Writes Ross Douthat, in "What Driving Means for America" (NYT).
Matthew Crawford book — which Douthat read as he drove his family across the country in a minivan — is "Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road."
More from Douthat:
[W]hile Crawford wants to defend the road as a seedbed for democratic virtues, he is himself a natural automotive aristocrat — a well-trained mechanic who loves to refit battered vehicles, a motorcyclist drawn to intense auto-subcultures.... I have spent most of my life driving station wagons and minivans....
The virtues involved in being a good driver — the mix of independence and cooperation, knowledge and responsibility — really are virtues well suited to citizenship in a sprawling and diverse republic. And if driving makes some people distinctly anxious, learning to do it well, or just well enough, is also a tonic for anxiety, an easily available antidote to the sense that the world is pure chaos, beyond anyone’s control. That anxious, hopeless sense seems particularly widespread among younger Americans, the same group retreating from car culture....
If you do not drive your neighborhood or region, what form of adult mastery and knowledge are you seeking in its place? If you do not drive your country’s highways and byways, what path do you have to a nonvirtual experience of the America beyond your class and tribe and bubble?
If the road is a "seedbed for democratic virtues," what politics grow out of these different driving experiences? A loner without a schedule who's concocted his own hotrod will not develop into the same sort of citizen as the a man with NYT columns to write enduring the forced togetherness of 3 weeks in a minivan with his wife and kids.
What form of adult mastery and knowledge are you seeking down which byway?
For the last few months, until just the other day, we owned 3 vehicles — my beloved 17-year-old Audi TT, a 4-year-old Honda CRV, and a new Ford F-150 truck with a slide-in camper. One of these had to go, and it's easy to see which one fails the love test. It's also the completely practical, functional one, the one you'd want if you moved about the highways and byways with a family. We sold the CRV, of course. Wouldn't you, if you were us?
Now, the 2 vehicles represent big extremes in the seeking of mastery and knowledge.
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I hate driving, and always have. My Mom FORCED me to take drivers education in high school, because she grew up in a city...and never learned until she was in her 30's and had 3 kids...and she didn't want me to ever be in that position. That said, I drive....but only around town. I am careful, never had an accident, but after 48 years, I am still uncomfortable driving.
Driving is what America IS
Driving across the oceans, driving across the mountains, the prairies, the deserts, the tundra.
Covered Wagons, Okies in their beatup trucks. Sal Paradise in his old Hudson*
Freeways, Tollways, Two Lane Blacktops, gravel roads, bike paths...
Don't even get me started on Trains.
In Europe, a 100 miles is a long ways.. In America a 100 years is a long time
Hudson* WHY is it, that i think On The Road took place in a Hudson?
Seventeen years old? Really?
Time flies.
I love driving, but don't do it very often. There's something awesome about rumbling along a State Highway (NOT an Interstate, which should only be used to get from Point A to Point B in the fastest possible time), and stopping at various points of interest.
Lately I've been thinking of going on a long walk when I retire. Like from here to International Falls. I think that would be really interesting. (I'd not do it in winter).
I love that you kept the 17-year-old Audi TT. That was always a stunning car.
I've loved the physical act of driving since age 16. My first car was a dog, an old Fiat 850 Sport Coupe, which would never start when the weather got below freezing- and I was living in East Lansing, MI. We lived on a short hill, so I could clutch-start it backing down our driveway and rolling down our hill. Then, to get home, I'd have to get to an open space in a parking lot to push it to get it rolling, then jump in while rolling to pop the clutch. This was particularly fun when drunk.
Through the years I have always preferred sports sedans over SUVs or what I call 'Trucks of any shape'. I love a car that can hug the road and I love to drive through any part of this country when I can. The physical act of driving requires skill, an appreciation of the mechanics and styling of a car, and a feel for the road. You also learn to anticipate what others may, or may not do.
Self-driving vehicles are the future and one reason I'm glad I won't be around for that part of our society. I hate being a passenger. I hate cabs, Uber, subways, busses. I would not be a good New Yorker. I prefer open spaces, winding roads on well maintained highways. It IS what made America great. We've lost that.
