Do you know, do you comprehend, in the moment, who or what you serve? –Maya Angelou
Consider: Global Warming/Climate Change. It seems clear to me that addressing (remember ‘addressing’ does not equate with ‘solving’) global warming and climate change via putting curbs on CO2 emissions have to do with the ‘Public’ not the ‘Private’ sphere (the focus is on the ‘Public’ more than the ‘Private’ even though there are steps each of us ‘privately’ can take in order to help curb emissions).
I am thinking of the fellow I chatted with a number of years ago. During our conversation about curbing CO2 emissions he became quite animated and said: ‘Sure, I want to lower CO2 emissions, but am I going to wait around for the local bus to take me home at the end of my work day?’ He paused, then smiled wryly and continued: ‘Anyway, they discontinued that bus line.’
Now, as a ‘Consumer’ I have many ‘Private’ consumer choices, but if what I would like to do is take public transportation so that I don’t have to drive (and, by the by, Gentle Reader, public transportation is safer and gets us where we are going faster – in smaller communities the bicycle is faster; just ask the Dutch) a recurring response is: ‘You want to take what?’
One reason that this question surfaces is that for many of us ‘Public Transportation’ does not exist. That ‘Public’ choice was taken off of the table years ago. In our Country we celebrate our freedom when it comes to what type of car we want to purchase, lease or rent. We view ourselves to be ‘free’ if we can obtain a Jeep Liberty (pun intended) BUT… and this is a BIG BUT, we don’t see ourselves as unfree if there’s no public transportation.
The pro-private, anti-public, choice was made in our Country after World War II. Europe and America were not so different up to the war although we (in America) were starting to look different because as a Culture we were firmly rooted in ‘the individual trumps the community’ approach to society. After WWII there was a window of opportunity open to us and we faced the fundamental choice of whether to build a fast interstate rail system and a light-in-city rail system, like Europe’s, or to build an interstate highway system.
During the first term of Eisenhower’s presidency [1953-1961] our Congress was faced with this choice. Their charge, on behalf of the American people, was to choose a path. The decision was not clearly set until the rubber, steel, oil and auto industry lobbies pressured congress (yes, Gentle Reader, even then big money determined big votes by Congress): Congress voted to build an interstate highway system. That decision secured for many decades the positive future of the automobile, rubber, oil, steel, asphalt and cement industries in America. [AN ASIDE: One major unintended consequence is that today we are not able to keep up the road infrastructure we need – keeping up a public transportation infrastructure is cheaper, more efficient and more effective; Europe and Asia have demonstrated this for decades.]
Another immense consequence: the more fundamental and important choice between public and private transportation was taken off of the table and today, efforts to get it back on the table are proving at minimum daunting and at maximum impossible.
There were/are additional major unintended consequences to the decision that Congress made in the early 1950s. Consider two huge consequences. . .
Few are guilty, but all are responsible. –Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel