, PC, and notes, tapes, photos, MS, proof, feature etc.
The object is passive, the participants' work active: their skill and
knowledge influences the result. Let us call this first type
participant- or person-controlled.
2. As an opposite type of relationship remember Chaplin on the
assembly line in "Modern Times". The tools have metamorphosed
into machine or process, and the final product is remote, material but
not in view. The human operators contribute to the process with a
few, semi-skilled routine tasks. The products and the tool have taken
over, as it were, the controlling and knowledgable participants' role,
while the personal actors are reduced almost to a product or thing; a
person-tool or -product in the service of the machine. The human
actor is active but being controlled, not in control. We'll call this
second type product- or process-controlled.
Our second class of relationships has increased profusely - the first
hardly at all in proportion. But this distinction can be applied to
situations other than salaried work and production: Domestic life,
public services, transportation, etc. no less have their distinctive own
tools, blanks, products; they constitute thing-systems, or use
provinces of their own.
On reflection, the automobile and the motorway as types are closer to
the assembly line; that is, product-, not person-controlled. We believe
that we can turn where we wish, but in fact the road, the car and the
situation determine where we can go rather much more than the
driver. The motorway consequently is a mixed economy assembly
line, sort of - a thesis to be spelled out in considerable details of
compulsion and freedom on the road in part IV below (p. 25 ff ).
The incomplete cathedral
Now there are thing-systems both large and small, meaningful and
meaningless. Roland Barthes (1957) held that automobiles were the
"gothic cathedrals" of our times - the era's most magnificent creation.
The assertion is both famous and criticized; unreasonable if we see
the automobile, roads, traffic and all their problems exclusively as
"great art", quite reasonable if we see them as products that have,
more than any other, influenced a whole epoch and vast areas of the
earth.
Before the advent of Mass Motoring, we were told that the Great Wall
of China was the only human construction visible from the moon.
Numerous road- and highway systems of today have long ago
surpassed it. The automobile has formed the world in its own image that much is clearly visible from a very great distance.
We are accustomed to thinking of the automobile precisely as an
independent and exceptionally mobile entity. But it most definitely is
not - not on its own, that is. For example, in an island hamlet I once
met a man who keept a car even if the local road was only one mile
long. He took an occasional Sunday drive but otherwise was
dependent on time-comsuming winching, loading and unloading the
car on and off the local coastal steamer in order to make the network
of state highways (he rarely did except for his summer touring
vacation).
The story, exceptional to-day, serves to demonstrate that the
automobile is, at the heart of it, an incomplete product - totally
worthless without access to the whole infrastructure of streets and
motorways, traffic lights, gas stations, mechanics, car dealers,
advertisements, the press, the media, the Highway Department,
highway patrols, car registration and control, the Ministry of
Transportation and Communication, etc. - in short, the entire
automobile industry, motor trade, or transportation sector, with all its
matériel and personnel.
The individual car owner doesn't have to think about all of this, but then,
thinking or not makes no difference: (s)he is altogether dependent on
this system anyhow, most notably when there is a slip-up: a large
snowfall and insufficient ploughing capacity, for instance, or when a
trailer truck topples over, turns turtle and blocks the highway. You bet
the phones will start ringing ! Roads - and "access" (Norw. framkomst,
literally "going places", the Highway Department's motto) - have
become services we take for granted and hardly could live without.
II
Auto-psy of a dream:
cuss
A dissection of 25 assertions about the automobile
What follows is based upon research and statistics. It is also based on a
somewhat involuntary personal experiment: I drove a car almost daily
for fifteen years, from 1972 to 1987, wore out 2 1/2 cars and
experienced more or less the same feelings as most people who started
driving during this period: I was happy about the speed, seclusion,
independence, expanded radius of action, and that I could fix some
minor problems with the car myself. At the same time I was exasperated
by rush hour traffic, the price of gasoline, bills from the mechanic when
the problems were too complicated for me to cope with.
I've never been "Anti-Automobile" - who could be against earthquakes ?
or sunshine ? - but nonetheless more open to counterarguments over the
years; "Car-Hesitant or Skeptical", perhaps. The end came when the
children no longer needed to be driven around and our housing expenses
took a flying leap, making the upkeep of our old, worn-out friend
unthinkable. It was a difficult transition but we managed: we went from
using the car to using the tram and the tube as our daily means of
transportation. Fifteen years on tires, seven years on rails - that provides
a rich aray of fresh, lived, and rather typical data in addition to the texts
and tables of others; data and ideas developed on location: inside the
traffic, in cars, trams, buses - on the move, on the road1.
Speaking of political things, now, what in fact are the politics - the
"social life" - of the "automobile-thing" 2 ? What really are the
arguments for and against mass personal automotivity, "Mass
Motoring", really all about? In what follows we'll consider a series of
propositions about private transportation. Is it, as a "thing-system" or use
province, person- or product-controlled ? In what ways does it promote
contact, interaction and rationality in our society, and in what ways does
it impede the same ? In addition, in what way does (or could) public
transportation do this differently ? In short, how has the automobile
affected us ? What have we made of it; what has it made out of us ? (for
slighly different approaches cf. Sørensen 1992, or Nielsen & Vibe
1989).
(1) The Automobile Eliminates or Expands Local Gemeinschaft3
The private car owner is no longer limited to contacts within the
neighborhood or local area, but can choose others, more distant, if
desirable.
1 Unhip, I'm afraid, despite the allusion.
2 Cf. Appadurai The social life of things (1987).
3 Ferdinand Tönnies' (1887) technical term for basic local community, roughly. Opposed
to Gesellschaft as a secondary or complementary type, a better brief definition would
stress care and sharing for the former as against calculation and exchange for the latter,
cf. Otnes (1991).
The assertion is frequently heard but less than accurate: the fact that the
car exists and can be used is not the same as its actually being used
more, or more regularly than the local bus was used before, for instance.
And then, on the bus one could chat with a neighbour during the ride.
Even after mobile phones there's less chatting in private cars, being used
more and more by only one person, due to the rising number of two- and
multi-car families. Commuter driving - the Norwegian term is
matpakkekjøring or "sandwich lunch driving": the person carrying
him/herself and his/her packed lunch only - commuter driving aroundthe-clock, that's more nearly the rule today: More driving and mileage,
less meets and arrivals.
If all this kingdom's cars were on the roads at the same time, there would
be a trifle more than 50 meters of road - or lane - per car; in Oslo and
Akershus (the capital region) only 12 meters, visiting cars not included.
Since we don't have permanent rush hour traffic around-the-clock quite
yet, we may conclude that most cars are not in use most of the time;
not even during the day. With the increasing number of cars on the road,
we are driving more in sum but on the average in fact a little bit less per
car in the longer run4. Further, it means that parking represents at least
as much of a problem as transit, when viewed purely space-wise.
This is, as is well known but rarely understood, the reason why simply
building more roads won't ever eliminate traffic jams. For if more roads
with (prospectively) more room entice more passive car users out of
passivity, the problem could become worse, not better 5 - simply because
the cars not in use are in great majority at any given time. Improvements
still may occur, of course but most often local and limited only.
The same conclusion may be reached by another argument, starting from
cars' yearly mileages: A private automobile in daily use will travel some
10 000 miles a year on the average, in this country at least, whereas a
business vehicle, a taxi for example, may go up to ten times as much if
4 Less than entirely certain; annual mileage figures are widely dispersed and vary
somewhat from year to year. "Second cars" notably are used not much less than "first
cars" of the family. My assertion may be analogous to "the law of the falling rate of
profit": a small but definite tendency, which despite counter-instances is noticable only in
the longer term.
5 The "Downs-Thompson paradox" in plannerese, cf. note 38 infra.
driven around the clock by several chauffeurs - a typical figure being 70
000 miles/year for an Oslo taxi of to-day. We won't elaborate on the fact
that the ordinary driver would consider a 200 000 miles' car old, even
worn out, while a taxi with the same mileage still is very much in its
prime; the reason probably being professionals' regular maintenance
routines compensating for the wear of mere mileage. The fact that a
well-kept private car can go 7-10 times as long and last twice the years
of the present mean would obviosly hurt car sales if more widely known
and put into practice. Be that as it may; the point worth making in the
present context is merely that this 7 - 10 ratio clearly indicates that the
average car in private use will be off the roads some 85-90 % of the
time. Some of the inertia is no doubt just everyday mobility cycles. But
some of it is due to expectations of adverse driving conditions - heavy
traffic, jams, snails' paces etc. It's a rare new construction which
increases the total road system capacity with more than a fraction of one
percent. It may, however, increase drivers' expectations of better
conditions by tens of percents. So, once more, more or better roads may
entail worse, not better traffic.
*
Finally back to neighbours and local communities this would seem to
imply that the advantages of car use are more like an option, a
possibility, an imagined pleasure that is not realized very often. We
know that we can visit a friend or a brother-in-law on the town's other
end just about any evening; or a colleague, aunt etc., in another city just
about any week-end. Despite such possibilities it is not at all so certain
that we in fact take the trips much more frequently with a car now than
by train or bus before. And if we do, would soon get in each others' way,
increasing trip strains and durations.
(2) The Automobile Allows for Increased Independence and a
Larger Radius of Action
It is true that the automobile can get us from A to multiple and more
distant Bs, and more swiftly as a rule. That is certainly not to say,
however, that it gives us anything more to do once we get there. The
automobile gives us Access but not Business; a means but no motive for
going places. We have to arrange for that ourselves. The beer or coffee
in a neighboring town are rarely so much better, nor the girls/boys so
much more attractive, that that alone makes the trip worthwhile. The
automobile is consequently a benefit first and foremost for those who
have a purpose or business, elsewhere.
But this is only on the face of it. Many studies indicate that the
automobile generates new trips, need or no need, by its very existence. It
is only marginally "the rational instrument for transportation from A to
B" of our beliefs. It is used as or more often simply because it is there,
so conveniently waiting to take us, even if it's just to the next corner.
When taking a poll of motorists asking them where they are headed, a
standard finding is that 1/3 are on their way to or from work, 1/3 are
going shopping, and the remainder "don't really know". The family's
new tool is used for things unplanned: The drill makes holes that are
neither much needed nor desired; the car brings us to places where we
haven't much to do.
We travel more often and longer distances than before - yes but is it the
desired and agreeable trips that increase most ? There isn't much
evidence to corroborate this. The freedom of movement has almost
become compelled movement (cf. p. 35 Krumm). If one is to believe the
statistics, most Norwegians have, on the contrary, a smaller network of
friends and less contact with their relatives after car ownership became
widespread. But of course, no one can really know whether the situation
would have been even worse without the automobile.
Most of us would agree that the automobile, for those who have one,
leaves us less at the mercy of our closest neighbours and a possibly
confining local community: the negative aspect of Local Gemeinschaft.
True enough, from a subjective point of view it is undoubtedly a relief to
have access to other places, other scenarios where we can unfold, unseen
by neighbors or others who "know us". This is how we develop
"multiple selves" more easily; a robust and many-faceted social
personality that learns to tackle all kinds of situations. We become
"street wise", so to speak.
Or ? For some people the constricting pressure, gossip, and informal
surveillance of the local community, can be a real hindrance to growth,
personal resourcefulness and development - not just a petty nuisance,
Jante6 law. For others, however, the neighbourhood or local
community, when it comes right down to it, knows us better than we can
or wish to acknowledge; our potential for growth isn't really so great
even if relocated. For this type among us the freedom offered by the car
is nothing more than a constant opportunity of escaping a warped selfimage: certainly nothing to begrudge someone, but not much to wish for
them either.
Now the difficulty about this argument is that it's almost impossible to
know for certain before we've tried, each of us, each next time, what
our real potential is. The car, our new means of getting away, can remain
just that: a constant promise of a second chance - less and less likely but
all the more precious.
And that goes for independence as well: with the car we can forget about
arrival and departure schedules, it's true (cf. Espe 1977, and p. 41
infra). But the freedom to drive "whenever it's convenient" is great for
those who have lots of free time, little or non-existent however for those
who's time is tied up by work - or by the rush hour traffic going to or
from it.
(3) The Automobile Gives You Freedom
Probably the most fantastic sales gimmick for the automobile is the
claim that it will give you not only greater independence but also greater
freedom. Speed, yes, that's acceptable in part - excepting in traffic jams
- but freedom, freedom ! As a driver the extent of your freedom is
limited to turning the steering wheel - right, left, or straight ahead at
each new corner; to pushing a pedal or not; and further controlling a
6 Jante, an fictitious town's name, reknowned for a set of "10 commandments", ironically
invented by author Axel Sandemose, his novel A fugitive crosses his tracks (1935/55)
being something of a local Main street - only narrower. His commandments are all
forbidding the individual to excell or stand out from the crowd in any way "Thou shalt
not imagine that thou are better than the rest of Us", etc.
small number of knobs, handles and instruments. Everything else is tacit
but physical compulsion, and all deviance strictly forbidden, not in the
least bit free. Basic movements like getting up to stretch one's legs is out
of the question while driving. Admitting even a second of inattention
may mean mortal danger. And those who challenge these types of
constrictions risk "punishment" in the form of accidents, repair
expenses, and injuries - at worst more serious than anything the judicial
system can offer.
Incredible stories of freedom in the automobile abound, for instance in
crime show climaxes which regularly spell screaming tyres and roaring
engines to-day; how odd that we don't hear more about the automobile
and claustrophobia. The problem is real enough, as anyone who has
taken small children on long trips knows: it is torture to have to sit still
for long periods of time - a torture against which those who haven't
learned to discipline themselves naturally rebel. But we adults, having
acquired discipline - do we yet not feel any discomfort ? Don't we ever
feel constricted, closed-in, groggy, sitting in a car? On reflection I think
we do. But the feeling of swifth mobility, traffic tie-ups aside once more,
will counteract the unpleasantness to a degree; just as keeping in mind
the great dangers of everything outside our shell, the body of the car,
does: The lightest touch can cause dents, scratched paint etc. which cost
a pretty sum to repair, not to mention more serious collisions. At all
times one has to give one's driving undivided attention, its focus outside,
not inside (cf. (9) infra).
Objectively speaking, a car is small. Even a large and expensive car is
less roomy than most other spaces in which we dwell or move around.
The most important reason why the automobile, nevertheless, does not
always give one a feeling of claustrophobia is this: an experienced driver
develops a special physical "feeling" for the car. The body of the car
becomes like an extra body outside our own; we can "feel" the car's size,
how close one can come to the curb or the garage door, etc. without
touching them. The automobile becomes an as if detachable, yet almost
organic, extension of our bodies. Psychology may have a term for the
feeling of being imprisoned in one's own body, but claustrophobia in any
case is not it. Death instinct perhaps ?
(4) The Automobile is an Equalizer, Now that Almost Everyone Has
a Car
Superficially this is certainly true. But "almost everyone" used to mean
66-75% of the population7, of which 10-15% who bicycle and use
public transportation despite the fact of having a car.
In one sense, the car "drives backwards": it decreases the division of
labor and promotes a mechanic rather than organic solidarity (Durkheim
1964). Private car owners' part-time efforts avoid or take over the work
of professional chauffeurs. Those who repair their own cars do the same
with respect to the mechanics' profession. An educational and egalitarian
enterprise maybe, but far from a rational and effective use of the existing
labor force; something we expect as a matter of course in other
connections.
If Oslo's public transport system doubled its number of employees, 2000
new man-labor-years would be able to transport all the c. one hundred
times that number presently wasting their time in rush hour traffic every
day. Even after correcting for the difference between part-time and fulltime employment the man-labor-years saved from being wasted in traffic
jams would number in the tens of thousands.
This is, to be sure, dependent on what public transportation has to offer,
whether it's willing and able to take up the challenge. It should offer a
more comfortable, speedier and more productive means of traveling than
the car, or the labour time saved cannot be used to advantage. For
commuting will be with us, cars or no cars.
But anyhow, why do we allow private transportation to go on wasting so
much manpower ? Why not take advantage of this potential for
increased efficiency ? Because people - so far - have been willing to pay
steep prices for their cars while protesting against high taxes, public bus
and rail fares etc. Here again we are confronted with the automobile as
an ideology in material form - being no less ingenious as a sales
7 1987 figures; by 1992 close to 90 % of Norwegians live in housholds having at least
one, 27 % more than one, automobile.
campaign than as a technical artifact at that: The price we see fit to pay
for driving behind our own steering wheel is one year's salary every
fourth year. Who would dare calling that "cost-effective" ? We pay for
a brand new, shiny "body" reserved exclusively for the family, but pay
an invisible price in the bargain: the overtime we have to put in as
chauffeurs. Would anyone pay a quarter of their salary for the privilege
of sitting in the driver's seat on a bus, a tram, subway or train ? There is
a difference of course, but just the same it involves the same distance
being covered and the same type of work. A major victory for "the sales
effort" (Baran & Sweezy 1966).
IKEA's8 well-known sales policy involves making people pay for their
own work imput (assembling acquired products at home), only at a
discount. The automobile industry was way ahead of the game and outdo
even IKEA, making their customers pay for their own work hours
driving, with no reduction in price.
Thus we pay dearly for an impressive exterior and for our own labour but not least, to be rid of the others. What we get in fact is more
moderate: a guaranteed seat in backed-up traffic, an encapsulated
interior, and a bit more distance between ourselves and other travellers.
We have coachwork-contact instead of body-contact, bumpers instead of
elbows and knees. It may be something but less than we're used to think.
(5) The Automobile Brings the Family Together: On Four Wheels
Sverre Lysgaard9 gave me the idea for this one. He is right in saying that
the automobile brings the family together - on vacations, on the way to
the summer cottage, occationally even on the way to work, school, or
day-care: Everyone gathered together in a little, closed room with the
rudder safely in Mom's or Dad's hand - almost like in the old days,
secure and just how we'd like it to be. The private car is like a complete
8 A Swedish furniture design, manufacture and sales company; a bargain Habitat chain,
sort of, established now in France, Britain etc. Their bargain prices derive in large part
from leaving most assembly work to the customers' delight or despair.
9 A senior colleague (1923- ), locally reknowned for his The workers' collective (1962),
a contribution in the "Management and the worker"-tradition.
cast in itself, father, mother and children playing captain, mate, sailors,
and passengers.
But surely the opposite claim is at least as true in other, more frequently
occuring situations. The automobile can unite the family, yes, absolutely
but contributes perhaps more than any other thing to dividing it. The car
makes it possible, or easier, for each of the family members to live
totally separate lives a great deal of the time. Mind you, there's no
implication of its being necessarily a bad thing: One could imagine that
it created "the honeymoon family": always delighted to see each other
because it happens so rarely. At the same time we know that the divorce
rate10 is higher than ever before. So the car's role in the family is at best
ambiguous: bringing it together and splintering it.
I for one believe that the family has changed but that it's position in
present society is not much weakened. Nevertheless believing that the
automobile's contributing significanly to strengthening it is pure
nostalgia. A more likely hypothesis is that the traditional autocraticfather-type continues in this role in the family car - if mother and
children allow him to - precisely because he has been ousted from
more or less every other position of authority11.
The idea that the automobile brings the family together is not only
nostalgic, but what I would call the Myth of Man's Mastery - our
image of the self-assured, effective, resourceful person whose own
exceptional action saves the day - as if with a smoking six-shooter in
each hand.
10 Not a good indicator: Annual marriage cohorts are so small compared to total
population that it will take longer than one generation, more nearly two or three or half to
two thirds of a century, before annual divorce rates begin to approach the population total
rate.
11 I'd support this point even against heavy feminist attacks: "What of Patriarchy ? Where
is Male Dominance ?" etc. If, in the words of Rosemary Crompton (1993) "the world of
work is still predominantly a male world", the implication is necessarily that the world of
dominance, exploitation, submission etc. is still dominantly male as well - man's
oppression of man in a quite literal sense: There are many more subdued, compliant,
timid men out there (or here) than authoritarian, ironclad patriarchs. Which goes by the
way for violence as well: Men battering women may be worse, morally or qualitatively;
still if quantity counts, too, most human violence is certainly that of males against other
males.
This kind of behavior is, to put it mildly, not common in today's
complex society (cf. Offe 1970), where political people, political things,
and political action are all woven together. Even in the upper echelons of
industry or government it is often difficult to say who (or what) had the
decisive influence on what; as a rule it's an interplay of many and varied
elements. The steam engine and the incandescent light were invented by
single individuals12; the computer, television and space shuttle were
not. In our daily work each of us regularly leave traces, but much less
visible, less unique, less identifiable. If my Man's Mastery is a matter or a myth - of fact, then it certainly exists on a collective and social
rather than on a purely individual basis: (Wo)Men take command Society or Culture, not single individuals. Driving a car remains popular,
however, as myth incarnate - the feeling of command or mastery not
really borne out in fact 13.
(6) Mastering the Automobile is a Demanding and Challenging Task
The advertisements talk about "the joy of driving"14 and there is a
certain amount of truth in it. In a similar way "the joy of pottering" is a
fact of a sorts. Even in the deepest slums great pride may be invested in
putting together one drivable vehicle from the wrecks of five others, for
instance (cf. de Bellaing 1988). American Car and Veteran Car Clubs
and similar sub-cultures are evidence of real talent and serious
commitment (cf. Lamvik 1992, Moorhouse 1988). But how important is
it and how many are involved in it ? The average driver can repair a few
things but often is helpless when more complicated problems arise difficulties which only a professional mechanic can solve.
12 We believe; their detailed histories invariably uncovers precursors and competitors
(see e.g. Hughes 1983 on Edison), not rarely hairbreath close.
13 Divorce, as just mentioned, is another modern phenomenon accounted for by the same
myth: Its increasing incidence may be due in some part to the fact that it's a rare, perhaps
the only really big change you can bring into your life by deciding all on your own;
furthermore with success - in terms of certainty of outcome if not, perhaps, of personal
satisfaction - guarateed. A divorcee is "Master, in Command" - or at least can believe
(s)he is.
14 Kjøreglede, joy of driving or motoring pleasure, is a standard of Norwegian auto ads,
cf. Hubak (1992).
As for "the joy of driving", it's obviously pleasant to relax in one's own
possibly comfortable niche, with temperatures right, your favorite radio
channel or a stereo cassette on: Always in the royal theatre box - even if
you do have to be your own private chauffeur. But this comfort benefit
has to be considered in the light of the fact that, first of all, most cars are
older, worn or faded "royal boxes": 53% of all the households included
in a 1983-85 study (Opdahl 1987) had cars which were more than two
years old. With later car sales dwindling, the percentage must be even
higher today.
Further, this comfort factor has to be weighted against the fact that with
time driving becomes a very monotonous dull routine. Over the years
most trips are programmed down to the smallest detail: always the same
road, the same views, and about the same trip duration. We have the
zombie driver who "doesn't know how" to get to work if his/her ordinary
road is blocked for some reason -"other ways don't exist" because the
familiar has become so very familiar. And driving itself, originally a joy
and a challenge to master, becomes routine and automatic, something
you can do half-asleep. An extensive British poll taken in 1983
concluded quite straightforwardly that "the concept of pleasure driving
seems to be moribund" (Dix 1983:xxiii). We drive because we have to;
no longer because it gives us pleasure. "Man's astery" fades off into the
mist of daily routine.
(7) The Automobile Makes Life Easier
Reputedly the automobile makes everything much easier. This is yet
another half-truth: though motor car transport may eliminate some
heavier heaves it is not at all obvious that it saves time (Brög 1991), at
least not for the private household. The same thing could apply to
private transportation which applies for other forms of technology in the
home: it saves toil but not time - firmly established by the work of
Cowan (1989). Secondly, motoring and transportation of goods has
become a self-expanding process. When the majority of customers do
their shopping by car, the small shop with no parking space or within
walking distance cannot survive. We're offered sprawling shopping
centers instead, gladly driving twice as far to get there and coming home
with much more than we planned to buy. We even ruin our backs
carrying so much weight - l.5 tons per family per year according to the
surveys (Grønmo 1984) - from the cash register to the parking lot, and
from the home parking space to the kitchen.
Two or three decades ago producers delivered potatoes and vegetables
(enough to last the winter) in sacks right to your door. That alone would
represent a reduction in the amount of carrying and lifting by 25%. Beer
and soft drinks from the brewery and - as is still the practice in some
countries abroad, delivery of fresh milk products on the doorstep each
morning with the newspaper - would represent a new, collective
reduction in dull, burdensome work, a diminishing of the need for
automobiles - and, efficiency gained besides. This is another example of
the automobile-induced waste of labor.
III
The Automobile, Health, and Environment
Among the strongest arguments against the use of the automobile are the
problems it causes for our health and for the environment: Road
accidents, fatal or not, whip-lash, wheel-chair patients; and the
production of CO2, the greenhouse effect, damage to the Ozone layer;
dust, stench, noise. As so many others are protesting the use of cars for
these reasons, I desist from most further strife, except for mentioning
that if Professor Volker Krumm's (1989) sources are correct, the car kills
up to 400,000 people globally - or ten Vietnam wars, each year. And
less than half that number are drivers causing their own death but no one
else's.
400,000 dead per year, of which over 200,000 totally inculpable. A few
decades of motoring is starting to approach a scandal of Auswitchian
dimensions, if not worse, especially if we consider the number injured
besides - thirty times the number of deaths, 12 million injured each
year. Think about it: nearly 0.l per thousand world population dead, c.
2.3 per thousand injured each year, most of them in the industrialized
world. In time, over decades, this would mean that almost everyone will
know someone injured in a car accident, and that many would have lost
a loved-one, friend or acquaintance.
In the long run there is great potential here for changing our way of
thinking, and increasing the pressure to make real changes: Can "a
moment of negligence" excuse these figures, any more than the "just
following orders"-line of concentration camp guards ?
The medical profession could and should make a larger contribution,
with research, theory, applications etc., to "remedy the automobile" as a
lethal and pathogenic factor - it's a formidable cause of death, simply.
Very important work, prophylactic and curative, can be done in the years
ahead. Let us remember, however, that my presenting the issue as the
outrage it is, still is likely to slightly jar ears in the medical profession.
With life and death viewed in sober scientific and economic terms, the
number of deaths caused annually by car accidents is moderate to low
comparatively, e.g. in Norway today: Three to four hundred; slightly
below diabetes or suicide that is, and much lower than deaths caused by
tumors or cardiovascular diseases; well over ten thousand each. Natural
Death, briefly, is a much more strict master than both accidents, war, and
genocide. So the scandalous role of road accidents may be due to its
character rather than the number or proportion of victims: Car accidents
are so eminently evitable. All accidents had better be avoided, of course
but when they occur in gainful occupation the injuries are a co-result of
useful, productive work. Traffic injuries, however, occur in a service
giving us nothing much more than sparkle, teeming and fumes - instead
of any useful product.
The late Norbert Elias, grand old man of German sociology, has claimed
that the more advanced the civilization, the less, and less serious, road
accidents would occur (Elias 1988). Accidents, it appears, are both more
nasty and take place more frequently in countries where the automobile
is a new arrival. In countries where the car has become a routine part of
life, we have learned to minimize them. Or so it seems, for there's a
much less flattering explanation not mentioned in Elias' work: The more
cars are forced to drive separately from other traffic (pedestrians
notably), frequently queuing at snail's paces, the less serious the
accidents. A few dented bumpers, or smashed glass, plus an occational
whip-lash, are literally all there's room - and impetus - for when queues
dominate traffic.