Today our Betters have decided that we're better off living in tight quarters, densely packed in cities, without our own vehicles, traveling in public formats only, so that we may save the planet. I'm of the belief that our planet won't know if we're here or not and could shrug us off in a blink if it so decided. And our Betters? They've not been right about anything in a very long time. Millennia.
homo- (1)
before vowels hom-, word-forming element meaning "same, the same, equal, like" (opposed to hetero-), from Greek homos "one and the same," also "belonging to two or more jointly" (from PIE *somo-, from root *sem- (1) "one; as one, together with").
Ironic.
It’s a CRV, unless Honda has come out with a new, confusingly named model. The car really doesn’t interest you!
What driving means for for America -- Freedom!
We go where we want to go when we want to go with whom we want to go.
I kept the CR-V. I mastered the road with an old Integra and S2000. I have nothing else to prove. The CR-V is ready for an upgrade, but I’m finding it tough to find a better substitute. The 2023 CR-V has an ugly interior. A GLC 300 is tempting, but they seem to be shipping stripped of features. I want to own my car, so BMW is out.
What about walking? Since the pandemic me and my SO have moved to a place that’s much more walkable than where we were living before. I feel more sense of freedom and discovery going on walks close to home than I do from the inside of a car, even if I might be driving.
“ It’s a CRV, unless Honda has come out with a new, confusingly named model. The car really doesn’t interest you!”
LOL. It’s so boring it gives me dyslexia.
We’ve bought 2 cars together and both times it was a CRV. It’s a great car. It’s just not exactly what either of us wants.
If we owned one vehicle, it would need to be something like that.
I loved driving, and drove all over the West touring with bands. We each drove alone and met up wherever we were playing. Lots of time to think!
I've had lots of cars, and wish I had them all still. Each one represents a few years of my life and who wouldn't want those back again?
Fixed.
I had CVR — twice.
I have a love/hate with driving. Normally, it’s just something that most normal people, not living in urban hell holes, like, for example, Manhattan, do. It’s like shaving, showering, and brushing your teeth. Would I prefer using mass transportation, buying groceries at neighborhood bodegas and the like? Hell no. Food at big chain grocery chains is cheaper, and there is vastly more selection. You just need to have a car, and live somewhere where having one is not impractical.
But then, every once in awhile, I enjoy the freedom of the road. A decade ago,I was still making 800 mile trips somewhat regularly to see my partner. Now she doesn’t want me gone all day. And I miss getting behind the wheel, and putting all of my cares to the side, while I drive across country.
It's easy to see why driving is looked to as key to freedom, autonomy, Americaness. And it's easy to forget that that has only been true for about 100 years.
For most of our history, we looked to other things--the horse, the West, a quiet place of our own, to furnish a path to personal fulfillment. And if we leave cars behind (as, inevitably, we one day will), it won't be a loss. We will simply find something else to serve that purpose.
I've had underpowered standard transmission cars or trucks my whole life, but a week ago I got a RAV4 plug-in hybrid. The gasoline motor has yet to fire up. It seems all the strategy and sensuality of driving has been replaced by wondering how all those gizmos are supposed to work. I think I also may have accidentally signed up for some feature whereby Toyota can monitor my every move forever as the sales staff synced up my iPhone.
The unlovable Honda CRV is what you buy when your spouse isn’t ready for a pickup truck.
Cars. Grew up in suburban Detroit, where driving was and is necessary to get anywhere. I fondly remember the freedom I felt as a teenager when getting out on the road but I no longer get any joy from driving. First car I bought was a 1978 Datsun B210 Hatchback, paid $400 for it. 4 speed, and I think it had 90 hp. Now the fleet consists of 5 vehicles: three Hondas, a Toyota, and a Subaru. Proof of practicality over passion in the car part of my life. Passion is for other parts, but I understand how some people love their cars and love driving them.
