Driving Ourselves Insane
As general anti-automobile sentiment spreads (though, I should note, is still far from dominant in our culture), and as my own convictions grow, it occurs to me to put down in writing what I have been ruminating upon ever since getting behind the wheel so many years ago (and which I think is something that rarely is brought up in discussions of driving). Driving doesn’t represent a merely generically unnatural sort of activity—an out-of-the-ordinary experience which takes some getting used to for certain kinds of people. Rather, I think we can make a bolder claim: driving is an activity in conflict with certain parts of human nature to the point that it inhibits good practical reasoning, and encourages a certain viciousness of the soul—and does both of these things with astonishing frequency.