The role of the automobile as an increasing environmental problem is
perhaps best understood when we view it as a role conflict on the
personal level; We wish to retain the right to drive our own car
whenever it suits us. But at the same time, we wish to have as many
traffic free, pedestrian zones, speed limits, and speed humps - simple but
in their way radically new technologies, cf. Latour (1992) - as possible,
wherever the driving of others disturbs and irritates us. Do what I say,
not as I do. Or, love your own car and hate your neighbours'.
In the long run a role conflict such as this could, perhaps, incite a
"planned divorce" from driving for some, or better, it could mean the
appearance of "car-weaning" or "stop-driving" courses, with "stopsmoking" as a model: A popular product now proved dangerous yet
difficult to quit - my guess is that's a potential demand come some years
(cf. Krumm 1989, and Harvie 1990).
So much for a discussion of the gravest and most critical consequences
of world automobile use. In what follows I will concentrate on less
obvious problems still perhaps closer to home: the car as seen (or
rather ignored) from the inside; as a car-apace or shell worn when we
travel; as related to our living quarters and our jobs; in queues; as social
constructs and co-creators of societies. And as hitherto, all in the form of
statements, the interplay of arguments and counter-arguments.
IV
An Iron Cage of Irrationality
(8) In its External Form the Automobile has Become a Giant,
Lowbrow Brachycephalic Skull
Things were different in the days of the Model-T Ford and before. Those
were the days when the height of the car was in proportion to its length.
One could stand up in a car then, or almost. Today the automobile is far
from "a box on wheels". It is more nearly an airplane, or a rocket,
without wings, designed for a "flying-low"-look, as it were.
It began to take on this form in the 50's - the second great period of mass
motoring in the USA. Detroit tested a "modern" functional design but it
didn't sell. Instead, "bigness", a low, streamlined look with curves, grills,
and tail fins was what the people dreamt about - and got (McCracken
1990). The car as a "vehicle of flight", a rocket or jet fighter, a symbol of
US World Hegemony right outside your livingroom door: that was worth
paying for. An American Car Club 15 obsession remains deeply rooted in
some today. The B52-car, the majestic jet-fighter, took over totally after
the democratic 30ies. A totally different concept reigned then: the
inexpensive, economical car for the masses - the "People's wagons", the
Model-A Ford, the Käfer or bubble, Renault 4, 2CV, "four wheels under
an umbrella" - all gone today.
A new trend won through during the 70's when the lack of parking space
became an ubiquitous problem: a robust, smaller jalopy which was
durable and easy to park; not a box but a suitcase on wheels. Not just
any old suitcase mind you - a Ladylike Beauty Bag, nothing less than
that; simple and elegant. Characteristically the French "Le Car" or R 5
splash became the trendsetter.
15 "AMCar", a locally popular variety of the Hot Rod movement, specialising in US auto
makes of the 50ies and 60ies, a general nostalgia for the youth culture of those years
liberally added.
(9) The Automobile is Space-Ineffective - and it Conceals Us
Now whether large or small, the car is more than just a symbol. It's a
function as well, a system of tehnology. Cars have to be stable, which
entails a large base, and a low center of gravity in order not to overturn.
For that reason, cars are conspicuously inefficient users of space; they're
not at all space-effective. There is room for a score of pedestrians in the
amount of space a parked car takes up - even more if it is moving. It's
unlikely that new technologies can solve this problem. A "bodycondom" car or a "motorized monocycle" could hardly ever be fast,
stable, or safe enough.
This simple fact has a number of consequences not often appreciated. It
makes for increasing distance between people travelling; discerning
more than vague outlines becomes difficult: a bust or a profile through
two panes of glass on each side, the back of a neck in front of you, or a
washed-out face in the rear-view mirror. Then, far fewer people are
visible from within a car - down to one-tenth or one-twentieth as few16 simply because each car is so space-consuming. The amount of time
available for viewing others is also reduced - partially due to speed but
also because the driver has to keep his eyes peeled on the road at all
times; this is what I call "the swift pan/fixed focus world view". In
general, everyone you see will appear as a bust; hence with fewer
discernible signs of who they really are: their way of dressing, their
posture, and way of walking are hardly or not at all visible.
Now from the inside, from the driver's perspective, this can be an
advantage: to be able to see, a bit, without being seen yourself. But then,
what do you see ?
In the first place, there are passers-by, pedestrians, shops, buildings,
townscapes or landscapes, sidewalks and roadsides - all very fleetingly.
An interesting kaleidescope for a while perhaps. Yet the moment you
wish to react to any of this - to intervene in a particular situation, to
16 Comparing the space required by one person driving a car at 40 km/h with that
required by pedestrians at 5 km/h renders a full 75, cf. Whitelegg (1993:79). So at top
density pedestrians will have 75 times as many fellows close or in view than a car driver.
Top densities of traffic may be less than common but the difference must be very notable
even for much less crowding.
greet an acquaintance, to accept an offer, then the momentary
powerlessness of the driver becomes obvious: speed, traffic, other
drivers compel us to keep moving - or stay put. Almost all sponteneity is
contained; hampered partly by the physical barrier of the glass and the
coachwork, partly by the delay implied by parking. In this sense drivers
inhabit a remote, literally an outsiders' world.
We could even suggest that George Herbert Mead (1934)'s "point of
view of the other" is more difficultly taken when Ego and Alter are both
locked up in their respective, fast-moving, private steel carapaces.
Everything but driving and the traffic ceases to exist. Small wonder that
we tend to think that it's "the other guy" - driving too fast, too slow, too
carefully, too recklessly - who is always at fault. What else can one
expect of a work environment where a peer and "co-pilot" can never
speak his mind on the spot as an actor and eye-witness - because there's
no room for a second pilot ? "Backseat drivers" exist, true but are
detested, strongly expected to keep mum till the trip's over.
So predictably driver's typology (always about the other driver) tends to
become stereotypical: "Sunday driver", "old lady driver", "country
bumpkin driver", for those who drive slower than us; "crazy driver",
"must be out of his mind driver", or "dirty sneak", for those who drive
faster or try to slip ahead in a traffic jam. Similarly "snob", or "heap of
junk", describe cars that are more, or less, expensive than our own.
Second, you can see other vehicles and their drivers, both leaving a
transient and impersonal impression, automobiles having by far fewer
"personal characteristics" than humans - which is, by the way, why they
require license plates while we don't. The exterior of a car can of course
boast or betray, just as a person's home or clothing can. They're much
more difficult to identify, however, being always many of a kind, many
of roughly the same make and model. So the automobile may absorb
more of our attention yet leaving less of an impression. Even an
expensive car is fundamentally anonymous.
The five thousand pound question for drivers now is this: Have you ever
made a new friend in a traffic jam ? Not a hitch-hiker or a fellowpassenger, mind you, but somebody driving his or her own car ? And
what's more, did you ever meet a neighbour or acquaintance while
driving to work ?
I have asked these questions during my lectures for quite some time
now, and drivers tend to get annoyed, even upset, probably because it's
so difficult to answer honestly in the affirmative. One feels exposed and
indignant on behalf of the automobile, as it were: So what if it's asocial,
unsociable, contact-curbing ? I have met people who claim there is a
special form of "car flirting" but I have as yet to hear reports of anyone
"making a catch", or of post-jam durable contacts. The chance both of
running into acquaintances and making new ones is certainly much
greater on the tram, at bus- or subway stops17 - even on side-walks, in
squares, on foot-paths, in restaurants, the cinema, theatre, etc. The
driver's world is a closed world; nothing less than an accident can open it
spontaneously.
Some claim that the spread of car phones make a difference - and
agreed, they do. But still, they offer a diversion out of your present
situation, not into it. Or how could you find your jam neighbour's car
phone number ? So phone or no phone, your spontaneity is hampered;
you're powerless to interfere right there on the spot the moment you
want something outside your car.
I do concede it's amazingly difficult to achieve agreement on the simple
physical fact that being enclosed in a steel hull, however glazed and
mobile, must be, to some extent, constraining. Drivers suppress or reject
or compensate that feeling, or they don't want to know or to recognise: a
potential claustrophobia had better remain ignored.
(10) "No One Can Reach Me Here" - But Who Can I Reach ?
Many motorists experience a strong and pleasant feeling of
independence. You're not available: "No one can bother me here",
"finally alone", "no one can interfere", etc. The others, the strangers, are
17 Lamentably we were not able to definitely verify a claim by Oslo tramways that 13 %
of all steady couples first met in public transport, reportedly from a French survey - left
here for future research.
at a (fairly) safe distance. At other times, though, precisely seeing and
being seen is what we wish. All the more reason to enjoy the solitude
just now: you don't have to be on guard, pretend, play the role, or
whatever it is we do when we are in close proximity to others, rid of our
car-apaces.
Sociologically speaking, this is one of the automobile's exceptional
properties: its doing the "instant Simmel". The automobile is a
combination of private and public; anonymous and closed but at the
same time mobile and ready to move along the public network of roads for what purpose being nobody else's business. The automobile saves us
from having to participate. It's a polished, sleek, blasé façade keeping
the world at a distance: Thus seen, the car is a physical, unspoken
version of Simmel's metropolitans' "quiet aversion" for each other as
passers-by (Simmel 1903). It does the blasé act for us.
Yet anonymity does not prevent us from expressing ourselves, from
"being original". An unkempt car, a slick one, or one that's clean as a
whistle; or with feminine traces such as curtains; with bumper or "I was
there"-stickers, etc. - all are ways of revealing our personality, class or
type - or trying to.
At the same time there is the intimacy of the interior - soundproof,
stylish, comfortable seats and with just the right distance/closeness for
conversation; an invitation to intimacy, artificial or real. It's our "home
away from home", a movable flight, a rolling refuge, always present or
close - a snail shell for the shy or the weary, providing shelter, a place of
rest and security, almost like a body outside our own.
As for the car in the city, it's the one best friend of what Lynn Lofland
(1973) calls "the skilled urbanite"; a favourite prop or stage of theirs. It
is not only good at keeping pretenses up; it will also help keep the show
going on. Nothing short of a fellow actor can set the scene so effectively
while retaining so much mobility. It offers both support and shelter; it is
Goffman's front stage and back stage combined: Focus of Interest, and
Camouflage. If city life gets to where it's just too much, too lonely etc.,
the car can offer some help and support.
We become dependent on the car as though it were a detachable part of
the body. It relieves us from the need of acting out the frons urbana, the
successful, untouched, impenetrable urbanite façade. It provides a
cherished intermission where chrome and paint perform in place of our
own facial expressions. Psychologically, it helps build the impression
that life in the city is more easily coped with after all: regularly a false,
but still a much-defended consciousness.
(11) The Automobile Attenuates Our Sense Impressions
Sensory deprivation is a classic theme of psychology; a topic of much
research, both in the labs and out in the field. The private car has not
been included in the research, it seems. Here's another unpopular idea
for most drivers, for there can be no real doubt that driving effects some
sensory deprivation - though not to extremes, it's nontheless manifest for
most of the senses.
Specialists trying to disprove this claim point for instance to Simmel's
theory of the overwhelming multitude of impressions impinging upon
Metropolitan Man. They claim that the car "both overstimulates and
understimulates"(cf. Smith 1980) because it allows for so much mobility
and so many choices, yet so little time for most. We've already
mentioned how routinised itinerary choices will counter-act this claim,
and similarly, that increased mobility does not necessarily mean
increased utility or welfare. "Mobility ... movement itself is a cost, to be
accepted only when access requires it"; it's not in itself a benefit
(Plowden 1985:34). Motoring can be a pleasure but it's invariably a cost.
Its marginal utility, marginal pleasure, will in all probability decrease
rapidly with increasing time or distance travelled.
Back to the senses: it is often claimed that sight is used more than usual
in driving. It's true, of course, that more things meet your eyes. Yet
whether your attention increases as much is rather to be doubted always focussed, remember, cf. (9) above. And the fact that speed and
the windshield always function as barriers, emphasizes our remoteness
from what we're viewing. The sights we see appear almost as if on a
cinema or a television screen: life-like, yet in a way not quite
real,"virtual" (Baudrillard 1986).
As for the traditional other four senses it's conspicuously more of the
same story: Smell, hearing, taste and touch all have much less to work
with - a narrowed scope of input - inside a car than outside. An
automobile interior for instance smells of paint, artificial leather, rubber,
a touch of gasoline and oil, and maybe an air purifyer18 for reduced
odours - but added monotony: for there's rarely more than that. In
comparison, a city sidewalk can offer a much wider spectrum, depending
upon the neighborhood, the weather, the season, whether there are shops
nearby, passers-by, etc.: coffee, food, dogshit, wet snow, flowers, new
clothing, etc. Further, it may offer variety, and surprises like the smell of
malt for instance, if a brewery is airing out its tanks.
Hearing similarly gets less input in the car. We hear the motor running
and the hum (more nearly a roar - if you're outside19) of the tires on the
asphalt. All other external or weaker sounds are suppressed, or drowned
out; the choice between roar and silence conveniently taken for you by
the isolation of the car body.
The sense of touch is not weakened in itself. What we can reach and
touch, however, is little and monotonous in texture, temperature, range
etc., compared to the outside world. The same goes for taste. True,
eating while you drive is possible for drivers but much less
recommendable and more dangerous than for pedestrians. Apparently,
"drivers' meals", one-handed for security, is an expanding market,
however. And new - at least reaching Norway only after the first version
of this work was written.
Yet the most obvious loss of stimuli is suffered by what perception
psychologists call the inner receptors, leading dull lives inside a
motorist, immobilised during the trip. As a result the heart, lungs and
muscles are working far below capacity. In the long run that is perhaps
18 Popular in this country is a German make - Wunderbaum or miracle tree - jestingly
called "Germany's most vigourous tree".