“I had CVR — twice.”
You were probably thinking — Compact Vehicle of high Resale value.
The Audi is 17 years old? I thought I started commenting here around 2008, and the Audi purchase was discussed in this blog at about that same time.
Twenty years from now it will still be cool to drive a mid-2000's Audi TT. The Honda CRV?......not so much!!
I put over 600,000 miles on a 1985 Honda Prelude with a manual transmission. and haven't driven anything since that gave me so much pleasure on the highways.
I did not have a car until I was in college. I was a scholarship student and no money. My first new car was a VW van that I drove from Boston to LA. It was a great car but low powered. Long before infant seats, my infant son was in a crib we wedged in the middle seat. Since then, I have driven across the country many times. Every few months we drive from Tucson to OC to see the kids and grandkids. It sounds like LA is going back to indoor masking. Typical insanity. I wonder if anyone will obey that silly rule?
Temujin said...
...I've loved the physical act of driving since age 16. My first car was a dog, an old Fiat 850 Sport Coupe
OMG, my family had one of those, an absolute POS, albeit (or so I thought, I was too young at the time) great fun to drive. It had the infamous swing-axle design that the idiot Nader got the Corvair cancelled. Only had it for a year or so, got rid of it to a local priest, and it ended up catching on fire.
People only seem to fixate on the pleasure driving aspects. Unless you can reasonably commute by bus/train you.can't.get.to.work. Not to mention the many people whose businesses depend on their vehicles (plumbers, electricians, real estate agents, etc.). All the nitwits plugging electrics and public transport seem to think all these people get around on magic unicorns.
It seems the Audi TT was introduced around 1998.
Here's one for the trivia books.......How does the TT elaborate??
The sports car took its name from the annual British Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) motorbike race, which seems odd until you consider Audi's history. One of the original companies that was part of the formation of Audi as we know it was NSU. That company made cars and motorbikes, and started competing at the Isle of Man TT in 1911.
You cannot begin to understand America unless you've seen it from the ground - the size, the variability, the differences and samenesses of the people, what freedom really means. People who fly from city to city have no idea. Trains give an inkling, but you really have to drive.
I hitchhiked all over the West in the '70s - passengering, I guess - before I bought a used MGB convertible and did the blue-line hwy thing. Can't believe there's any better country to drive through. But of course that's just regional bias.
Not all Interstates are boring, only useful for getting from point A to point B. Interstate 70 in Utah is gorgeous, and Interstate 68 through the Sideling Cut in western Maryland is a sight.
Another Facebook gender??
I hope the TT is manual transmission.
I bought a 6-speed when my boys learned to drive.
I wanted them to know how to drive stick.
They hated it at first and now love it.
I've driven corner to corner of the continental US and up to Alaska. My current ride is a '17 Challenger. I am someone who loves to drive and is good at it.
I agree with @tim maguire, though. It's a phase in human history, to be replaced by some other icon in the future. I don't ascribe mystical citizenship skills to driving.
Matthew Crawford book — which Douthat read as he drove his family across the country in a minivan
I trust it was not an EV. Try to find a charging station every 250 miles, wait hours each time.
I am not a fan of long-distance driving, especially on boring interstates. I'm fearful of dozing off. I know people who drive long distances on two-lane highways and routes rather than interstates. Much less sleep-inducing, more interesting sites along the way, though it adds a lot of time.
I won't ask how Douthat "read" while he was driving. Book on tape?
those who disdain the automobile, seem to have contempt for most other support systems of civilization, I don't see the mr fusion replacement anytime in the future, I took public transportation, through college I don't recommend it,3
“I had CVR — twice.”
My silver ponytail cousin had CVR 3 times. It made him sore and cranky and gaseous.
He developed a convoluted explanation for his recurring affliction that ultimately placed the blame on Tucker Carlson and big corporations. Maybe he was right, but he hasn't come down with it again since the vegan enema boutique went out of business. Draw your own conclusions.
