[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] PLUG meeting

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Carla Schroder wrote:
> Your callous dismissal of real concerns and experiences discussed by
> the people on this thread is astonishing.

I think the threat is more perceived than real.  My experience is
completely orthogonal to yours.  They cannot both be real.

And since I am safe and alive and neither I nor any of my MANY transit
using friends have been the victim of the crimes you fear, I have to
believe that your perception is mistaken.

> I should be OK with being mugged and threatened because other people
> suffer worse?

No, but you should suffer the small indignities and inconveniences of
public interaction to help prevent further persecution and slaughter of
tens of thousands worldwide that suffer for your convenience.

Those other people wouldn't have to suffer worse if you could muster a
little intestinal fortitude.

> it's OK because I'm just a fat dumb happy American who needs to
> suffer? Oh gawd, and I'm white.

I think being a fat, dumb, happy, white American makes you feel threatened
when you're surrounded by lean, angry, dark-skinned Americans.

> Kill me now for the crime of being born.

I don't have that right.

> > Really, Carla, I feel like you're describing a completely different world
> > to the one in which I live.  The busses I ride are clean and I've never
> > once witnessed a direct act of theft or violence.
> 
> Now I'm calling you a fibber. Unless the only bus you ride travels
> only inside Lake Oswego.

I'm not fibbing.  I live in NE Portland.  The busses I ride travel
straight through the ghetto, through downtown, and out across the far side
(the 8, the 4, etc.).  I ride the bus and the train pretty much every day,
usually with my bicycle.  I've never seen theft or violence on any of
those trips.

I would also say that it's (far) less than once a month that I encounter a
person so unpleasant that I cannot avoid their unpleasantness without
getting off the bus.

> And even there them soccer moms can get savage.

The soccer moms all have SUVs to protect their precious spawn and kill
anything that gets in their way.

> > > I have a good laugh over the acceptance of pollution from buses and
> > > the Max.
> >
> > Pollution is the TINIEST part of the problem. 
> 
> Then why your comment about more people dying from air pollution? They
> don't count? What about runoff, that gets into soil and water?  
> Pollution is a major problem. I want clean air to breathe, not this
> brown soup we have now.

They all COUNT, but it's just PART of the problem.  Isn't it possible that
it's a tiny part of the problem, but still HUGE in and of itself?

I want clean air, too.  But more than cleaner air, I want a civil society.  
And I personally think clean air would be a side-effect of civil society.  
When people respect each other, they realize the interdependence of all
things and learn to respect everything.

> > This isn't about ecology,
> > it's about community, society, and psychology.  This is about putting
> > aside selfishness and egomaniacal, convenience-oriented lifestyles and
> > taking your place in your community and making the systems what you want
> > them to be.
> 
> There you go with your insane assumptions again. Where did you get the
> idea that people who drive are not part of a community, and don't work
> to improve it?

Actually, my comment was that car-culture destroys community.  Drivers may
be part of A community, but it's a self-defining community.  It's a
community of people with whom they choose to belong.

Driving destroys communities by isolating families from their neighbors
(and, in some cases, one another).  Driving destroys communities by
expanding the realm of "reasonable" travel for individuals, thus
decreasing the need to improve one's immediate surroundings.  Driving
destroys communities by dissociating actions from their true costs, thus
making it hard for people to understand the external effects of their
actions all around.  I could explain each of those in detail and there are
dozens more.

> Where do you get off calling people who live differently than you
> egomaniacal and selfish?

Well, I don't know how to answer that question.  I don't get off anywhere
when I do that.

But I think you mean to imply that I don't have the right to make those
kinds of value judgments and I reject that idea out of hand.  I have every
right to judge anything to the best of my ability.  But I believe that if
I make my judgments public and act publicly based on those judgments I
should be able to stand up to public scrutiny.  That's the whole point of
this discussion.

I will say that driving a private motor vehicle is egomaniacal and selfish
because it is destroys things that are not within the right of the motor
vehicle operator to destroy, including, but not limited to, air quality
and the safety of our public streets.

> Right when I think I might find some points of agreement with you, you
> come out with this weird critical judgmental shit, and I think to hell
> with you, buddy.

Critical judgment is how we analyze things and make decisions.  Critical
judgment is how we differentiate "good" from "bad".

> > Tri-Met does its very best to purchase and use new hybrid and natural gas
> > powered vehicles and keep its busses well-maintained.
> 
> No they don't. I can see clouds of black smoke with my own old eyes.
> Tri-Met has many flaws. which is not a reason to not use transit, just
> a statement of fact.

Some of the older busses sure do spew the black smoke.  As a cyclist, I'm
probably more intimately familiar with it than you are.  But we do have a
rising percentage of better quality busses in the system.  Perhaps the
less used routes get the grimier busses.  The routes I ride regularly are
among the busiest in the system.

> > The goal is to get cars off the road.  Period.  Cars kill people, the
> > environment, and community.  Cars create sprawl.  Busses (more
> > importantly, bus routes) shape cities and (attempt to) reduce
> > sprawl.  Public facilities give people a common way to share the
> > responsibility and capability of shaping their world for the benefit of
> > everyone.
> >
> > Real life is as close to your dreams as you'd like it to be.  Ideals exist
> > to give us a model and a goal and a reason for working hard to change the
> > world around us.  There is no end.
> 
> I don't believe you care about real people at all, but some weird
> idealized fantasy people. Here are real people right here on this
> list, and you shoot down every legitimate concern and experience we
> bring up with twisty arguments and critical judgments. You may love
> humanity in the abstract, but you sure don't have much use for
> individual humans.

I definitely see your criticism and understand how you feel that way.  I
don't always express myself in terms that show my care and understanding
for other people's points of view.  Believe me when I write that this has
caused many problems in my professional and personal life.

But also please try to believe me when I write that I do care and I am
interested in these concerns and experiences you share.  I just treat
discussions of this nature in the purely abstract and while I do consider
and care about the information I'm given, I can forget that other people
are taking things as personal insults.  In short, I don't take ego into
account.

I only recently learned that some people are hurt when they are told they
are wrong and doubly so when they are shown they are wrong with a
reasonable argument.  As for me, I think of criticism, judgment, and
opinion as abstract parts of a big puzzle that is the Rules of Conduct (or
somesuch) and a good argument against my belief just means I have to
change a rule or two to fit with the new information.  Some people take
their beliefs more personally and I need to be more sensitive to that.

Everything that you are right about today will be proven wrong in some
tomorrow.

But I just keep thinking about that line in the R.E.M. song "It's The End
Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" that goes "offer me
solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline".

J.
-- 
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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