I Understand
I passed another H2 yesterday. A yellow one. And the tailgate had four different Support Our Troops magnets stuck to it. I don’t undervalue the sentiment. I’m thankful that even while support for the war is low (and it’s low among service members as well) our country seems to be rallying around the men and women on the ground in the desert. But the Hummer… it really bothers me.
I’ve never been much of a driver. I lived in Chicago for eight years and was happy to walk, take cabs and the El, and bike. Cars don’t get me excited. In high school I couldn’t have cared less what type of car a guy picked me up in. And in Chicago I never knew anyone who drove (except one brief boyfriend who drove a Chevy Tahoe: I can admit it was a comfy ride). But some people love to drive and I kind of get that. I get it because I love my bike. It’s a Bianchi: this super awesome Italian road bike. The color is a pale blue-green called Celeste; it’s the official color of the Italian royal family. How cool is that? My point is that I understand you can be a little in love with your car. And if that car happens to be a Hummer, well, I’m not in the business of telling people who or what to love. Because quite frankly I can’t stick up for the guy who drank Schlitz out of a can, or the one who yelled at me to masturbate with a showerhead while he watched fully clothed, or the guy who had such a massive porn collection that even his alcoholic, stoner, guy friends were worried for me. I can’t stick up for them, but I loved them. So, I’m not going to criticize someone who falls in love with a car I don’t approve of.
I also know that if that if the driver of that yellow H2 traded it in for a diesel Jetta and ran it on nothing but recycled cooking oil (you can do that, it’s a thing) that the world would be the same. Or at least it would be the same for all of the troops he so publicly supports. Our demand for fossil fuels is not the fault of one guy who bought a yellow truck.
The real problem isn’t the Hummer driver. It’s that capitalism, which drives our country, has a breaking point where it no longer acts in the interest of the public. Restaurants in California are a good example. Because of state legislation there is no smoking in any restaurant. The logical argument is that government should have no hand in this decision. Instead, the market should take care of everything: if there is truly a demand for no-smoking establishments people will choose them, spend their dollars, other establishments will close, and the appropriate equilibrium will exist. But it’s not that simple. California has decided that it is not in the interest of the state to subject service employees to a known carcinogen night after night. And market forces alone won't make that happen. If I smoke, or if my friends do, this might bother me or it might not. But it doesn’t matter if I agree with the legislation: when I am in California my meals will be smoke-free. Acting on its best judgement government has made a decision for me.
Capitalism, by its very definition, promotes individuality. We strive, if not to keep ahead, then at least to keep up with the Joneses. And we also fall in love with things like plasma TVs, Italian road bikes, and Hummers. Some of our loves and wants are benign while others are not. When we act as individuals, as capitalism prompts us to do for the benefit of our economy, we often work against the group. One Hummer doesn’t matter, but several fleets of them do. And it’s not just Hummers. It’s all the status-getting gas-guzzlers that people buy without any need for function. An F250 to haul a trailer full of horses: that makes sense. A Chevy Suburban to run errands in a traffic-choked city like LA where you can see the smog five feet in front of you: that’s a little crazy.
I don’t know what the solution is. I can't, in good faith, argue that the government should make decisions about what products are available to me. The only thing I can come up with is that people must act as responsible adults. Decisions need to be made with a nod to the group. The fact of the matter is that I’d love to own a manual diesel Jetta that gets 50+ miles per gallon, but I drive a Honda CRV. I can’t afford a new car right now, so that isn’t going to change any time soon. But when I do, I feel confident, that I will make the best decision that my finances allow. I believe that it’s important to vote, and so I do it even though I know my vote won’t make a difference. But I also talk about voting, help people at work register, and encourage them to go to the polls no matter how they vote. I do this because I believe much more strongly in democracy than I do in any one candidate. If everyone votes and my guy looses, so be it. Purchases need to be thought of the same way. Every dollar is a vote.
