woj, it's the use of that word "love" that i find socially implanted, rather than truly felt or experienced by individuals...how many people say they "love" their jobs? despite the boring, dangerous, pointless nature of their work? how many people in dreadful relationships also remain in "love" with mates, legal or otherwise, precisely because they have no alternative, which is true of most car "lovers"...
their romance began in a socially arranged shotgun wedding, and they are as free as in that form of mate selection as they are in choosing (?) cars as an exclusive mode of transit for everything in life...
yes, there is great comfort , privacy and speed available in an auto that is not available in public transit, but far more important is the fact that public transit is *not there*, for the overwhelming majority of people in this country..., and where it exists it is programmed to not provide anything near those qualities of comfort and speed, so as not to compete with private transit...
so whether people are snakelike or venal or class climbers or simply "love" being able to pick their noses or sing or scream while driving alone is beside the point of the social program to design a society in which the only way to get from one place to another is by auto transport...period.
trying to find reasons for auto "love" in people's genetic, evolutionary or psychological makeup that excludes this social aspect of the system of driving - everywhere - strikes me as reductionist, certainly when such thoughts are entertained by people who advocate social change...
when there are alternatives, as in a place like new york, people often own cars, but only use them for things that are either leisure related, or that actually need and benefit from the use of private transport...as a child in newyork, my parents had a vehicle, but it was mostly used on weekends to visit relatives in early suburbia... trolleys, buses and subways were used any other time they would get the family members to where they wanted to go...the same is true of many new yorkers now, who own but do not always use cars, but new york is the exception, because it has a mass transit system that serves people, sometimes much better(for all its faults), than an auto will...and this alternative is available, and used, by many who own, and possibly "love", their cars...
so it isn't that autos are not good or that they don't offer a wonderful tool and privacy and speed and lots of other positive things, under specific circumstances...it's that a socially dictated policy that has put everyone in autos is accepted to the point of people agreeing that, yes, they are wonderful and the best possible thing and any alternative is silly, dangerous unthinkable, etc...in short, tina, and as dumb in this specific sense as it is in the larger, systemic sense...
we may "love" cars, but it's the way we "love" going to the foundry, menatl or manual, everyday, though at least we get paid for showing up there, whereas we have to pay a heavy, heavy price, both personally and socially, for being strapped into a transit system that makes as much sense as the murderous foreign policy on which it relies for its continuity...
when auto love costs that much, maybe auto celibacy is a better transit choice...
fs
fs