America and the Automobile: Technology, Reform, and Social Change.

Marling, Karal Ann; Ling, Peter J.

doi:10.2307/2163431

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, with the political economy of globalization becoming an emerging area of liberal concern, one could well imagine them getting folded deep into liberal theory (Beitz, 1999;Caney, 2002). 7 An important exception is Peter Ling's impressive cultural history of automobility in the early part of the twentieth century, which brings to light the conditions of formation of the consumerdriver subject (Ling, 1990). 8 In this section I draw on a number of media reports, Gooding-Williams (1993) and my own interpretation as a native informant.…”

Section: Liberal Justice In the Automobilized Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Automobility and the Liberal Disposition

Rajan¹

2006

The Sociological Review

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The private car and the public freeway together provide an ideal -not to say idealized -version of democratic urban transportation . . . The watchful tolerance and almost impeccable lane discipline of . . . drivers on the freeways is often noted, but not the fact that both are symptoms of something deeper -willing acquiescence in an incredibly demanding man/machine system . . . It demands, first of all, an open but decisive attitude to the placing of the car on the road surface [and] a constant stream of decisions that [could be regarded as] a higher form of pragmatism. (Banham, 1971) Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself. (Tocqueville et al., 1966: 477) In the West, by and large, we are all liberals now. Instead of ignoring or affecting to deplore this, we should be recognizing and reaffirming it. Or else, you never know, it might one day no longer be true. (Economist, 1996) Automobility, or the entire gamut of practices that foster car culture, qualifies both as product and producer of modernity. Its constitutive visual image is one of dignified convoys of individual cars, vehicles whose solitary drivers can remain separated from each other as they collectively pursue private goals on public highways. As such, this picture captures the salient features of cars in a post-Enlightenment order: the experience of driving, identified by the quiet pleasures of the open road, speed, power and personal control, neatly complements the functionality of covering distance, managing time and maintaining certain forms of individuation. One might thus portray an ontology of automobility that reinforces its teleology; together, they establish characteristically that which is modern and, by definition, permanently desirable.Although surprisingly few liberals would boast about it, automobility is not only well attuned to the demands of late modernity, it is also perhaps the most important modern development that could fulfil the unremitting liberal demand for individual autonomy. The single consistent theme running through liberal political theory is the ideal of a free person whose actions are her own. 1 Automobility, on its part, has become the (literally) concrete articulation of liberal

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Section: Liberal Justice In the Automobilized Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Automobility and the Liberal Disposition

Rajan¹

2006

The Sociological Review

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“…Several writers, including Antonio Gramsci (1971), David J. St Clair (1986), Peter J. Ling (1990), and James Howard Kunstler (1993) have stressed the importance of Fordism in shaping the geographical, ideological, and economic landscape of America. At the heart of the writing of all these theorists is an examination, and at times a strong advocation, of the thesis that the automobile has had a major impact on the emergence of America as a global superpower.…”

Section: From Baron To Barrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Literal Connection: Images of Mass Commodification, US Militarism, and the Oil Industry, in The Big Lebowski

Martin‐Jones

2006

The Sociological Review

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“…For a selection of arguments within these debates, see Burnham (1990); Holloway (1995); Clarke (1991); Jessop (1990). 27 On the importance of the car industry both in generally accelerating rates of accumulation, and in the transformations collectively known as Fordism, see for example Rupert (1995); Gartman (1994); Ling (1990); Rae (1971); Mantle (1995); Ross (1995: 15-21); Wolf (1996); Overy (1990). The car industry is just one example, but a particularly important one in relation to the emergence of mass production, of industries whose development was predicated on the abundance of cheap supplies of oil.…”

Section: No T E Smentioning

confidence: 99%