We have a 2013 CRV with about 90k miles, bought used in 2018. It gets shamefully low mileage, but we're low mileage drivers so it tends to even out.
My first car was a used 1969 Beetle automatic--I just want to get from Pt A to Pt B with the least effort. Passed that on to my next brother after a few years.
We've had two cars--nothing flashy--for most of our marriage but downsized after I retired.
The All-American infatuation with cars has largely passed me by, like a lot of other things.
The movie “Falling Down” starts with the protagonist stuck at a freeway backup. Backup can give us the mis-impression that there’s too many people out there.
Recently L**t, the ride share gig, disabled texting while the vehicle is moving. Self driving cars can only hasten the day we finally achieve that holy grail we seem to crave; the hive mind.
While I’m driving something in me takes my permission to flood me with the past and the future. Is as if, ‘while your free’, why not engage you in some fantastic thoughts and ideas. Lightly intersecting the most obvious and important aspect of driving a vehicle: Responsibility.
Responsibility avoidance might be the number one reason why the young ones today appear to show less interest in driving than when we were their age. Then again, we could be reading signs that are not necessarily there. We don’t have the hive mind yet.
Crawford had a great article in The NY Times magazine in 2009. The Case for Working with Your Hands. He may have turned it into a book. Good writer, good thinker.
"You were probably thinking — Compact Vehicle of high Resale value."
LOL. Good job selling it.
But the truth is, there was a member of my family, my mother's uncle I think, who was actually named CVR. Just initials. That was his name.
They hated it at first and now love it.
It's a theft deterrent as well.
“I've loved the physical act of driving since age 16. My first car was a dog, an old Fiat 850 Sport Coupe, which would never start when the weather got below freezing- and I was living in East Lansing, MI. We lived on a short hill, so I could clutch-start it backing down our driveway and rolling down our hill. Then, to get home, I'd have to get to an open space in a parking lot to push it to get it rolling, then jump in while rolling to pop the clutch. This was particularly fun when drunk.”
Fun cars if you took good care of them, and/or were shade tree mechanically inclined. IIRC, that Fiat had a lever somewhere between the front seats that could control acceleration… and made for a decent “cruise control” on long, lonely stretches of road.
I once drove from Iowa to Oregon, first going straight south to Texas, then west to California, then up to Salem. (It was winter.) Drove an early 60s red Studebaker with my sister's future husband who was enlisting in the Air Force. It was 1970. Vietnam War still going hot. We made it all the way with only one flat tire. Best cross country trip ever, and I have made many more since then. Something about driving really clears my head.
Navigation keeps the mind sharp and the soul secure.
My observation, having taught multiple people how to drive, is that there are two types of drivers- those for whom all the techniques and skills become so automatic that they don't ever really have to think about them and, thus, have no anxiety whatsoever; and those for whom it never becomes ingrained habit on autopilot, and who never lose that anxiety no matter how long or often they drive.
Of those two types, only one will ever truly understand how freaking awesome it is to able to just take off on a wild adventure in the US.
MadAsHell - "One of the original companies that was part of the formation of Audi as we know it was NSU. "
My first car was a 1966 NSU 1200 I bought when stationed in Germany. It was kind of a scaled down, poor man's BMW 2002. A lot of glass, 4 speed transmission and a rear 1200cc engine with OHC. Real fun to drive. Took it all over Germany and once to France. Put in an 8-track player and wore out "Band on the Run".
Paid $200, a fifth of Jack Daniels and 2 cartons of Marlboros to a German junk yard owner who fixed up old cars for sale to GIs.
Replace my 2012 CR-V with a Tesla. Very happy and pretty much the same space!
Mrs. X said...
Crawford had a great article in The NY Times magazine in 2009. The Case for Working with Your Hands. He may have turned it into a book. Good writer, good thinker.
The title sounds a lot like a book he did write: “Shop Class As Soulcraft”, which is wonderful. I actually gave it to my parents to explain to them why I quit grad school to work for myself instead. (My chosen path wasn’t perfectly analogous to the book, and I only encountered Crawford’s book after the fact, but his arguments were in the same headspace as me for a time.)