19 A great tacit paradox of the Motor Trades is this: If automobiles let nearly as much
noise in as they let out, they 'd not be marketable; tacit but audible as a matter of paradox.
the biggest health hazard for motorists: lack of daily exercise. Even
taking the tram or the bus are better in this respect - more strenous but
also more of a workout. Exercise is an effort the indolent go without.
(12) The Car is a Mobile Extension of the Home
Let us now consider the automobile's role as link or intermediary
between life's two main fixed points: the home, and work. Further, I
suggest that we refrain for a moment from considering the two as
separate functions - who says we must ? Instead of isolating production
in one place and reproduction in the other, we conceptualise hometravel-job as one system; a function we can call skill on the spot. We
then ask: Where does the automobile belong in such a system?
The answers can vary. If you have a company car, or a mobile phone, a
dictaphone, working equipment or tools in your private car, then one
would most likely consider it as an extension of the job 20. On your way
from your front door to your parked car you're almost on the job right
away, and working as soon as you pull out. The opposite is nonetheless
more common. Most private cars are not associated with work - they
belong more nearly to the home, or leisure side of skill on the spot.
The automobile, in its shortest possible definition, is an entrance hall
on wheels with a seating group, functioning as a sort of pre-vestibule
or built-in porch, only movable. Like the entrance hall it has an outer
door, which, like any entrance, may be ostentatious, unassuming, or
matching - in other words it can be more elegant, sloppier, or in keeping
with the style of the rest of the house (or job)21. Like an entrance hall
the car is important: The home's sluice, guardian or bouncer - and its
face to the outside world, its ambassador. Despite their importance,
though, they're not among our most used "rooms" but has rather an
intermediary status; a transitional or liminal zone, only without much
ritual protection or communitas (cf. Turner 1969, and section VI infra).
20 Or even the job: I've been told that a growing trend in present London is remaking a
minibus or caravan into an office or workshop - it's much cheaper than renting real estate
premises.
21 Cf. no. (9) supra, where car exteriors were compared to personal clothing in the same
manner.
We are in the process of change, we are going from one state to another:
a new arena, a new role, new opponents, etc. We need a passageway; we
need its cover and protection.
(13) The Parking Garage is a Meta- or Super-Entrance
The automobile's latent role as mobile entrance may help explain the
enormously desolate atmosphere of parking garages22; that bizarre new
creature, the pay-house for cars: tier upon tier of parking lots, above or
below ground - for the car is a modest guest that does not require
sunlight or a view - in short, a motel for the vehicle, not the driver. It is
often used as the setting for the climax of crime films, "the final shootout" scenes. Why are parking garages so perfect for that ? Because they
are anonymous, suitably isolated with little traffic; sort of "a car outside
the car" having a similar atmosphere of "no one can reach me - or see me
- here". A perfect stage for shooting, mugging, rape, dope dealing and
other shady activities. Add TV surveillance, and the guards can see and
record but not easily stop the misdeeds. And all this because most
automobiles, like "real" entrance halls, are used briefly, intensely, a
condensed use, as it were - otherwise left empty and deserted.
Insiders' reports suggest, however, that the telly crime image of parking
garages may be something of an exaggeration or myth, for the simple
reason that the loot is lacking. Other scares such as mafia hitmen and
their victims are, luckily, rather rare yet. Our anxiety is very real as a
feeling but not based on actual greater risk of danger. So why are we
afraid even so ? Once more I'd suggest that the car's robbing us of
liminality, hence of skill in coping with it (section VI), should make for
a more acute feeling of vulnerability the moment we step outside it in
unfamiliar places.
In addition the meta-entrance-idea may explain why a parking garage
interior is so disconcerting as an idea: There's a very striking contrast
between the almost touching concern for keeping all of these post-war
22 Ethnologist colleague Orvar Löfgren (1993) claims that happy anticipation is his
reaction - because his childhood's Saturday shopping trips with his mother always started
there.
symbols of progress dry and safe on the one hand, and what their
guardian is, on the other: a whole construction made exclusively for an
inanimate object; as a passageway; a building taylormade for housing
hundreds of artifacts which from a functional point of view are mobile
entrance halls. We could hardly imagine someone wanting a whole
house of nothing but vestibules, but a parking garage is just that, in full
operation. Or in fact they're most often operating only at half capacity.
Evidently, time is required for people to learn to use them - at least in
today's Oslo.
My last comment on the strangeness of parking garages is yet another
effect of the automobile's space-ineffectivity (cf. (9) supra): No
construction built for humans, not even a castle or palace, would require
the majestically broad and spiralling "stairless staircases" and corridors
of the parking garage: Anything so that King Car can arrive unscathed
and without a dent to a spot where he can rest - for a while. The ratio of
access-space to living/storage-space is much greater than in housing
construction, which tries to minimize it - my estimate would be 5 % for
dwellings as opposed to 25-30% for garages (cf. Parkeringsanläggningar
1991). In addition there is huge contrast between the majestic width of
the entries and the spartan interior finish - often unadorned cement and
chicken fencing instead of windows. A strange king, this: scrimping and
squandering simultaneously, in one and the same place.
Finally there's a possibility that this will imply building problems for the
future: In what possible way can we convert these strange buildings for
other uses, should a future decrease in automobile use make them
unprofitable ? The lack of infrastructure - isolation, sanitation etc. - will
cause problems but not unsurmountable: it's being tried in present
Stockholm.
Freedom and Compulsion in the Traffic Jam
A German colleague goes so far as to claim that the automobile has
transformed our society's freedom of movement into its exact opposite,
or compulsive movement. "The German people's compulsive use of the
automobile can only be compared to the migration of lemmings"
(Albrecht 1988, cf. Krumm 1989). The idea will seem absurd to some,
but there is something to it nevertheless. For many the "joy of driving"
(cf. (9) supra) has reached a saturation point and turned into something
else: the "disgust of driving". As we have seen above, "pleasure driving"
is a moribund concept (Dix et al. 1983). The endless traffic jams during
rush hours is the place where most of us take spontaneously to the idea.
Dreams about escaping or deserting our daily lemming migration are
engendered.
There are nonetheless some positive things to say about the traffic jam.
Heavy traffic provides certain, minimal, almost negative, but still liberties:
(14) The Commuter Driver is not Under Anyone's Supervision
Here he is free from the authority of a superviser or boss. A miner I once
saw on the job expressed it in this way: "I am totally free inside this
mountain". True enough, he was quite alone with his lamp and his
jackhammer in that underground passage, with no one to watch over
him. For the driver too, the job has become automatic and routine, but
there is no superior or foreman to bother him - at most a traffic
policeman once in a great while. These simple facts do paint rather a
sombre picture; more so for the workplaces, however, less for the
motorists: Two British sociologists' survey 15 years ago found that 85%
of the workers questioned used less of their resources and skills on the
job than driving to work (Mann & Blackburn 1979).
(15) The Traffic Jam is More Egalitarian the Slower it Moves
If traffic is at a standstill, everyone stops, no matter whether Porsche,
Beetle, Rolls or Mini. For the moment there's no discrimination or
hierarchy with regards to the main objective: to get moving, get out of
there. Everyone does in the end, but at the same pace. There are no
effective loopholes, V.I.P. lanes or the like.
(16)
The Traffic Jam Disperses the Responsibility - The
Participants Are Not to Blame
Opinions differ as to where the real responsibility lies. Government
planners, manufacturers, irresponsible retail buyers who cannot or
should not be able to afford a car, are among the common culprits - none
of them easy to spot on the spot: right there in the traffic jam. Had they
been, they might well be in big trouble. Drivers occationally get
aggressive when they feel they're being unjustly detained; tear down
road barriers, go for traffic cameras armed with angle grinders; curse
demonstrators and have even been known to run them down. For
example, in my Oslo city district a minor throughfare barrier set up in
early September was cut down with a chain saw one dark Mid-October
night, barrier and hooligans never to be seen again - and what's more,
with no new barrier set up and no real police investigation.
But left to themselves in a traffic jam the drivers most often keep calm.
With a curse for the planners and each other, we turn up the radio or put
on a cassette, and wait it out, annoyed but patiently.
(17) The Traffic Jam, the Automobile Itself, Makes Us Passive
Again, the space-ineffectivity of automobile design becomes manifest.
The body of the car will impede so many things. A spontaneous
demonstration of angry drivers is unfeasible. Planned demonstrations do
occur but even that is more difficult, especially if one considers the
extremes: No boulevard or street is wide enough so that a new Bastille
or Winter Palace could be stormed by armed masses driving their private
cars. In that sense the automobile has succeeded where Haussmann
failed23. Besides, columns of automobiles are less mobile, less easily
turned24 - and not least, more easy targets than people on foot.
23 His Parisian boulevards were built partly in order to prevent a repetitions of the
barricade battles of 1848. Their failure in this respect was proven both in 1871 and in
1944. In 1968 the abundance of parked cars filled an unforeseen role as barricades, it's
true, but they were utilized by masses on foot - not driving.
24 By elementary physics, the higher the momentum the slower and wider the turns;
zigzaging being rendered impossible. This goes for single cars, or course but even more
so for heavy traffic, where neighbours' momentum make for even less mobility changes.
Some say - even Adorno (1951/87:43) has touched upon it - that the
automobile is, in a way, a "crimogenic factor or zone" (cf. also Leonard
& Weber 1970, and once more Krumm 1989:12); that it is almost an
invitation to carelessness, to endangering others, to escape control and
responsibility, etc. - in use or in sales. Yet here is an important reverse
argument: there is simply not much room for aberrations as long as
you're sitting behind the wheel, whether you're speeding or in rush hour
traffic: There's nothing there to steal or burgle, noone to mug, con, or
rape etc. - and besides, both hands and feet are busy driving much of the
time, the rest of your body in a rather constrained position. So, while
driving drivers are clean25 - except of course for possibly running into
each other or pedestrians.
The perennial car chases of crime films are thus extremely misleading nothing much more than half-disguised car advertisements26. In reality,
the automobile makes us more passive, hence is likely to hinder more
crime than it creates.
*
Now on to rush hour traffic's inequalities and inconveniences; its ranks
and pranks if you please:
(18) (Counter Movement to 17) The Automobile and Rush Hour
Traffic Hinder a Traditional Form of Crime Control
Getting out of the driver's seat requires quite a lot of time for the general
law-abiding citizens as well. Because to-day's "Men in the Prime of
25 Drivers, yes but not necessarily bystanders: After improved alarms made parked cars
more of a risk misdoers go for it on the roads instead: While driving in Dublin I was told
not to speak to strangers at the traffic lights; you may end by losing your bag, wallet, or
even your car, at gun-point.
26 Colleague Hroar Klempe brought my attention to the fact that Derrick - a locally
popular German TV series "murder squad leader" - always drives a BMW, his villains
almost always a Mercedes, the victim a "neutral" make such as an Opel etc. Required
brand consciousness lacking, a systemeatic check on other similar series must be left to
future research.
Life" almost without exception drive a car regardless of their destination,
this group has more or less disappeared from the contemporary street
scene. Increasingly, we've left the city sidewalks and squares to the non
or less frequent drivers: women, the elderly and youth - and such odd or
shady characters who occationally threaten, or seem to threaten, them.
"Cries for help" on the street tacitly presuppose the presence of enough
men, strong and courageous men - for this is a role where men are
expected, without criticism, automatically, to be Men in the oldfashioned sense of the word - right there on the street, in close
proximity, ready and willing to interfere. To-day, this is no longer or at
least not often the case. Not even appointing security "night hawks"
around the clock can make up for this damage resulting from the use of
automobile The weeding out of able-bodied men from city streets27:
Their anonymous presence, in sufficient numbers, used to act as a
deterrent.
(19) The Male Has Become an Automobile
Exaggerating only a little bit, we could even talk about the Automobile
as the Modern Male Gender Role, or at least as a materialization,
mediation, or embodyment of that role. The Male is gone from the
streets; he's become a car. That smooth, firm, tough, beautiful and wellproportioned exterior which lack of
exercise (due to his driving etc.) has taken from his physical body, the
car, an extension of himself, ostensibly returns to him. The automobile forerunner of organ transplants28 !
At home, the automobile and the garage are "Dad's Last Stronghold";
his sentry-box or work-shed. The automobile is, yes, perhaps the only
important activity over which he retains hegemony at home - or more
precisely, on the way in or out of the home. Outdoors, the automobile is
his unassailable shell or façade; unaffected by all subtler senses or
feelings - something feminists have been constantly telling us. Small
27 This point not my personal observation; it's borrowed from the work of colleagues
Randi Hjorthol, and Nils Vibe (1989), maker and mediatior respectively; not much
publicized as yet but cf. Hjorthol et al. 1990.
28 Cf. Jean Baudrillard (Libération 15.7.1993).
wonder that well-educated, higher-income males seem to have taken an
interest in cooking and the culinary arts: We need new spheres of
influence if we are not to become totally superfluous in the home. The
Male - a threatened half-species ? Invisible at the workplace (cf.
footnote 11 supra), useless at home (cf. Rosengren 1991).
(20) Rush Hour Traffic, Traffic Itself, Provides Service Only When
it Stops
It may well be that people communicate just as little on a bus or tram
during rush hours as in a car traffic jam. Yet they could if they had
reason to. One day perhaps there will be tram or train stewardesses to
welcome us on board, serve coffee, snacks or cold dishes. Why not?
Many tram, tube or rail trips take just as long as airplane rides. Or we
might see entertainment on public transportation vehicles: a choice of
video, television stations, music, the railroad's Horn Quartet, or why not
live soloists from the Symphony ? Why only spontaneous, free-lance,
rock artists with guitars ? All of this is possible with public
transportation; impossible in a traffic jam - and of course, the occational
outright beggars, joking or slightly menacing as the case may be.
There's a more general point hiding behind here: Any regular, sceduled
traffic will genereate "events" (Barker 1968, cf. Espe 1977), groups
small or large assembling, waiting or watching at stops or terminals.
