I know this wasn't the point of your post but I love your line about "America has its own historic cities that can serve as examples for good urbanism today."
Classic American urban neighborhoods are awesome, and while there's a very very good argument to be made that they should be at least a bit denser, there's also an argument that suburban neighborhoods should maybe look a bit more like their older counterparts.
Having lived in a more suburban, car oriented neighborhood, and living in a more urban - but still pretty low density and "small town" feel neighborhood - I can't help but shake the feeling that for most people, they'd be happier trading a little bit of yard space and having a few more neighbors if the tradeoff is vibrant urban Main Streets and neighborhood businesses. Most older urban neighborhoods, after all, really aren't that dense. But when most people think of "city" they typically always picture the stereotypical downtown, or the generic 5 over 1s being built on the edge of town. It's rare that people picture a typical American urban neighborhood.
Soaking the rich for driving their cars at lawless speeds appeals to me if it would actually slow down the zooming parade. Would such a concept sell? I can't think of any car makers that suggest we should slow down by driving their cars. Even if the public is fed up with street racing and vehicular intimidation, cars are still sold as mobility for hell cats.
I've been reading Simone Weil lately, and she makes a compelling argument (I've heard this many places but as far as I can tell her formulation is at least somewhat original to her) that we are wrong to think about "rights" in isolation, that the fundamental element is actually the "obligation," and that a right can't exist except in terms of an obligation placed upon other humans.
I think about this a lot in that we are often quick to think about "my rights" but are less clear on what those external obligations actually entail. It's easy to talk about "right to healthcare" but the tricky part is actually how that obligation is administered and what that specifically implies about "my right to healthcare."
But beyond this, I've also spent time lately thinking about how impoverished our thinking tends to be on the obligations that *my rights* impose on *me*! Driving is a particularly significant instance, which I think you've written pretty extensively about. If our view is what we're *owed* by society, of course there's little frame to think about the consequences our actions have on others (was just thinking about this as MA has once again banned Kei Trucks for "failing to meet safety standards" which are _obviously_ about making sure that the only people who suffer in a crash are people outside the vehicle). But if we consider what obligations my driving ought to entail on others, and then especially what it ought to entail on us, I think that should revolutionize your view of things.
I think of any good expert - whether that's a craftsman and his tools, a policeman and his gun, or a research advisor and their own practices - has that respect (that can sometimes look like fear to the uninitiated) for whatever they work with integrated well. In the area of craftsmanship, DIY work, and guns, that's good safety culture. In research, it's more like researcher's honor, because safety concerns from e.g. misplanned studies often don't affect the researcher (but people downstream instead). Cars should scare us more; I think we'd drive more safely because of it.
"Sober responsibility" is not how I'd characterize the driving habits of most Europeans I've been in a car with, at least not any moreso than the typical American. But setting that aside, it's true a lot of European countries are both 1) more permissive about driving regulations and 2) more draconian about driving infractions. This doesn't strike me as especially puzzling, though. One reasonable theory is that the public will tolerate stricter penalties for infractions when the underlying rule is more reasonable. So if the speed limit is 74mph, nobody will cry for you when you're cited going 88. On the other hand, if you have a straightaway with an artificially low speed limit just to entrap perfectly safe drivers into camera tickets, as is routine in America, people will think it very unfair if the penalty for this is steep. Alternatively, maybe Europeans tolerate stricter penalties for things simply because they are less.democratic and free than Americans are and driving is just one of many areas of life where they've gotten acclimated to oppressive laws. They don't have freedom of speech there either and are apparently broadly tolerant of people getting cited or arrested for their Facebook posts. So draconian fines for traffic infractions might not register as especially aberrational, rather than reflecting any unique attitudes about motor vehicles.
I know this wasn't the point of your post but I love your line about "America has its own historic cities that can serve as examples for good urbanism today."
Classic American urban neighborhoods are awesome, and while there's a very very good argument to be made that they should be at least a bit denser, there's also an argument that suburban neighborhoods should maybe look a bit more like their older counterparts.
Having lived in a more suburban, car oriented neighborhood, and living in a more urban - but still pretty low density and "small town" feel neighborhood - I can't help but shake the feeling that for most people, they'd be happier trading a little bit of yard space and having a few more neighbors if the tradeoff is vibrant urban Main Streets and neighborhood businesses. Most older urban neighborhoods, after all, really aren't that dense. But when most people think of "city" they typically always picture the stereotypical downtown, or the generic 5 over 1s being built on the edge of town. It's rare that people picture a typical American urban neighborhood.
Soaking the rich for driving their cars at lawless speeds appeals to me if it would actually slow down the zooming parade. Would such a concept sell? I can't think of any car makers that suggest we should slow down by driving their cars. Even if the public is fed up with street racing and vehicular intimidation, cars are still sold as mobility for hell cats.
I've been reading Simone Weil lately, and she makes a compelling argument (I've heard this many places but as far as I can tell her formulation is at least somewhat original to her) that we are wrong to think about "rights" in isolation, that the fundamental element is actually the "obligation," and that a right can't exist except in terms of an obligation placed upon other humans.
I think about this a lot in that we are often quick to think about "my rights" but are less clear on what those external obligations actually entail. It's easy to talk about "right to healthcare" but the tricky part is actually how that obligation is administered and what that specifically implies about "my right to healthcare."
But beyond this, I've also spent time lately thinking about how impoverished our thinking tends to be on the obligations that *my rights* impose on *me*! Driving is a particularly significant instance, which I think you've written pretty extensively about. If our view is what we're *owed* by society, of course there's little frame to think about the consequences our actions have on others (was just thinking about this as MA has once again banned Kei Trucks for "failing to meet safety standards" which are _obviously_ about making sure that the only people who suffer in a crash are people outside the vehicle). But if we consider what obligations my driving ought to entail on others, and then especially what it ought to entail on us, I think that should revolutionize your view of things.
I think of any good expert - whether that's a craftsman and his tools, a policeman and his gun, or a research advisor and their own practices - has that respect (that can sometimes look like fear to the uninitiated) for whatever they work with integrated well. In the area of craftsmanship, DIY work, and guns, that's good safety culture. In research, it's more like researcher's honor, because safety concerns from e.g. misplanned studies often don't affect the researcher (but people downstream instead). Cars should scare us more; I think we'd drive more safely because of it.
"Sober responsibility" is not how I'd characterize the driving habits of most Europeans I've been in a car with, at least not any moreso than the typical American. But setting that aside, it's true a lot of European countries are both 1) more permissive about driving regulations and 2) more draconian about driving infractions. This doesn't strike me as especially puzzling, though. One reasonable theory is that the public will tolerate stricter penalties for infractions when the underlying rule is more reasonable. So if the speed limit is 74mph, nobody will cry for you when you're cited going 88. On the other hand, if you have a straightaway with an artificially low speed limit just to entrap perfectly safe drivers into camera tickets, as is routine in America, people will think it very unfair if the penalty for this is steep. Alternatively, maybe Europeans tolerate stricter penalties for things simply because they are less.democratic and free than Americans are and driving is just one of many areas of life where they've gotten acclimated to oppressive laws. They don't have freedom of speech there either and are apparently broadly tolerant of people getting cited or arrested for their Facebook posts. So draconian fines for traffic infractions might not register as especially aberrational, rather than reflecting any unique attitudes about motor vehicles.