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7/2/2025, 9:28:57 AM
>>509285610
American culture fundamentally leans towards individual/small group freedom and not collectivist organization and social engineering. The train is the symbol of the nanny government controlling when and where you may travel, the automobile is the symbol of the individual who doesn't need the government's permission (*as much) to go where and when he wants.
>The car completely transformed cities. It made all the cities built around the automobile. But then it had this tremendous political and economic significance too. Part of the reason is you think, "A car is a way to get from point A to point B", but no, it's not a machine; it's also the embodiment of an idea. A collectivist society would never have invented the car. Because the car is predicated on the idea that you can OWN a conveyance, that would get you and ONLY YOU from somewhere to somewhere else, without ever asking anybody for any permission.
>So the funny thing is, when you build something like that, those presuppositions are built into it. And then when you export that, say to Soviet Russia, they can't just take the car, and leave the political implications behind. The car, the mere fact that you step into one and DRIVE it, is an indication that you're accepting the political ideological presuppositions that are part of the fact that that thing even exists.
American culture fundamentally leans towards individual/small group freedom and not collectivist organization and social engineering. The train is the symbol of the nanny government controlling when and where you may travel, the automobile is the symbol of the individual who doesn't need the government's permission (*as much) to go where and when he wants.
>The car completely transformed cities. It made all the cities built around the automobile. But then it had this tremendous political and economic significance too. Part of the reason is you think, "A car is a way to get from point A to point B", but no, it's not a machine; it's also the embodiment of an idea. A collectivist society would never have invented the car. Because the car is predicated on the idea that you can OWN a conveyance, that would get you and ONLY YOU from somewhere to somewhere else, without ever asking anybody for any permission.
>So the funny thing is, when you build something like that, those presuppositions are built into it. And then when you export that, say to Soviet Russia, they can't just take the car, and leave the political implications behind. The car, the mere fact that you step into one and DRIVE it, is an indication that you're accepting the political ideological presuppositions that are part of the fact that that thing even exists.
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