This is - in part - because all arrivals and departures are regular, hence
predictable in a way that private automobiles' coming and going is not;
in fact, that's probably a substantial part of their attraction - the
impression of "not being bound" by scedules, part of the day.
(21) The Density of Cars Effects "Sneak Privatization"
Eventually, as hundreds of thousands of cars roll down the highways
across the country, a huge demand will arise for the things that the
automobile cannot provide while it is moving. The concept of "sneak
socialization" had a certain amount of influence in political circles at one
time. But this is the opposite process unfolding. An example:
For a period of my life I chanced to pass Dombaas Train Station many
times a year during my travels. Dombaas, the old highway and railway
junction29, was quite an experience even during the early 60's. "Your
next station is Dombaas - 15-minute stop with restaurant!", shouted the
conductor as we pulled in. A crowding and pushing ensued; a mingling
of travelers in a hurry and locals fond of crowd-watching. Dombaas
famous for its stews, and sour cream porridge. The NSB (Norwegian
State Railroads) station was the local town's undisputed center of life.
By the mid-70ies some ten or twelve years later I passed the town for the
first time in my own car and decided to stop for old time's sake. It was
totally changed - beyond recognision. A new, privately owned, Highway
Rest Stop was built along the main road. At least ten times the size of the
old NSB station, it included not only a cafeteria, toilets, a rest room and
gasoline station, but also a hotel and a number of stores - a small
shopping center, if not a mall in itself. Everything for the discerning
traveler ! One automatically starts looking for the duty-free shop it so
resembled an airport. It was a place bustling with life; old and young,
singles, parents and children all stop there to fill and empty all kinds of
tanks, and more, before carrying on the journey in our crowded, and
closed-in but oh so mobile cages.
The old NSB station was not easily found, and a melancholy sight when
I did - deserted and empty, but otherwise unchanged, like a museum
almost - forgotten just like that. Modern trains have got business of their
own: restaurant cars, bar corners, or beverages and snacks on wheels air-style once again. They barely have time to stop at all. The old
Dombaas Junction has lost its charm.
To my knowledge there are no official statistics on Norwegian private
Highway Rest Stations, not even their number. My guess, however,
would be that there are more of them than NSB stations; their annual
turnover probably substantially above all NSB stations taken together.
And all of this without a word about "sneak privatization". All because
29 Situated inland in North-Central Norway, not too far from Olympic Games-famed
Lillehammer, Dombaas has remained a modest agglomeration; changed but not much
expanding.
our physiology forces all cars (but not trains) to stop about every four
hours. Buses have begun adapting the train model, with built-in toilets
(when they function and are kept clean), simple cold snacks served on
trays (forever air style), some even with bar and newspaper services.
The automobile would have a problem trying to keep up in this realm.
Just try having two quick pints of beer before a forty-minute ride home
during rush hour. For keeping it legal you'd have to sit along with a
friend, for a change, instead of driving your own car but you'd probably
soon agree that the urgency of need is not what hampers the supply of
in-car facilities. Occationally even your cups of morning coffee or tea is
enough, if the traffic is tied up longer than expected30.
Some other ways in which the automobile promotes privatization are
less visible but more extensive, several of which cited supra. Suffice to
mention further that Foucault's (1965) famous idea of the "great
confinement" originally affected only 5000 persons, to-day only some
two per thousand of total population in asylums at any given time. In
comparison up to ninety percent, that is, hundreds of millions of the
world's popululation, are today sitting confined and encapsulated inside
their automobile's shell every day - not around-the-clock, it's true but at
least for hours every day; serving short time then but much more
cramped the while than any prison cell.
And it is not true that nothing is lost in the process. The "promenade"
has disappeared, just as the "stroll", and even "taking a walk around the
block". Most of this is replaced by sundry short journeys - to and from
parking lots. Echoing Foucault "l'auto - c'est la sequetration plus grande
encore": an even greater confinement; far more comprehensive even if
strictly part-time. Lost as well are the flâneurs, of Baudelaire, Simmel
and Benjamin fame, the "Playboy" in his cabriolet being a most banal
substitute - "far from the madding crowd" and a pelvic-made
philosophy, if that.
30 Take courage: recent news from distant Singapoore reports that mobile fluid and solid
toilets for in-car use are a regular feature; an absorbing, perfumed jelly and do. closed
container; indispensable but all the more remarkable for a city with a reputation for strict
regulations of its car use.
(22) You Cannot Control a Car Queue
It can be surveilled from a helicopter, absolutely, like the Easter exodus
here in Norway is, and there are speed control stations, both manned and
automated. Yet such control measures draw minimal samples: The risk
of being caught for speeding or for reckless driving etc. is ridiculously
small. Road Situations are always fleeting; they change too quickly.
Reporting by private motorists could be of help but there is a problem
with eye-witnesses: it comes down to one driver's word against
another's. So in this sense the traffic jam almost invites the unchecked
reckless driver to do more of the same: "a faster car for safer bypasses".
This would imply that those who can afford it can, as it were, buy
themselves a better place in the queue.
And this carries the the further implication that the "law of demand and
supply" reigns quite freely in the traffic jam. Queues in the general case
were intended to countervail brute market forces. Offering to pay in
order to get a better place in an ordinary queue, on foot, is almost
unheard of. True, the wealthy have ways of getting around the problem by sending a messenger or substitute for example.
I'm hesitant to mention this for fear that it might contribute to creating
the practice: offering to pay for a place ahead in a bank, post-office, or
supermarket queue is still, I think, strictly "not done". A market for
queue positions ! Becker and Friedman would be delighted.
But in the traffic jams that is done, not alltogether obviously perhaps but
quite legally, for those who can afford more expensive, faster cars; the
practitioners of accellerating "from zero to 60 m.p.h. in no time at all".
*
So much for the automobile in rush hour traffic. Now on to other, more
general subjects:
(23) The Automobile, Creator of the Middle Class
Similar rush hour traffic experiences are likely to influence our
understanding of equality and discrimination, of Klasse für sich, in
present society. For some, it's "at any rate I can surpass my neighbours
on the road", whereas for others it's rather "I'll never be able to afford
more than another old used car". But the situations experienced are, as
previously noted, transient and elusive. In addition, from any
participant's view it's private, enclosed, and secluded. So the connection
between the automobile and class difference is manifested rather on
another level. For example, a North American colleague writes that the
first generation of cars was created for the middle class - the Model-T
Ford (or usually something more expensive) for the local doctor or
medical officer, for instance (Flink 1975:28).
Now today, the opposite is probably closer to the truth, for more recent
generations of automobiles: It's the automobile which has created a
middle class, not vice versa. Or, more precisely, the class created itself the self-made class - by becoming drivers, and owners of private
automobiles. However incomplete or defective the product, this
subjective joy - or even pride or love (Sachs 1984) - of ownership has
been very great nonetheless. That's only natural, for our society is not
exactly teeming with easily acquired conspicuous symbols of success.
The pleasure and satisfaction of owning a car - "my car" - is directly
connected to the fact that for the previous generation car-ownership was
a luxury reserved only for the very rich. For what is a man - or a modern
woman - without success31, or the symbols thereof ?
This will naturally change with the coming generation - raised in a
society where the private car is taken for granted and where (almost)
everyone has one. The fact of owning - or even loving - a car will carry
less significance for one's self-image and class identity then. So perhaps,
ownership of an exclusive car will be required; even possibly the
opposite, that far-out, pariah, strange and original state of "being without
a car" - not "grounded" but "side-walked" ?
31 Inspired, however remote the topics, by Thomas Kuhn (1962)'s "there's no such thing
as scientific regress".
But on second thought possibly not; perhaps the opposite will occur. For
frequently, when substantial differences disappear or fade, then the
remaining, smaller differences become all the more important. "The
subtle distinctions" (Bourdieu 1984) take over. If so, the car will read
class for coming generations as well. They will continue to value, for
example, the frequency of their turning in of cars; its sale price, make,
and model; its exterior equipment, whether an X or a GT, with or
without sun roof, etc., etc. A myriad of alternatives and extra equipment
are deliberately produced even today (Hubak Karlsen 1992). All of them
are mass-produced, and almost all are in some minor way a little bit
different from the neighbor's car. Almost everybody wish to have a car
with some little distinguishing characteristic; a real or imagined
advantage to gloat over in private. For the large majority, however, it
would appear as though they're choosing a life-style. But in a larger
context the ruthless ranking behind this is evident: Our choices are based
on our income/wealth and on our education/"culture". So in the end,
each social stratum finds its typical cars, and vice versa.
Thinking of the automobile as a class generator may seem strange to
some, but again it is based on our "political things" (p. 7 supra). There
is, however, not at all easy to envisage a stable and established middle
class society without mass private car use. The automobile is a crucial
thing for distinguishing - with accuratacy and discretion - between
people, status and class. In other words it's constitutive of contemporary
class or status. Or to put it more bluntly, it contributes perhaps more than
anything else in transforming classes into social strata, reducing
tensions and boundaries - softening them, spreading them and refining
them.
Still it does not remove the boundaries, granted that subtle details have
greater significance than before. The number of wage earners is greater
than ever - about 90% of the gainfully employed - while the owners, our
employers, are wealthier than ever before. We - and they - need
modified boundaries if the safe order of things is to be maintained;
something else to think about. Our cars come handy.
(24) GMC: General Motors Corporation = Generalized Middle
Class
If one were to suggest a single Creator of today's middle class, mass
motoring society, then perhaps Alfred P. Sloan - legendary head of
General Motors - is the best choice. Ford invented mass comsumption of
near identical products while Sloan for his part, created the model or
product spectrum or range. The so-called "regulation school" of
economics32, as well as post-modernists of various types have written
lots about a soi-disant "post-Fordism" of recent years: The consumer is
no longer strictly a mass-consumer. Instead of choosing a point on the
demand curve and then supplying the exactly corresponding quantity,
today's manufacturers will try to cover a broader segment of the curve.
They produce different models, types, with "special characteristics";
something for every taste and in every price range.
Sloan the stratifier is a prime example - perhaps the greatest - at least in
scale. It began during the 20ies but had a real breakthrough some 30 to
40 years later. The idea of VALS (acronym for "Values And LifeStyles", cf. e.g. Myers 1984) was coined: that is, by targetting
production and sales to a number of different life style categories. Thus
for example the "environmental car" is presently not only a dream;
varieties exist but only for 5-10 % of the market: "socially conscious"
consumers who are willing and able to foot tall personal bills, allegedly
for the sake of the environment.
It is important to assess what is more generally tenable in the concept of
"post-Fordism". Based on the Sloan - not the Ford or VW - model, the
automobile industry has set the trend for production and sales tactics
upon which many other industries base their sales efforts. Take the
field of IT (information technology or data processing) for instance. The
first computers were heavy, huge steamboats, or locomotives; far too
expensive for the private user33. In the 90ies there are almost no "main
frames" any longer. Even large companies buy the smaller, compact,
32 Though not himself a "regulationist", Harvey (1989) gives a fair overview.
33 Colleague Jarle Brosveet (1992) in Trondheim speaks of "the sale of inaffordable
technology", summarizing the earliest IBM marketing strategy in Norway some 30 years
back.
"networked" machines now. At the same time the myriad "makes and
models" of small and medium sized Personal Computers, differing in
fuctional capacity, size and exterior are almost on a par with the
automobile. Even the sales pitches are similar: Take "Extra computer
power for when you need it!" and "A faster car for safer overtaking !",
for example - it does give a familiar ring. Even more directly for other
products: Recently a salesman came to my door offering me "the Rolls
Royce of vacuum cleaners" - which I bought.
Sloan or his ideas evidently did create a school, and so far the supporters
of "post-Fordism" are right. To what extent this school is an genuine
innovation is less evident, however, and likewise whether the "classes"
in it really are so very different. For when it comes to basic types the
commodities are still few34 and the many variations little more than a
stack of superficial stereotypes. It is still up to the buyer to accept or
reject the saleman's attempt to appeal to our "good taste", his assessment
of our VALS rating. In short, "post-Fordism" has perhaps been nothing
more than good old "Sloanism" - the broad "soft sell" alongside
consumers' stratification - the whole time. Post-modernism may not be
quite so young or so kaleidescopic as it purports to be.
(25) Car Sales' Tactics: A Prototype For of Other Products
The automobile industry has been a pioneer in the field of selling an
ideology, a life-style, status. Another important sales' strategy is frequent
model changes. In this respect, the fashion industry was the real pioneer
("fashion = mother's car"), well assisted by the seasonal changes, and the
cyclical nature of one's clothing needs. "This year's, this season's, latest
fashion !" originates here, but it reached near general mass proportions
for the automobile not much later than for the clothes industry. And
others imitate them: the photo industry, for instance: There are
photographic cameras now - redesigned each year - for all types of
seasonal, weather, and driving conditions - without much real need for
them, but they're sold, and, in the process, grow old: A new model's
34 If "the male has become an automobile" (no. (19) supra), then what has become of the
woman - a perfume bottle perhaps ? a bra ? or a skin nourishing cream ? or a plain
detergent ?
entrée makes the last one passé. Standing out is the EDB or IT trades,
offering for example a "Windows" free with your PC, which then proves
nearly useless unless you acquire, say, "Word" at a quarter the cost of
the entire PC: Which here is "main thing" and which "accessory", chattel
? Nothing but sales, sales - a soft compulsion masked as "free choice".
Back now to cars: Were I to predict the future, my most likely bet would
be on a narrower range of anonymous, run-of-the-mill products - more
so for "established" commodities. "Old" products of civilization tend to
become routine; they hide away, though still playing an important but
unassuming role. Take plumbing and sanitation for instance; their
products do not at all brag or remain conspicuous the way automobiles
do. To be sure, producers of other products have also tried but not
always succeeded in following the example of the automobile industry.