I've driven for my mental health. Just go for a drive out in the country. No map, no GPS, having to dead reckon my way back to a road I knew where I was. Did it in the '90s when Clinton was going to abolish my job. I realized too much of my self worth was in my job, so I first went to a useless therapist. Then I found I could go for a drive away from the major roads and think my way through it. Separated my self worth from my job, job didn't go away, but I did not give as much to that job after that.
But this from 1950 on driving as part of America's transformation in the early 20th century is on point:
"Similarly the American who has been humbled by poverty, or by his insignificance in the business order, or by his racial status, or by any other circumstance that might demean him in his own eyes, gains a sense of authority when he slides behind the wheel of an automobile and it leaps forward at his bidding, ready to take him wherever he may personally please.
...
"In 1950 the civilian labor force of the United States was estimated to number a little less than 59 million men and women; in the same year the number of drivers in the United States was estimated to be a little larger: 59,300,000.
...
"Never before in human history, perhaps, had any such proportion of the nationals of any land known the lifting of the spirit that the free exercise of power can bring."
--'The Big Change: America Transforms Itself 1900-1950' (1952), Frederick Allen Lewis
I just happened to be looking at quotes about socialists from 'Road to Wigan Pier' this morning
Now this one seems to give insight into our non-driving youth and their attraction to socialism
"The underlying motive of many Socialists, I believe, is simply a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery, still less because it makes freedom impossible, but because it is untidy; what they desire, basically, is to reduce the world to something resembling a chess-board."
Give me only a star and an oil company map to steer by. . . . .
Historic Route 66 is directly behind my house, so I notice Rt 66 signs whenever I travel. I've seen them in New York, Dublin, Paris, and Brussels. Why the fascination with this particular road? Surely it's not just the song. Maybe it's the motorcycle groups we hear roaring by in the summer?
My guess that is that it represents something uniquely American--the wide open road (and west of here it is WIDE open), limitless possibilities, freedom.
Blogger MSB said...
Replace my 2012 CR-V with a Tesla. Very happy and pretty much the same space!
Do you park it in the garage? Lots of stories.
Pete's got the numbers... https://youtu.be/t50MFchtg5E
Fail Army, Driver's Division... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKTy16mC2g4&t=92s
My first car was a 1966 NSU 1200
My Dad was sure that the Wankel engine in the 1964 NSU Spyder would revolutionize automobiles.
Audi… my brother had an Audi 100 back in the mid 70s. Purely anecdotal… it was a roomy little car constructed of what looked to be quality material and his only complaint back then was that it was nickel and diming him to death on repairs.
My wife and I are planning a Route 66 road trip over 12 days from Barstow CA to Tulsa OK. Late September to early October. I consider myself a very good driver, though there are some challenging segments. I actually like driving, especially if I have a good music list. Mostly 60s to early 80s playlist.
Bad link to the Crawford article before. Try this: The Case for Working with Your Hands . And if that doesn't work, here's the url to copy and paste: https://archive.ph/R9YuM.
If you:
a) do any type of do-it-yourself work, including but not limited to mowing your lawn;
b) play golf;
c) live anywhere outside of the 1/1,000,000 of the terrestrial planet that is not a city (OK, the math is a guess);
d) own a boat, or maybe just like to go fishing
you absolutely need a car (preferably a truck or SUV, but whatever). There is no practical substitute.
And if you use your vehicle (or another one that's a little faster, cooler and sexier) to just get out there and expand your horizons, so much the better.
That anyone's imagination is so limited as to fail to encompass these things is depressing. That people who fit that description are actually in charge of anything is terrifying.
"Never before in human history, perhaps, had any such proportion of the nationals of any land known the lifting of the spirit that the free exercise of power can bring."
Amazing how much this pisses off some people.
I've made plenty of road trips in cars and vans, here and a few times in Europe, I just don't romanticize them.
Good company--or at least good music--is a must.
