Faith and work: conservative driving
Most folks who know me personally, would recognize that I'm pretty conservative (my family would call me a pack-rat, but that's another story...) I have been known to claim being to the right of Ghengis Khan, though I suppose a semi-pacifist and Ghengis might not have gotten along.
I am fairly unapologetic about being a Christian and a mystic. I participate in church because I love the folks there, but I rarely get jazzed about religion per se. I'm having too much fun actually doing the stuff--figuring out where God is and joining Him as He flips lives upside down (and a few tables here and there too...). I've never loved compartmentalization, so I'm starting a series about how my faith and work inform each other--and some of it may be pretty surprising.
Most conservatives have a very conserving mindset:
Now this is where I part ways with most conservatives. Because I recognize principles that are non-negotiable, the paths to honor those principles must be constantly re-evaluated. Anything that reeks of stale or routine is ripe for reconsideration.
I believe God cares more about free will than I do, so I'm not about to force anyone into believing anything. Persuade, maybe. Coerce, NEVER. I recognize there are consequences to choices, but they're your choices.
I believe we are all God-selfies and we'll never see all of who He is until we honor what is honorable about every people, tribe, nation, and tounge. Therefore, racism is anathema to me, but the ongoing cancel-culture war that attempts to erase all those beautiful differences is equally distasteful. My culture's past has good and bad. I'm not throwing out the good with the bad and no one else should be talked out of their birthright either.
I believe that God has something to say about my work--and He poked me pretty hard about something this morning.
We were made to live in vibrant local communities with a wide range of rich relationships. I love to drive, but I've come to recognize that driving is the most isolating and selfish thing our society has ever created. I'm not ready to get rid of my Subaru, but my walled subdivision--and many other subdivision walls--are getting on my nerves, and pricking my conscience. Every time I try to connect people together in a community, another subdivision wall or suburban street network stalls the effort. I drive into my garage and close the door. I work hard to know my neighbors, but the ones that moved in last month across the street are still a mystery (they have 5 cars, a few teenagers, I think, and no dogs--we all meet each other as we walk the dogs).
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This is all I've ever known. We've had 70+ years of auto-dominated life and took the "blessing" of a V8 without question. My Camaro lust is a profound pleasure. I can go visit my mom 6 hours away or call her at a moment's notice--but I have no time to do either. If I needed something desperately, I might be able to rely on my next door neighbors for 1/2 cup of sugar, but I might hesitate for more--and they might too. Our best friends live 6 miles away. The HOA just put up a new fence and "no trespassing" sign blocking off the grass common area that could connect us (and the rest of the neighborhoods) to the lake and community park. Grrr....
Because no one walks, no one thinks about walking connections. Because there are no walking connections, everyone has to drive everywhere. Because everyone drives all the time and never sees anyone walking, no one feels safe walking. Our walls are prisons, and the gates only attract criminals and keep out our friends. Our HOA's are totalitarian tormentors fighting for economic value through uniformity--forgetting that the most vibrant neighborhoods have a wide range of housing types, ages, and design aesthetics.
If I were a conspiracy theorist (and I might be on a really good day), I'd say that the automobile industry worked together with the technology industries to create the dystopia we currently idolize as the American dream. Of course the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that they did, doesn't make me feel better (US v. National City Lines). Over the last few weeks, the ITE boards have been hotly debating the lane diet "ban" that the Texas GOP put in place last month. If their goal was to conserve the "American way of life," it's time to reconsider what it is that we value about that way of life. Upon close inspection, any road diet that has the sole purpose of reducing vehicle traffic is probably wrong-headed and the Texas GOP is probably on solid ground there, but it has a Luddite feel to it.
We regularly use 2,000+ pound vehicles to transport 150 pound payloads and kill thousands of people every year doing it. Many conservative engineers have argued that Vision Zero is unrealistic. It might be, but no amount of efficiency is worth killing people as a matter of course. For that matter, have you ever looked at Cobalt mining in the Congo or lithium mining in S. America and China? Out of sight does not mean out of guilt--and the EV industry has serious problems on that score. That doesn't mean that gasoline or rubber are innocent. They're not. How many people's deaths am I unwittingly responsible for?
All of this is driven by land use decisions that isolate housing from retail and industrial. Segregating industrial uses makes some sense, but disconnecting where we live, work, shop, school, and eat just drives us to drive and disconnects us. Don't get me started on class-based segregation--that will be another day.
I'm not sure how defensible the automobile is from a spiritual standpoint. It puts people into a lot more debt than they should need to have. It's rough on the environment we're supposed to be stewarding. Crashes kill people. Cars disconnect people. The land use changes it has made possible have been used to segregate and divide. We have gone to war both internally and externally to protect our mobility. Is it worth it?
I love to drive. I'm not sure how to get out of this. It will definitely be a part of the housing choices I make going forward. I'm not sure what else needs to change, but I'm open to figuring it out. Transportation is not morally wrong on its own, but there has to be win-win that we can get to--and we don't have wings yet. Nearly every part of modern life involves life and death consequences for some. When should we recognize our individual part of the big picture?
What do you think about this? How do we look at this morally?
Director at IEP Coaching & Advocacy
2 年Interesting read.
Traffic Operations Engineer I for Brevard County Public Works
2 年Dr. Tice, I completely agree with your observations. I think that a modern understanding of "independence" and "freedom" has tied popular politically-conservative movements with a car-dominated lifestyle. As a practicing Christian myself, I've realized that God has created us as communal beings—in regards to gathering together for worship as well as the necessity of loving one's neighbor. How are we to love our neighbors if we don't even know them, if we can't personally interact with them by walking? And I think the lens of tradition is absolutely fundamental. With regard to the faith, tradition is essential in providing a credible witness and preserving teaching throughout the ages. Similarly, a reliance on tradition should shape how we live and form communities. But what is more traditional? Post-WWII roadway development and city planning, or incremental building on a human-scale, as our forefathers have been doing for ages? The only way out, I see, is incremental reduction in our own lives, and fighting for Vision Zero, Complete Streets, etc (even while acknowledging their flaws). While acknowledging some advantages to cars, I think that a habitual reliance on it can constitute a vice, and restraint will help us form virtue.