Refrigerators and stoves are for instance so anonymous in themselves
that different models and price ranges don't seem to make much impact
on consumers, despite efforts to imitate the car - the "kitchen model" has
been with us for years, changing much less frequently and generally,
though. Not all small details and "fine distinctions" make such a
difference. So despite exceptions and counter-forces, in general, as new
products become routinised or taken for granted, they tend to stop
bragging, too: so wheeled fridges, then, maybe.
King Car's greatest problem thus seen is simply finding an heir. If I am
right in suspecting that future cars will become more anonymous - our
wheeled fridges - what new visual clues will preserve or redo the Middle
Class Cosmology ?
We must acknowledge that there is yet no single product as big, as
expensive, subjectively desireable, produktentwicklungsfähig etc., to
take its place. If so, we will in all probability become dependent on an
even more fuzzy array of "fine distinctions" in order to keep track of one
another - among them, perhaps, newer, more anonymous cars. Social
stratification broadens - for most of us - no doubt retaining hierarchy
but, adding to it, myriads of horizontal divisions, "equivalent but
different".
And who knows, perhaps this is just as happy an outcome as any: a
world where the distinctions become so numerous in the end that it
will be impossible to keep it in any single surveyable order ? A
kaleidescopic world of constantly shifting micro-sub-cultures, full of
changes but of fuzzy margins, hence nothing but mild, soft transitions.
In that case the post-modernists would be right on one major issue
after all.
V
The Automobile and Theory
We have complained about the automobile being a neglected subject in
empirical social research and have tried to compensate for it through
extensive reading, reflecting, personal experiments and observations.
One reason why the embodyment of such enormous change has been
almost totally neglected is that it does not have an obvious place in the
traditional division of sociology into institutions: economy, family,
politics, religion, education, law and defense, media, art, sports, leisure,
etc., each with its related sub-field or hyphen sociology. The
automobile's place, if at all, has been confined to politics, planning,
engineering, and a little-known hyphen called "transportation sociology"
(cf. Yago 1983), focusing on roads and rails rather than on the
automobile, and on decisions regarding the automobile rather than on
our extensive use of it, how it has affected our daily routines within no
matter which institution.
Neglected in social research then. Yet the automobile has been even
more neglected in the theoretical field. Older and more recent
sociological theories both tend to overlook this thing-system or useprovince (p. 7 supra) almost totally. Limitations of space prohibit our
making substantial amends for that in this essay. The text so far does
include traces of theory, to be sure but for now we will have to be
satisfied with just a few comments which might inspire future studies.
For "mass motoring" remains a challenge and a paradox in relation to
several well-known theories:
l) It may seem to weaken Marx' theory about impoverishment, absolute
or relative. 2) It is a vehicle of increased social density: the frequency
and methods of contact or communication, nonetheless examplifying
mainly likeness and thus mechanical and not organic solidarity
(Durkheim 1964). 3) As an authority type, it is neither traditional, legal
or charismatic, hence like "the city", an uncomfortable, non-legitimate
form if set in Weber's analysis (1972). 4) As a "teeming machine" it
contributes exuberantly to Parson's integrative sub-system, still not much
influenced by the other three. 5) It "colonializes the life-world"
(Habermas 1981) like nothing else, nevertheless displaying clear antisystemic qualities: a strikingly in-effective use of space and labor, hence
irrational and not utilitarian. 6) Finally, if we ask along with Richard
Sennett (1974): Who felled Public Man ?, then Sennett's suggestions
Freud and Tonnies would appear to carry less of the blame, and Ford and
Sloan more: They confined him, to hours of daily service in a space
much narrower than any prison cell.
A general reason for social theory's past neglect of the automobile and
its use is quite simply that much of sociological theory - notably the
action theory of Weber, Parsons, Luhman etc. - has a tacit but
nevertheless a strong anti-materialistic bias in which an artifact becomes
a "mere vehicle", a mundane means of little substance or interest: The
end doesn't justify the means, perhaps but the means alone don't justify
even a mention. The theory of action is essentially a spiritual matter; the
interaction between two individuals is basically ideal, not material. So
this strong tradition keeps general sociology aloof, above materialistic
issues, leaving such to other, "lower" fields such as ethnology,
geography, history, applied statistics, political economy, etc. Countering
this general aloofness is a task of its own, to be broached elsewhere
(Otnes 1994).
VI
Air, Sea, Rails
What about collective transportation, doesn't it have anything to offer?
Well, obviously the privatization of transportation (or generally) is not a
law of nature. During the very years when the private car captured the
masses, another form of transportation, most often privately owned, and
yet essentially collective, grew: International aviation. It has been a
roaring success and not only literally. Collective airborne travel has seen
increasing numbers of passengers and a sound economy, at least until
very recent years.
It is worth remembering that the airlines' quality in-flight service has a
specific background: to distract and reassure frightened passengers.
Humans have had thousands of years to adapt to the perils of sea travel;
aviation's few decades is nothing in comparison. We are frightened and
feel closed-in in an airplane, not without some very good reasons. Hence
the service in order to ward off something that would be "bad for
business" were it given free reign. That, for example is why air
passengers are almost just as isolated as driver during rush hour, why
there are no compartments on airplanes: We're seated, collectively
but in crammed rows with no seat ever facing another - quite simply so
as to avoid that one person's anxiety is fed by another's. Add drinks and
meals for homeyness, and our tensions loosen - for most of us; air scare
courses for the rest.
Contrasting with air, collective ground, notably rail, and even more so
collective sea travel, have been in a state of near-resignation these last
decades. An attitude of "we were the future once; but that was before,
now we are a thing of the past" has been widespread. For a long time it
was taken for granted that road transport was the epitome of
development and progress; something with which sea, rail, and perhaps
even bus travel could not possibly compete. At best it was a question of
just keeping apace, more often of competing defensively and acting the
good loser.
But today there are signs of change. People are uneasy about private
transportation as never before. A potential for growth in automobile
sales probably still exists; among women in Norway, for instance, or
through expansion to other countries or regions of the world.
Propagating this mechanical limb of the middle class; it vehicle or
carrier, symbol, and cult object, to Eastern Europe appears to be the
automobile industry's greatest challenge today. The Eastern European
peoples are most conveniently situated: just the right distance, just
foreign enough, just familiar enough and just naive enough. Motorized
Slav peoples is a more agreeable idea - and possibly less threatening as
well, for some - than the prospect of motorizing the masses of India and
China.
But at the same time there is for the first time a considerably increased
potential for protest against the use of the automobile. The
concentration of automobiles in the big cities of the West may have
reached a "limit to growth" (remember that term ?) where increased car
use would only be senseless and irresponsible - too big a health risk to
take and against all rationality: Car use causing problems more car use
cannot solve.
We are in other words approaching a possible major turning point in
automobile history for the first time. It is no longer unthinkable that it
could be the automobile's turn to resign its position and join the fate of
sea and rail traffic in becoming a "technology of the past, a museum
piece", something for the few, the wealthy, or the eccentric. Derelict
railroads are collectors' items; when will derelict motorways join ?
Much is dependent upon how the collective traffic sector will meet the
challenge (cf. Brög 1991). The systems are not really so different, in
basic technology or in age, yet collective traffic systems have very much
to catch up on with regards to redesigning and customizing their
products. Part of the way this is fortunate: they've had the good sense to
refrain from even trying to match every sale's trick of automobile
industry: grills, tail fins, metallic finishes, GTs and XTs, wind spoilers,
etc. But in the main they have a big job ahead of them; in progress
though:
Air Speed Takes the Train
Until now the TGV/ICE or the new super express trains have been in the
limelight. Soon they will challenge the airplane, plus air terminal bus,
plus delays, in inter-city traffic, competitive with regards to both
comfort, service, and speed. The idea that "flying means freedom" is not
at all eternally true. Aircraft are faster, yes but in the bargain you'll
cross the continent (ocean) with your knees under your chin. When the
time difference becomes minimal and the ads dare to say:
"Claustrophobic ? Take the train (boat) instead !", it could cause
somewhat of a stampede away from airlines: they're not holding a
relentless monopoly of good service. A TGV-gourmet service can offer
not only better food, but in addition space, a view and gravity: OrientExpress-mahogany will never adorn airline interiors. Even TGV dutyfree shops en-route or before departure are not unthinkable. Or the
airlines may lose this privilege - a proposition being considered
currently.
But that's not the only change definitely beginning to materialise. Oslo's
new Central Train Station for instance is designed more like an airport
than many real airports. The image35 of "air speed" is going for a train
ride, as it were. That's quite all right, if it works, faster, better. But
personally, I think it would have been better, a sign of increasing rail
self-confidence, with an architecture of nostalgia, evoking the heroic age
of rails instead: a Vienna style central station, say - Oslo's
Theatercaféen 36 moved to Jernbanetorget, or Station Square - an
attraction in itself, while retaining as high a speed of service. Be that as
it may, anyhow it's good to see that something is happening; that "the
politics of things" is in motion; that the collective transportation services
have also begun to develop in new directions.
The new express bus services represent another cultural adaption,
allowing the busy executive to work while on the road - computers,
modulator service, telephone service, maybe even secretarial help
35 Or, invoking Foucault (1969), his épistémè might be a better, if less commonly
understood, term.
36 Of some reknown for its well-kept, or remodelled art nouveau interior.
provided - or just read: from a selection of newspapers, magazines and
periodicals, perhaps a miniature library - and of course coffee and snacks
are always available. Television, video, or other entertainment have, it
appears, yet to be tried, but that will come. And all the while the bus
offers spaciousness - the luxury of being able to stand up and stretch
one's legs: "Some can stand upright at 70 mph hour."37
Our Daily Tram
Public or collective transport servicing rush hour traffic in the larger
cities are unfortunately up against greater problems of design and
innovation. They can of course simply increase and intensify services in
the same way as the airlines, railways, hydrofoil, hovercraft, and express
bus service. But the difficult basic problems remain: rush hour crowding,
long delays, infrequent calls, and, more than anything else, the travelling
time they make us suffer. Why go by bus or by tram if the crowding is
worse and the total journey time about the same as driving ? Getting rid
of one's car certainly saves money, but if the time saved by avoiding
road peak hour traffic is exchanged for nothing but delays on
overcrowded trams, busses or subways, it can hardly be called a gain
(but cf. Brög (1991) once more for misconceptions of time, by drivers,
pedestrians and planners alike).
Travelling times vary from one city district to another, even from
neighborhood to neighborhood within the same district but once again
my personal experience: During heavy rush hour traffic the trip to work
takes ten minutes less by tram than by car. During non-rush-hour traffic
it is the opposite, that is, I save ten minutes by driving. The normal or
average of Oslo today is for automobile traffic to move a little but not
very much faster - probably more of a difference for intermediate
distances, an inverted U-shaped curve. The crowding cannot be
considered less, but car-queue crowding certainly is different: more
impersonal, distant, encapsulated, more mechanical, with more car
fumes and less per-fumes - and of course, first- and second-hand
halitosis being less of a problem.
37 Paraphrasing a rail ad text of recent years: "Some doze off at 70 mph - and awake
unhurt", under a picture of an executive napping happily in his train seat.
These are hardly decisive differences. But if we envisage decreasing
rush hour automobile traffic in the future, chances are that the temptation
to go back to driving because of the time-gain will increase38 - at least
for those who have not sold or scrapped their cars.
Such considerations certainly play an important role in the choice of
travel mode. But habit has a stronger influence than logic. Contemporary
sociology talks about habitus (Bourdieu 1984): habits or types of action
patterns which are as it were absorbed into the body becoming a part of
the actor - an internalised counterpart (or counterpoint, image) to the
body of the car, a driver's "body added". A habitus can of course be
changed, even quickly in exceptional cases, but most often slowly and
sluggishly. It is like losing weight or quitting smoking; one has to learn
to view oneself as a new type of person, and then learn to embody this
new type or pattern, that is to in-corporate a new or changed habitus.
Traffic behavior patterns definitely seem to approach habitus form39.
For the habitual driver the car becomes like an extra limb, an exterior
protective epithelium. It is used on a regular basis, not in order to
anything but simply because it is there: Traffic surveys corroborate this
- when asked some 30-40% don't really know where they are going in
their cars. The vehicle or means becomes goalsin themselves, and the
familiar process of goal displacement ensues.
Now as for collective or public transport, their users certainly have a
habitus of their own, becoming incorporated in a partly similar, partly
dissimilar way: "Here's my tram now." Over time that will seem just as
homey as "my own car" - a new aspect of habitus embodied. Still
38 The correlation is far from clear-cut: a "perverse effect" known to some as the
"Downs-Thompson paradox" (Mogridge 1990:181) is operative. In classical phrasing: "...
the opening of an expressway could conceivably cause traffic congestion to become
worse instead of better" (Downs 1962, cf. our no. (1) above). The paradox, though, is
strictly for road-builders and users; for the automobile industry itself there's nothing
paradoxical, only market expansion and boosted sales. Small wonder they support new,
fast, better roads.
39 Technically speaking this is inexact. Though similar on the face of it, a habitus is very
definitely not a role, more nearly a socius or total social position. Hence "the driver" is
not a habitus in itself; it's an aspect or trait of positions which may coincide or differ in
this or in other respects.
actually making the change may hurt - a prolonged, unpleasant exposed
phase, like a hermit-crab between two shells.
A Collective Habitus
Collective transportation companies must first of all hold on to the
passengers they already have, and constantly freshen up and reinforce
the passenger habitus. There is much talk about socializing people to
automobiles (Hjorthol et al. 1990), but socializing people to collective
transportation is also a reality, typically beginning even earlier. The
primary school keeps children and young teenagers close to the local
neighborhood. Beginning with secondary school, higher education or a
first job (for those who find one), this pattern begins to change. At
around the ages 16-18 the world beyond the local neighborhood will
start to open up for the young. After the initial nerves and tension, the
experience often becomes intoxicating - and public transportation plays
a role in it. Take the tram, for instance. In the morning the youngsters
are lost among the other groups travelling to work. But in the afternoon,
when school is out, they have the tram all to themselves for a while.
