The power of persuasion and propaganda can be best illustrated in our consumerist relationship with private automobiles.
Their role in our lives in a large part of the world goes beyond the simple function a self-propelled, self-navigated vehicle would (should?) normally inhabit.
The last thing the car people (manufacturers, dealers, sellers of parts, repair shops, advertising firms, tire companies, gas suppliers, road constructors) want you to know: your car is a lot like your toaster or any other household appliance.
There’s a task to do or a level of convenience to attain so the toaster is in our kitchens to transform breadstuffs into warm, crispy nutrition vectors.
Remember the world before electric toasters? Probably not. But bread was toasted from the first loaf. It’s a great way to liven up a tired slice. Change the texture, the temperature and slap some fat or sugar on it.
Your car is like the toaster. It’s charged with the job of transporting you and maybe others and the stuff of life to places not served by another type of transportation choice with the same filled in checkboxes. Those checkboxes are: It is often quicker, more comfortable and definitely more private than many other forms of transportation.
But not cheaper. Unlike the toaster, there’s no end to the ‘buy-in’ on a car used for the mundane tasks of a daily nature. There is a constant requirement to pay into the product in order for it to deliver value. It’s estimated that the average car in the US requires about $12,000 to operate annually. Of course, there is a great deal of variation by geography, age of vehicle, type, insurance costs, fuel costs and all the other contributing factors. Excuse me, my mistake. The toaster requires electricity and a place to live so include those in your estimations. And you constantly have to supply it with bread.
And in these days of extreme tax sensitivity (who is paying their fair share!?) more money is extracted from you from the public coffer to continuously ‘improve’ the dedicated surfaces so you can remain mainlined to this arrangement.
When you take a step back and think about how we rationalize this situation, you get a sense of how completely we’ve acquiesced to the industry vision for driving. And that’s where the toaster comparison diverges.
Because the private motor vehicle is portrayed as a protector, a granter of wishes, an invulnerable champion, a wizard of change. If you buy the right automobile, your personal status will rise among your peers, your family members will show you greater respect and your sexual value will be unquestioned. Your journey, your speed and your safety is paramount (don’t worry about the other guy). That’s the message and that’s something you don’t get from a toaster.
I was a believer. Growing up, cars were cool! Certain cars were way more cool than others. So what if they required almost constant upkeep and threatened to financially ruin you at a time when their necessity for employment was so acute that you core requirements plus the CAR ended up using every penny you had?
Along the way I determined this was not healthy. Slowly, I’ve pulled away. I still drive almost daily. But I’ve been doing some small things to lessen the impact these toasters have on my life and the lives of others.
For example, I deliberately, routinely and preemptively question each trip I make and whether it will require my toaster. If not, I decide if I will walk, bike, or use public/private transit. I also make a habit of planning vacations where the requirement for driving is minimized. That doesn’t mean I won’t go on a ‘road trip’ but I do question if a certain destination will be the best use of my time considering the local transportation options. I don’t replace my toaster every few years just to have the latest model. I haven’t bought one in 14 years. I just maintain it.
It’s been liberating.
You start to see things differently after a while. You search for the rationale in pouring vast sums of public money into repetitive transportation projects with known flaws and anti-social outcomes. You wonder why transportation solutions in urban areas with proven records in many jurisdictions are ignored while streets are built in dense cities that allow vehicles to easily reach 100 kmh.
And we live in a world where death, permanent injury and property damage from motor vehicle collisions and collisions with other things (animate and inanimate) are on the rise. And yet, we still encourage and allow manufacturers to build toasters that are capable of exceeding every posted speed limit in the world at anytime the operator feels, in their judgement, it’s necessary.
We are fully capable of remotely controlling the speed of every modern vehicle (toaster) on public streets,or could be but we refuse, as a society, to implement any changes of this nature. The push back often involves talk about freedom and liberty, as it always does in places where the rights of the individual, no matter how wrong they may be, are valued above the common good.
But the truth is that the myth of automobile ownership and operation was invented and is perpetuated by the same institutions that stand to gain the most from this most obvious addiction. The car has never been about freedom. It’s been instrumental in keeping people shackled to a system of never ending financial depletion.