>I would also like to call attention to the fact that driving car is very
>much like factory work in one sense: it forces drivers to pay _constant
>low-grade attention_ to their machines and surroundings so as not to cause
>accidents. This need to pay constant low-grade attention is very mentally
>stressful and yet does not require meaningful intellectual engagement. The
>same need is imposed upon workers inside factories, so they have to put up
>with the same kind of stress before, during, and after work hours.
This is so true. Since Jim asked me to come clean on my driving habits, here's my story. I grew up in New Jersey, and like all good Jerseyans, got a license as soon as I could. I didn't drive much in college, but when I went to Virginia for grad school I didn't have any choice. Then I came to New York and mostly stopped driving. I let my license lapse, and for almost 10 years didn't have one. It was so long-lapsed in fact that I had to start all over again, with a learner's permit and a road test, when I realized that it's just not that easy to get by in the U.S. without a driver's license (which New York State mysteriously calls a driver license). I've been driving rented cars a bit since I got the license last summer, and it really strikes me now just how exhausting and rage-producing driving is. Hurtling along in your sealed vessel, every other vehicle becomes an enemy, someone who might steal a parking spot or smash head on into you. Your mind and eyes can't wander - full concentration on the most tedious material is required. And people do this for hours on end. It destroys the capacity of critical reflection more than TV; with TV, at least you can get up & get a beer.
Horkheimer said in The Eclipse of Reason:
"However, the accretion of freedom [in the move from horse to car] has brought about a change in the character of freedom. It is as if the innumerable laws, regulations, and directions with which we must comply were driving the car, not we. There are speed limits, warnings to drive slowly, to stop, to stay within certain lanes, even diagrams showing the shape of the curve ahead. We must keep our eyes on the road and be ready at each instant to react with the right motion. Our spontaneity has been replaced by a frame of mind which compels us to discard every emotion or idea that might impair our alertness to the impersonal demands assailing us."
Doug