They fill it with life, animated conversation (conversations between
more than just two on a tram or bus are almost non-existent otherwise)
and the smell of pen-cases, deodorant, and used gym clothes.
Here is a target group to take into account. They enjoy themselves and
don't bother anyone but the most irascible fellow passengers. Can't they
just go on that way, maybe even have their own customised service ? A
disco tram with soda machines is perhaps not a very original idea, but
with a little imagination and good design, there is no limit to what one
can do. Collective transportation systems should at least make a
conscious effort to reach this group that has not yet gotten stuck in a
routine travel habitus. If the experience is pleasant enough it will stick
and eventually become a habitus, even after one has gotten a driver's
license.
As mentioned, sociological studies of the automobile are rare. We could
say as much, or little, about public or collective transportation. There's
an abundance of suveys and statistics but very little direct observation:
For instance how is the experience of travelling collectively ? Generally
I'd suggest it has to do with the fact that Goffman's (1971) unfocused
interaction, the transitory interaction between strangers, has been the
subject of much less study. It's more easily accessible but at the same
time more difficult to pin down than its counterpart, or focused
interaction, between individuals who know each other, meeting within
durable groups or institutions. This is a professional lacuna that
continued research on collective travel (etc.) can help to fill. Until then,
the following remarks based on private observations and reflection
might provide some leads.
The Idea of Micro-Liminal Phases
Entering, or reception, is a very significant part of the total picture
(Empfang, Krumm 1989). Both psychologically and sociologically it's
an exposed and vulnerable phase of activity, a source of some anguish
not only when what you enter is unfamiliar. We're on our way from one
context to another, from being a family member to being a traveller. We
are between roles for an endless moment, exposed and vulnerable like a
hermit crab in the process of changing host shells.
Imagine entering a familiar private automobile compared to entering a
tram or a bus. The automobile is not far from the house, it gives you a
private space with a view in all directions, soft seats, perhaps not really
roomy but not crowded either, free from the strangers' knees at least, a
pleasant temperature, push-button controls with one's favorite music or
radio program. Or take flying: Why are there always one or more cabin
crew members standing just inside the entrance to the aircraft smiling
and welcoming you ? Apparently it's a total waste; they aren't really
doing anything, perhaps only making us feel a little awkward, on their
behalf or our own. Well, they're there simply because the airplane is
large, foreign, impersonal, mechanical and not without cause a little
frightening. It requires the support of a human face - on the face of it.
In some contrast consider the tram or similar forms of transportation.
First there is the impersonal character of the stop, sign or platform. Next,
a number of sub-familiar faces to greet or avoid as you become a fellow
passenger waiting alongside the others. Then the arrival of the tram
which stops and opens its doors. Again there is a total change in scene
and for a terrible moment this is a real stage, where everyone has to
"make an entrance". "The insiders" are sitting quietly like the audience
in a theatre while the new arrivals, with their active physical movements
are totally at the mercy of their attention, rarely great, it's true but
nonetheless quite freely and discreetly condoned. Then comes the fight
for a seat, something to hang on to, or at least something to lean against.
For those who do find a seat, next, a choice of reading a newspaper, a
book or just staring distractedly out the window ("I'm lost in my own
thoughts") or perhaps a conversation with an acquaintance. There is an
unwritten law against looking for more than a sec at anyone else, unless
they themselves invite the attention by their behavior, but even then it is
most seemly to overlook them or appear to.
A modern classic of anthropology, Victor Turner (1969) has proposed
the concept liminality for the vulnerable, intermediate phases of life's
great transitions (or rites de passage). In our turn we suggest the idea of
micro-liminality, as it were, for the conspicuous if minor anxieties of
passing everyday life's numerous little thresholds, symbolic or real (cf.
Otnes 1993), hence adapting, de-fetichising or demystifying Turner's
idea.
Granted then that reception/entering is an exposed and difficult phase,
one could suggest for architecture the task of creating easier transitions
from the private to the public, for instance with smaller, more varied, or
less visually exposed "scenes"; compartments, "sluices", or dividing
walls. Then the wish to see and be seen as well as the wish to see
without being seen; to make oneself noticed, or to come and go unoticed
- all quite legitimate wishes - could be more of a choice for each
passenger. Similar ideas are intentionally put to use in contemporary
architectural planning, of housing estates, for instance (cf. Ramberg
1986). Today's suburban row house porches can keep you discreetly our
of sight or position you so as to be seen by your neighbours, depending
on whether you wish to have contact or not. Why not adapt similar ideas
to public transportation ?
Another rather dramatic aspect, especially for the novice passenger or
one who travels only rarely, are the inexorably numerous brief stops.
Who hasn't asked oneself: "Is this the right stop or not ?". There are
subway maps, tram and bus schedules on the walls, and the stop names
may be called out on the loudspeaker - for those who see, hear and know
the language - neither of which is invariably the case any longer, in
London, Oslo or even in smaller towns and cities.
Bus schedules are something of a science in themselves. They are less
intelligible - mainly for the regular and initiated traveller. Tram and
subway tracks at least show where they are going. Not so with buses.
The passenger must know where the bus is headed, preferably ante fact.
But even with maps, schedules, and directions from the driver it's
virtually impossible to recognize a stop on first arrival, difficult even a
next time, expecially for the infrequent passenger. Schedules and routes
change, roads and houses are built and torn down. Always more
surprises - for everyone other than the regular passenger to feel
uncertain, lost, stupid - an outsider.
The Anguish of Quasi-Acquaintance
Once in a while you'll meet acquaintances, even make new friends on a
tram or bus. But a purely tram-based friendship is probably not so
common40. As a rule a number of other elements are necessary: a
minimum of likeness and multiplexity; typically, a likeness in age,
manner of dress, and having seen each other in other contexts. Two such
people finding themselves side-by-side for the first time may start it. But
as typically, not very often. We surround ourselves by social spheres: the
Everyday Others are typified as 1) total strangers, 2) interesting nonacquaintances, 3) half-acquaintances, and 4) those who know us well.
Both extremes are easy sailing. We don't worry about strangers 41, and
the really close ones would understand no matter what. The middle
spheres, however, can pose problems: Those we would very much like
to get to know, but don't quite dare to; and those we think we really
40 Cf. footnote 17 supra, though.
41 If they're not really strange - odd, frightening, threatening etc.
ought to converse but without the slightest wish to. We could even speak
of "the anguish of quasi-acquaintance": exciting, scary, or a nuisance, all
depending. Tucholsky's poem "Eyes in the metropolis" may cast each
passing face as "vielleicht dein Lebensgluck"42. A more usual case,
though, is the pain in the neck of having to keep up a polite and boring
conversation when one is in fact tired or distracted. And even more
often, not quite knowing who might take note, and report, if they find
you conspicuous in any way - not knowing you but knowing of you,
perhaps even unbeknownst to yourself; an image lost or out of control.
Often harmless, even flattering, annoying results do occur.
We all have our little ways of escaping it now and then. Take the
conspiraton of a tacit, mutual "I don't see you"-method, for instance,
ending with a "Oh, I didn't notice that you were here" just before one
gets off. This is part of the standard repertory for us fellow, skilled tramfarers. On other occations, just as routinely, we welcome the opportunity
to chat with a good friend, or becoming better acquainted, say with type
2) others.
Commuters who travel the same route consistently, sharing it with
others, will often find it well-nigh impossible after a few months not to
nod or in some other way acknowledge each other: "We, the 8:25
bunch". As years pass by chances are great that sooner or later a chat
will start, about the missing or delayed tram, for instance. An
acquaintance can begin this way, perhaps even a friendship. But as we've
mentioned, starting and avoiding conversations are art forms; both
difficult, both legitimate. Giving courses in these arts might be an idea;
mostly in the first in the case of Norway - we're rumoured to have
carried "don't speak to strangers"-rules to extremes.
Or once again, could it be an unfortunate effect of our driving habits ?
Certainly car-driving does totally remove sub-acquaintances - not only
as a problem, they're simply barred from both stage and in-view. After
years of driving only perhaps we lose the ability to tackle these kinds of
situations ? The skill of coping with micro-liminality is lost, or désuet.
42 "Perhaps your happiness", your lucky strike of lasting fumes. The original's title is
Augen in der Grosstadt.
Here again we see how the automobile sets us apart - the car in yet
another role: the car as a role, role-operator, or the shell of one.
We cannot abandon the subject of collective transportation as
interaction, habitus, field etc., without mentioning a quite central,
externally determined or imposed basic condition. The field is in a
certain respect incomplete; we very seldom travel for travelling's sake
on a daily basis. Basically it's more nearly undesired travel we do. You
can be as fond of your job or home as you please, the trip between the
two is at best a distraction but much more often an inconvenience, a
distaste most everyone would like to minimize or do without - if it were
possible. Unavoidably traffic circumstances are influenced by this; that
most trips to work and most shopping trips too, are really nothing more
than a form of mild, everyday compulsion we would love to minimize as
much as possible.
The possibility of attaining a totally pleasant and harmonious travel
situation is therefore remote to put it mildly. The lightly veiled
unfreedom of wage labour and a commodity economy would have to
disappear first. But then socialism in the forms it has taken until now
does not seem to intimate much by way of solution to this problem
either: Not much else than much fewer cars - not so little after all, may
be - the while.
VII
Why The Automobile ?
So far we have discussed the "political things" of travel, automobiles and
other artefacts, how they operate, what they do, acknowledged or not.
How has the automobile influenced us; in what way and to what extent ?
It is now time for some final comments about how we got here, why it
turned out as it is. How can we explain the automobile's dominant
position in the traffic and society of to-day ? And, could the explanations
suggest alternative, future ways of solving the problems of traffic and
society at large ?
The Automobile Industry Larger Than Agriculture
The automobile industry or the transportation sector has become one of
the country's largest businesses. Norway's Motor Trade Association43,
after a slight decline in the last few years, reports about 40,000
members, in import, sales, garages, gas stations etc. In addition, official
statistics show that there are 62,000 "road traffic employees" or
professional chauffeurs. The Norwegian State employs a further
minimum of 15,000 on the Highways' Authority and other, less
specialised departments as well, bringing the total to at least 117,000. In
employment and turnover, that constitutes a figure far above fishing
(16,000)44 and a slightly above than agriculture and forestry (110,000).
It is at the same level as "educational work" - those in the teaching
profession numbering 121,000 - and not far below the number employed
in nursing and health services (155,000). It is much less than total trade
(215,000) and far below Industry (423,000) but still roughly on a par
with the largest single industries (Engineering employs 108,000, for
instance, Construction 104,000, and Retail Trade 133,000).
The 117 000 figure (1990) pertains to the professionals employed in
transportation - a power factor to reckon with both economically and
with regards to its numbers and organization. In addition we must
consider their customers and clients, for the most part private car owners
and their considerable part-time work imput: 1.6 million automobiles,
2.3 million drivers license holders. It is a composite and unmanageable
group but still rather well organized, remembering the automobile
associations like KNA and NAF45. And they constitute a power factor
in themselves, if they conform to the stereotype "voting with their
43 Norges bilbransjeforbund, an association of employers selling, maintaining, renting,
using etc. cars.
44 Coastal Norway had five to ten times that number of fishermen some decades ago.
45 Norwegian acronyms for Royal Norwegian Automobile Association, and Norwegian
Automobile Union respectively; the "Royal" being oldest and repudedly most
"distinctive" in the Bourdieusian sense.
driver's license", or as producers or consumers of ideology: "the
automobile as a way of life", etc.
Drawing the line betwen collective, public and private transportation is
not always easy. Not all of our 62 000 professional or career drivers are
active in private transportation. Yet, if we combine the Norwegian
(State) Rail's 14,000 employees, with an estimated 18,000 employed by
The Norwegian Union of Transportation Companies (formerly The
Norwegian Union of Bus Owners), adjust it by 1000 for possible double
counting46 and finally add a scant 7000 taxi drivers, we arrive at 38,000.
That means that an almost exact one third of our motor trade total is
employed in collective or public, not private transport.
The passengers and other users of collective transportation are another
very considerable group, poorly or not at all organised however.
Attempts of rallying them (traffic and pedestrian action groups etc.) have
mostly been short-lived, or never attained real mass support (cf. Ant-on
1989-90).
By professional instinct a traditional political scientist would ask which
political decisions could explain the automobile's position in the total
transportation picture of present society. Our numerical estimate has
outlined a large, almost a major industry of to-day's Norway47, plus a
sketch of its composition. Closing or dismantling it entirely is
unthinkable and both reducing it or delimiting its growth will take
decades of effort and planning. Yet neither are impossible: the motor
trade has put up with, it seems easily, a 15 % reduction in personel in
just the last couple of years. And our oil industry's total inland petrol
sales has grown by a mere 1-2 %.
Now, is the motor-trade's growth, and lately recession, due to active
organized efforts ? Does the political picture include active "automobile
lobbyists" milling around the Parliament, district, or municiple
governments ? My guess would be that in the main the answer is no:
46 Our Rail runs busses too.
47 Perhaps the major industry in the Oslo or capital region, where our roughly estimated
employment and turnover figures indicate a percentage of 20 or even 25 of region totals,
second to none, that is.
Conscious, well-planned decisions are undoubtedly being made, but
non-decisions - in the form of a technology unrestrained by political
action - may be as or more decisive an influence. The words
"development" and "economic growth" or "progress" are crucial here.
The automobile, its industry and trades was for a long time - tacitly of
course, and without dispute - held to be the major driving force, and
result of, pay-off from, post-war economic growth, hence both cause,
effect, symbol and embodiment of Our Development, capital D. The
automobile did not only become body, role, and ideology, it also became
doxa: a belief so strong and self-evident that it is never explicitly stated,
or disputed (cf. Mjaatvedt 1992).
