Word: re
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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THINK HOW different the experience of driving your car down the street is from the experience of walking down the street. When you walk, you're your own man. When you drive, you're everyone else's man. You can only do what has been predicted. Your thinking is about how to avoid hitting the others all around you doing the same thing you are, and how to avoid the police and do all the things they require...
...policeman's function of regulating traffic, overseeing parking, and checking up on registration and inspection of cars is a extraordinary duty really apart from most of what he does as a crime fighter. A policeman can stop you, search you, and easily arrest you if you're driving a car. When they say the "streets belong to the people." it is a dream: the streets belong to the state. They are the policeman's domain...
...expect all these things of you. You've got to be licensed, registered, inspected, and insured. And you must act predictably. A lot of eyes are on you, and your eyes are on a lot of others. When other drivers see you. you will look like them (you're in a car). You will act like them. And you will be like them because, if you are thinking about your driving, you are thinking like them...
...downtown traffic for half an hour. This is a very terrible experience. Your mind can't wander because your purpose is being constantly minutely served: you inch forward. As a human animal you have no interest in this sort of activity. You are totally estranged from what you're doing. This is why cars have radios...
THINK OF HOW much it means to us to be going somewhere. All our ontological problems seem to dissolve when we are set into motion. To be going somewhere (literally) means in our world that you're either traveling in a car or better. Think of how much we need cars to set us free so we can each go to our own particular places...