Hip hop was born under oppression. In its infancy, it was the voice of the voiceless. In adolescence, it connects strangers, challenges authority, and echoes from coast to coast. As it grows, however, it suffers acute memory loss. It breaks down during mid-life crisis, buys cars and jewelry, degrades women, and abandons its humble roots. Success becomes failure.
Bicycles are fun, healthy, and effective. They zip through big city traffic, outpacing cars, buses, and trains alike. In small numbers they are only somewhat unpredictable. When individual motorized transportation is obsoleted by peak oil, they will overtake the streets. En masse, selfish cyclists will rain chaos on the pavement. Success becomes disarray.
Revolutionaries war oppressive power-systems, dreaming of a day when all humans are free. Yet purpose lie not so dormant in the struggle. When the pillars crumble, soldiers on both sides will weep. Success becomes vacancy.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I’m not sure what will happen, I’d rather have bicycle chaos I think! Many say we’ve hit peak oil and what is left will just be harder and harder to extract and process. We have turned that corner, now the situation will get worse and worse. We HAVE peaked, and now we are on the other side.
I think, as I mentioned in the post about cars and the distaste I expressed for the suburbs as a model- that perhaps people will realize that the price is too high to live far away from everything. Maybe people will take a look at sprawl, at poor planning. Maybe people will make other changes, not just in their transportation. But in how they connect their communities.
An example: some schools are building clusters, and bussing students all together to these big multi-grade complexes. Think of that, compared to having four or five bus runs at four or five different times. It’s the kind of direction we need to go in.
Your recent comment was very interesting, by the way, and I would love to talk to you more about some of these topics.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Yeah, I hear you. Our theorizing must bring ideals together with pragmatics. Social structures should be informed by reality, and the problem with current structures is that they are informed by lies (or so postmodernist theory says). Keen observations of reality can offer some insight into practical concerns, such as resource depletion, changing culture, etc. and these concerns inform the application of theory. That is all to say that I agree with you completely. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, suburbanism is unnatural… because suburbs are not remotely self-sufficient… and so they can only exist temporarily.
I am distracted because we are watching Arrested Development, so these thoughts are probably incoherent. But, yes, I would love to talk with you more.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
The minute hip hop became a product to be consumed and created for profit it lost its honest. Commodification in this instance is the root of all evil.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Arrested Development! Wish that was still on!
Very good show.
I agree that it seems unnatural, but then again- so does much of what we do.