Having said that, I once loved a guy who peed in a Nalgene bottle during a road trip instead of pulling off on the shoulder and aiming for a bush. He drove a Chevy Tahoe. Sometimes, we all forget what’s important.
I’ve never been much of a driver. I lived in Chicago for eight years and was happy to walk, take cabs and the El, and bike. Cars don’t get me excited. In high school I couldn’t have cared less what type of car a guy picked me up in. And in Chicago I never knew anyone who drove (except one brief boyfriend who drove a Chevy Tahoe: I can admit it was a comfy ride). But some people love to drive and I kind of get that. I get it because I love my bike. It’s a Bianchi: this super awesome Italian road bike. The color is a pale blue-green called Celeste; it’s the official color of the Italian royal family. How cool is that? My point is that I understand you can be a little in love with your car. And if that car happens to be a Hummer, well, I’m not in the business of telling people who or what to love. Because quite frankly I can’t stick up for the guy who drank Schlitz out of a can, or the one who yelled at me to masturbate with a showerhead while he watched fully clothed, or the guy who had such a massive porn collection that even his alcoholic, stoner, guy friends were worried for me. I can’t stick up for them, but I loved them. So, I’m not going to criticize someone who falls in love with a car I don’t approve of.
I also know that if that if the driver of that yellow H2 traded it in for a diesel Jetta and ran it on nothing but recycled cooking oil (you can do that, it’s a thing) that the world would be the same. Or at least it would be the same for all of the troops he so publicly supports. Our demand for fossil fuels is not the fault of one guy who bought a yellow truck.
The real problem isn’t the Hummer driver. It’s that capitalism, which drives our country, has a breaking point where it no longer acts in the interest of the public. Restaurants in California are a good example. Because of state legislation there is no smoking in any restaurant. The logical argument is that government should have no hand in this decision. Instead, the market should take care of everything: if there is truly a demand for no-smoking establishments people will choose them, spend their dollars, other establishments will close, and the appropriate equilibrium will exist. But it’s not that simple. California has decided that it is not in the interest of the state to subject service employees to a known carcinogen night after night. And market forces alone won't make that happen. If I smoke, or if my friends do, this might bother me or it might not. But it doesn’t matter if I agree with the legislation: when I am in California my meals will be smoke-free. Acting on its best judgement government has made a decision for me.
Capitalism, by its very definition, promotes individuality. We strive, if not to keep ahead, then at least to keep up with the Joneses. And we also fall in love with things like plasma TVs, Italian road bikes, and Hummers. Some of our loves and wants are benign while others are not. When we act as individuals, as capitalism prompts us to do for the benefit of our economy, we often work against the group. One Hummer doesn’t matter, but several fleets of them do. And it’s not just Hummers. It’s all the status-getting gas-guzzlers that people buy without any need for function. An F250 to haul a trailer full of horses: that makes sense. A Chevy Suburban to run errands in a traffic-choked city like LA where you can see the smog five feet in front of you: that’s a little crazy.
I don’t know what the solution is. I can't, in good faith, argue that the government should make decisions about what products are available to me. The only thing I can come up with is that people must act as responsible adults. Decisions need to be made with a nod to the group. The fact of the matter is that I’d love to own a manual diesel Jetta that gets 50+ miles per gallon, but I drive a Honda CRV. I can’t afford a new car right now, so that isn’t going to change any time soon. But when I do, I feel confident, that I will make the best decision that my finances allow. I believe that it’s important to vote, and so I do it even though I know my vote won’t make a difference. But I also talk about voting, help people at work register, and encourage them to go to the polls no matter how they vote. I do this because I believe much more strongly in democracy than I do in any one candidate. If everyone votes and my guy looses, so be it. Purchases need to be thought of the same way. Every dollar is a vote.
Having said that, I once loved a guy who peed in a Nalgene bottle during a road trip instead of pulling off on the shoulder and aiming for a bush. He drove a Chevy Tahoe. Sometimes, we all forget what’s important.
posted by Jessica at 18:51
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home