I spent the day on a 9-hour road trip across Wisconsin looking for telescope observing sites. And shifting base of operations from southern to northern Wisconsin for awhile. Sought out the house I lived in for my first five years of life. Wonderful way to spend a day.
You can not have my gas-powered vehicle. Not even if you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Roger Sweeny said...
"Not all Interstates are boring, only useful for getting from point A to point B. Interstate 70 in Utah is gorgeous, and Interstate 68 through the Sideling Cut in western Maryland is a sight."
Yes to both. I'll add I-81 from the Poconos to I-84, then I-84 from the Upper Delaware River to the Connecticut state line.
i guess i have to take this time, to mention; that for 4 glorious years, i owned a
1970 Plymouth Barracuda, with a 383 Magnum V-8, a 4 speed with the Hearst Pistolgrip shifter, and a 3.91* positraction rearend.
The best part of the 'cuda package, was a "factory high output fuel pump". The Chrysler Corp, realized that their standard fuel pump would NOT provide fuel at the amounts that the engine would want. I feel sorry for people that haven't had a car that MUCH more power than it (or you) needed
3.91* I'm abashed to admit, i'm not sure what the ratio was.. High 3's though
A car or truck and a drivers license in America is not just transportation. It's identity, status, privacy, independence, freedom, accomplishment, aesthetic pleasure, proof of adulthood, and lastly, taxable property. Public transportation will never replace all those things for Americans.
I read "Why We Drive" a couple weeks ago. Outstanding book. I don't agree with everything he said, but everything he said either taught me something I didn't know, or think about what I did know differently.
As it happens, I just finished a four day trip driving a 20' U-Haul, and towing a car trailer, from Melbourne, FL to Boise. That is by far the biggest — rig? — I have ever had to deal with. Something that size forces you to think pretty much all the time about how you are interacting with vehicles both a long way ahead and behind. Hills, which can always be overcome by a little additional toe pressure in car, complexify things significantly. Not that I didn't already respect big rig drivers enough, but now that I kind of sort of a little bit glancingly have been in their position, I really appreciate how good almost all of them are.
For the first couple days, I invested significant effort in avoiding backing up. On account of I didn't know how, without turning into a slow motion jackknife. Before departing on day three, with room to spare and no one to laugh at me and make me cry, I decided to expand my skill set by one. After about five minutes, it was like mental levers and gears snapped into place. That night, I backed into a spot between two big rigs. Not because I had to, but because I could. I know it sounds silly, but it was a hell of a feeling.
On account of reasons having nothing to do with intent, that trip was something the 40th trans-continental drive I've done. Based on that experience, it seems about 30% of drivers are actively aware of what is going on around them, and seek to blend in as seamlessly as possible. Another 50% trundle. The rest are fundaments.
Like Matthew Crawford, I'm a bit of a gear head. (In fact, if it wasn't for profound deficiencies in talent, ambition, and courage, I'd be an F1 driver.). Along the way, I've had an MGA, 1970 911T, 1975 Alfa Romeo GTV, Kawasaki 750, 1975 Triumph TR-6, Mazda RX-7, 1980 911SC, and 1992 BMW 325. In our garage is a 2007 BMW 530i (manual), 2019 Porsche Cayman S (manual) and 2021 BMW M340i (auto, because manuals have almost vanished from BMW's model range). The 325 was the first new car I ever owned, and we had it for 26 years.
A few months ago, I finished a year and a half turning my Dad's Volvo 1800 that hadn't turned a wheel in twenty years into this.
Among Crawford's points is that the ability to do things for oneself is liberating. For a guy, being able to back a trailer, shift gears, and possess shop skills are not only a source of pride, but are worth huge amounts of money.
Sorry to rattle on so.
Parting shot: Five or so days ago, Bob Boyd (if memory serves) recommended Noah Rothman's "The New Puritans". It is excellent.
As a return favor, Steven Koonin's "Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn't, and Why it Matters" should be on the required reading list for every politician and journalist.
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