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Dinosaurs
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Fossilosophy
by Lee Henderson
Technology
isn't just hardware inventory. It includes skills, tales and social
complexities. Tools transform the human users' culture. In the taming,
the tamer in return is tamed. In the beginning, fire was tamed and fire
sprang up in the human mind and in human language. Cattle and wheat were
tamed and soon classical civilization flourished. Now we have tamed fossil
energy and once again we are enthralled and reinvented by the new power
we have domesticated. Fossilosophy is how I describe the cultural ramifications
of fossil fuel transportation. This culture has changed over time, with
the coal-burning locomotive period of public transport, then the 20th
century gasoline-burning age of the automobile and extreme individualism,
and finally the post-fossil-burning age. The car culture of the middle
period has complex economic, interpersonal and ideological aspects of
which I will remind you before we park the fossil burners forever.
In motoring societies like ours, transportation culture shapes community
life. Compare a pedestrian neighbourhood with local independent businesses
and neighbourly social relations to a car-dependent sprawl of parking
lots and malls with multinational chain stores and drive-through services.
Car culture feeds a consumer global economy in which basic resources like
water and minerals are transported long distances and where tensions between
oil-producing and oil-consuming nations stoke wars of terrorism and anti-terrorism.
Mobility has changed relationships by making it easy to escape from home,
indirectly encouraging smaller families and increasing the emphasis on
the individual, rather than the solidarity of the family or the village.
Car culture also builds barriers between generations. In the mid-twentieth
century "teen" culture and identity developed a hot rod attitude.
Late night street races still function as a generation divider.
Cars are central to the system of values and shared perceptions in society.
the driver of a shiny new machine draws a certain attention. Cars mark
the gap between the middle class and the unemployed. The contemporary
oral literary form called urban legends often feature cars, like the tale
of the axe murderer hidden in the back seat. Autos are implicit in the
obsession with social control that has developed since the mid 1980's;
video surveillance, increased police budgets and full jails are responses
to middle class fears of crime based on experiences of cars stolen or
vandalized. Mass media are very important promoters and elaborators of
car culture. Ads proclaim a few real and many fantasy advantages of their
models and news reporting and entertainment media also add to car culture
by reinforcing popular beliefs and perceptions.
In a time of transition to the post-fossil age, we work with the Dinos
Against Fossil Fuels to shift values and perceptions. The dinosaur
riding a bike is an inversion of the image of the fossil-powered vehicle.
Its message "Extinction Stinks!" is a strong but subtle deconstruction
of fossil fuel culture and its connection to global warming. We help the
fossils speak out "Stop throttling the future by burning the past!!"