Together with non-decisions, then, "Silent Lobbying" may be another
major form of support the automobile industry enjoys. The idea, the
semi-truth, about a "Silent Majority" has been with us since Nixon - and
Baudrillard (1987). The idea of the silent, or tacit lobby is a younger
relative: not something one needs to invoke in support or as a deterrent
but precisely something that no one needs to invoke actively.
"Everyone" (or enough) silently believe that everyone (or enough) else
are pro-automobile; that they "want to have their cars in bed", or keep it
in "Dad's sentrybox" (cf. (19) and (5) supra).
There is a great and frightening but also basically unstable power in such
a belief. It is a case of seriality or expectation's expectations as
sociologists call it, strong as long as signs of doubt remain insignificant,
weak or easy to ignore. But if one finally has to face overt doubts, well,
then they can spread real fast. For when it comes right down to it, the
"system-carriers", the car's autonomous proponents believing in it on
their own, independent of all others are most often rare. The majority are
"system-passengers"48, believing in the automobile because they think
everyone else does. This kind of belief may on occation give way and
even turn around: from "sleeping with your car", to "Cars ? Not on our
street !", for instance. Or even combining both - in different contexts "love your car and hate your neighbours'", remember: the automobile as
(cf. III p. 24 supra).
48 Ther terms system-carrier and system-passenger are borrowed from Lysgaard (1962).
The AUtopia 49: Automobile = Progress
"If you take an average Norwegian's car away from him/her, you
simultaneously take away, not his/her happiness, but certainly their
success" 50. Perhaps not progress or success in its entirety, but certainly
its largest and most visible component.
That may sound a little exaggerated but think about it, think back a few
decades: Progress, growing consumerism, has become a fact for most of
us, excepting only for the last 2-3 years of recession, unemployment and
growing dole queues. Now, how do we perceive that progress; what does
it amount to in our daily experience ? Do we eat or drink much more or
better than before? Do we wear more expensive or extravagant clothes ?
Do we have more roomy homes, with more or more expensive furniture
? Do we spend much more on health, education, leisure pursuits ? And
conversely, what forms of poverty, discomfort, incoveniences have been
eliminated ? Where are the shortcomings of the times before the
Western World became prosperous ?
Whether shortcomings or progress, the main answer is that many minor
things have improved somewhat but not enormously. We have a little
more and varied food but it is also less healthy. We have more clothes,
possibly even of better quality or better adapted to needs. We have larger
homes but do we need all the extra rooms ? We take more vacations, but
each of them shorter and much more expensive, etc. Significant former
shortcomings having disappeared or nearly are poor heating, not enough
hot water, no indoor bath or separate toilet, etc. "Nice to have" as the
song goes51, but not so very costly, not even they really such a major of
postwar progress.
That leaves us with the automobile. Consumer surveys highlight travel
and transportation as the single most increasing item - from 7 % to 23
49 The term is borrowed from Fløgstad (1990), and "auto-psy" inspired by the same.
50 Paraphrasing from Ibsen's "Then Wild Duck": "If you take Average Man's basic selfdeception away from him, his happiness is lost as well".
51 Norw. kjekt å ha - "nice to have" or rather "soo practical", a fairly well-known local
song title satirizing excessive consumerism.
%52, more than a tripling, during the last 30 years. In absolute numbers
travel expenditure has increased almost 40-fold, from 800 kroner in
1957 to 38,770 in 1989 (35 359 in 1990). The next largest main item on
the list is "housing, electricity, fuel" with an increase from 14 to 23%
during the same period, partially due to a raised housing standard and in
part due to increased rents and interest rates. As for the automobile and
travel, the 30 % who do not own cars have their travel expenses down
from 23 to 21 % - a smallish decrease. In contrast, the "multi-carowners", those who have more than one car (1/5 of total households)
have a considerably larger increase in their travel expenses: they use
30% of their income on travel. Finally the "new car owners", the 47 %
who own cars less than two years old, use 28% of their income on this
item; the last three subgroup figures dating from 1983-8553.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the acquisition and operation of
private automobiles constitutes is by far the largest component of the
travel and transport increase. The expenses incurred from charter
vacations, "package trips" - another item new for the period, is a trifle in
comparison.
The in-car-nation of success
Post-war prosperity, then - "the decades of glory" as a French economist
has called them - may essentially be nothing much more than the
automobile. At least, indisputably the automobile is the single largest
and most easily identifiable growth item. That explains some of its
popularity: it is quite simply the symbol, even the embodyment, the inCAR-nation, of success itself; essential progress or evolution, as
perceived from the micro level. In addition we have the psychological
or, more accurately, the symbolic (semiological) factor: For previous
generations - during our own childhood, three or four decades ago say 52 1986-88 figures, later slightly down to 20 % (1988-90): With the boom years gone
people have had to cut some consumption items, postponing car purchases probably very
notably among them: Sales have dwindled. The level, as against the fluctuation of costs,
is probably high due to the high automobile sales prices in this country, State taxes being
a common culprit - but cf. Vennemo (1989) for a well-argued opposite position: the car
being in effect subsidised by a hefty 3.9 billion annually.
53 Detailed figures provided thanks to Stein Opdahl (1987) of the SSB (Central Statistics
Bureau).
the automobile was a rarity, a luxury reserved only for the chosen few,
the very rich. Whereas now, the dream of our childhood, once a
managers' privilege, available even to me ! Whatever disappointments
our work or lives may otherwise bring - and who, really, live adversityfree lives ? - the automobile is always a good, tangible and conspicuous
comfort.
As a somewhat distant comparison I have often noticed that in our local
supermarket many senior citizens stop and admire the smoked salmon,
and then continue on without taking any. In this era of fish farming
salmon is no longer the expensive rarity it used to. Yet, especially for the
elderly, it's a past symbol of exclusive luxury; nice knowing that "now I
can afford it too", even though one very rarely makes a purchase.
Here then is another factor possibly approaching a turning point: We, the
early cohorts of motorists, still enjoy a symbolic "former luxury" when
driving an automobile. For later cohorts, however, it's a total routine,
dull as any. Come some years driving may become more of a possible, a
choice, an "option demand", sometimes wanted, sometimes refrained
from. We might for instance prefer admiring and perhaps trying out
many different models and then "put them back again" without buying
them, safe in the knowledge that I could rent any one of them whenever
I wished54. Or I could hire a taxi or similar car with the driving paid for
- for shorter trips.
Would less Private Car Use
Necessarily Trigger Economic Crisis ?
A decade or two ago seven of the world's ten largest multi-national
corporations were automobile, gasoline, or oil producers. This situation
is not much changed today. GM, Ford, Exxon, Shell, etc. are still among
the largest - an eloquent expression of the automobile's influence on
54 The great German auto-making firms now enter the car-rental market massively, no
doubt with the partial aim of keeping rates up enough for car sales to remain competitive.
To some extent countering this is the "Rent a Wreck" movement of smaller firms, as well
as the StattAuto-type (a Munich firm name) of co-op car rentals - all great cost cutters,
for drivers disinclined to keep "their own car" just idly waiting at great expense most of
the time.
what until fairly recently was called "the Western World's" total
economy. These companies quite simply were the growth. To imagine
them totally gone, closed down, out of production from this very
moment amounts to asking for a depression worse than in 1987, 1973 or
1929. It would affect everyone, not only the Western or Middle Class
world.
But then, no-one is asking for such immediate or drastic changes. A
moderate, feasible, if not even optimistic goal these last years, is zero
growth for the automobile and fuel industries, including all related
industries (cf. p x11 supra). A planned reduction, let's say 5% per year,
is not impossible either. It would cause some negative repercussions in
the economy, but slowly and gradually enough so that compensations
could be made and a major depression avoided.
We know this for the simple reason that the industry has already
managed it during quite a few separate years and, as more of an
exception, also for a few years in a row. International automobile
production declined in 1970, 1974-75, 1979-82. The figures for 1985 to
the present are not available yet 55 but will probably show a substantial
growth followed by as or more substantial a decline. Similarly for
international oil production which declined in 1974, 1979, and 1981-82.
Detroit (or what is left of it, the metonym ?) will no doubt be affected by
GM's recent giving notice to quit to another 15,000 employees, after
even greater numbers in 1990 and 1987-88 (Bridier 1991). Problems, yes
but still the US and the World Economy will survive, even now as
European auto-makers are massively following suit. This is partially due
to the fact that Japan has taken over a larger portion of the market - until
the Japanese too have joined the noticing league. So, more portentuosly,
this is a real expression of a waning, of a global reduction which this
industry too can learn to live with. Many have had to before them.
The very last news (Kahn 1994) is competitiveness regained for US cars
as against Japan etc, - at the cost of even more thousands of jobs,
though. So Ford's "crisis medicine" of the 30ies is out of the question:
increasing wage costs to boost demand, that is, "Ford workers buy
55 Not from the same source, that is, Norwegian Official Statistics (SSB).
Fords", so happy with their new posessions as to not mind that their net
(or after car mortgage paynments) wage increase might be minor or even
negative.
The business cycles of 40 to 60-years' duration have been named after its
inventor, the Russian Kontradieff (cf. Mjøset 1984, Nordhaug 1989).
We're now, it appears, on a decline, hopefully preceeding the fourth
"long boom" since the industrial revolution. The last Kontradieff decline
was during the 1920's and 30's. He and his followers believe that every
boom period is linked to a specific heavy or general technology; take
19th century railroad technology's triggering a boom, for instance.
Without a doubt the international Automobile Industry was the main
driving force, the "locomotive", behind the boom following the 1940's.
But who would seriously believe that it could also double as the coming
half-century's locomotive ?
Who or what else could serve this function is very much open for debate.
Information Technology, Computers or the Data Processing Industry are
important, but moderate to small forces compared to the mass
automobile sales expansion of later decades. For the moment it would
seem that the "post-Fordists" are right: "flexible accumulation"; lots of
small rather than a few large new products and industries; an
industrialism that lets "a hundred technologies blossom"56. Impractical,
yes - not easily controlled or manageable but still a real possibility;
probably more of it than motorizing new (half-)continents etc.
No one wants fast, "maximum" solutions - it would imply an
unacceptable maxi-crisis for everyone. On the other hand, a robustness
to tolerate a planned and gradual reduction, following which a
stabilisation, substituting anonymous new models made by revised
technologies - these are attainable goals, if they win broad enough
support.
Will that happen ? I would like to recall your attention to the section
above on the automobile as class generator. According to this theory a
56 Car production follows the trend as well: Though similarity of makes and models is
still the most striking for the non-specialist, the possibilities for having combinations of
details "made to order" have risen to the point where, reportedly, few cars leaving today's conveyor belts are exact replicas of any other, even of the same model. Cf. Hubak
Karlsen (1992).
reduction of private forms of transportation would entail our Middle
Class societies' becoming slightly less "middle classic". It would make
the ousted - to-day's marginal automobile users among us - more visible,
less encapsulated, more present for one another: Out of the car, into the
collective, the real social world, learning to cope with its occational
liminality.
The rest, those who can afford to drive tranquilly and privately on
despite a reduction would be fewer but just as encapsulated and invisible
as now. Such a change would suit the neo-conservative, neo-liberal
ideology which prospered during the 1980's, a fundamental idea being
precisely that the pursuit of equality had gone too far: "Society must
encourage the initiatives of the strong, even if the weak cannot keep up",
"we have to allow for new distinctions between people"57. A less equal
society - a narrower, more exclusive and hence "attractive", private
transportation practice would be a perfect, if partial solution. Having to
admit this may be saddening but still possibly today's most effective
argument for a gradual reduction in private car use: it suits the neoliberal turn of the eighties.
Then on further reflection, this may be the very reason why neoliberalism will not prevail, not even in a world of nothing but adherents:
The mass market is indispensable, for the time being.
VIII
We began by asking if we could support ourselves by driving to one
another. As a type this question is rather dated, relevant in the days when
one farmer's work could feed five or ten people. To-day one
agriculturalist's efforts will provide a hundred or several. As long as our
material needs' suppliers are satisfied with their work and remuneration
there's no longer much reason to moralise over what the other ninetynine
do: Cut or split hairs, paint, fish, entertain, or read for, each other, or
whatever.
57 In an even more arrogant phrasing "equality is society's name for compelling the
strong and gifted not to enjoy their advantage".
But sticking to the original question after all: Possible or not the
Western World has been doing just that - driving to one another - for the
past 30-40 years. Yet today there are signs of change. The question must
be formulated differently: it is no longer a question of whether we can
support ourselves by driving to each other, but whether or not we can
support the traffic jams on our way to and fro. Can we ? Do we wish to
? Or do we wish to develop new and better collective transportation
alternatives ?
In France they have a saying, on ne vous transporte pas, on vous
roule: "They're not giving you transportation, they're giving you the
roll" (Livre noir c. 1970). It is up to each one of us to contribute towards
ensuring that this can be avoided - hopefully soon. I have spoken my
mind - for a while.
*
Still, by the way, there is an answer to our initial question: No, we can’t;
only the rough 17-25 % of us employed in the motortrades can, do, and
even do very well, some of them. As for the rest of us, we go places –
wanted or not – more than before, hoping tghat motortrade spinoff may
benefitg even us, to make up for at least some of its obvious nuisance:
Noise, pollution, damage, isolation – a society of local part-time
nomads, of absent or at least encapsulated Others. Further, damaged or
weakened Others will imply a corresponding lack or weakening of
‘We’s’ as well, i.e. groups who answer to and act on our question,
groups readily able to remedy the situation – in the short run.
But then (remedying Keynes) in the short run, real duration is not
relevant by definition. In the real world there is no such thing as a short
run.
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