The car culture is both a state and a state of mind. It currently physically dominates the urban landscape (more 1), and has hegemonic control over popular culture and government economic and transport policies. It has determined that a car ban is unthinkable, marginalizing and impoverishing all environmentalists who suggest it until they return, with their logic dealing with sprawl and consumerism erased, spouting “green car” sophistry.
Much car culture is the enthusiasm of private individuals: but plane and train enthusiasts don’t result in a mass ownership or dominance of the culture. Most of the political activism comes from vested interests, chiefly car manufacturers and any downstream clients thereof like the advertising industry, also land speculators (more 2), (note 1), and latterly government roads departments.
Its state of mind has some real elements stressing convenience and security expressing true human desires, and also the practical necessity of some such vehicle for activity in rural and remote locations. But illusional elements dominate; these are articles of faith, distortions of history, obfuscation and denial of ecological facts and blinkered interpretations of financial reality. The worst illusional effect is the irresponsibility of “Mobility Culture”. The principal article of faith is expressed as “The Freedom to Drive” and involves distortions of history. The cry of the car culture to be overtaxed, and that they more than pay their way, is resolutely untruthful, refusing to look at the true “Fiscal Black Hole”.
The state of mind is supported by an active propaganda operation, the elements of which are Hollywood (more 3), spontaneous or corrupt intellectual charlatans (more 4) and overt saturation advertising and marketing. Motorsport keeps the industry profile high but isn’t a major element. (more 5).
Of more concern are the sinister underhand propaganda elements; conscious conspiracies, whose magnitude can only be guessed, to degrade public transport and influence governments to structure space to necessitate the car; thus depriving populations of transport options by putting them “out of sight – out of mind”. One early conspiracy was discovered in blatant form in the USA (note 2); it’s not credible that such activity subsequently vanished; it must merely have become more sophisticated and politically protected (more 6). Indicative of this is that only countries without a car industry, such as Denmark, have done anything to counteract car culture.
In countries with a car culture repressive desublimation of alternatives is commonplace, ex-politicians, who are probably still complicit with the car industry from past mutual favours, use their status and influence to infiltrate and subvert any anti-car sentiment emerging in organizations like public transport users associations. (more 7). Various, often industry funded, “consumer groups” such as the American Highway Users Association, the British Automobile Association, run orchestrated pressure campaigns on media to repress any negative opinion or information concerning cars (more 8).
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