Ivan Illich: Energy and Equity
fyi: Ivan Illich on Energy circa '78
here's a link:
http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/ene...and_equity.txt
"As soon as people become tributaries of transport, not just when theytravel for several days, but also on their daily trips, thecontradictions between social justice and motorized power, betweeneffective movement and higher speed, between personal freedom andengineered routing, become poignantly clear. Enforced dependence onauto-mobile machines then denies a community of self-propelled peoplejust those values supposedly procured by improved transportation.People move well on their feet. This primitive means of getting aroundwill, on closer analysis, appear quite effective when compared withthe lot of people in modern cities or on industrialized farms. It willappear particularly attractive once it has been understood that modernAmericans walk, on the average, as many miles as their ancestors-mostof them through tunnels, corridors, parking lots, and stores.People on their feet are more or less equal. People solely dependenton their feet move on the spur of the moment, at three to four milesper hour, in any direction and to any place from which they are notlegally or physically barred. An improvement on this native degree ofmobility by new transport technology should be expected to safeguardthese values and to add some new ones, such as greater range, timeeconomies, comfort, or more opportunities for the disabled. So farthis is not what has happened. Instead, the growth of thetransportation industry has everywhere had the reverse effect. Fromthe moment its machines could put more than a certain horsepowerbehind any one passenger, this industry has reduced equality amongmen, restricted their mobility to a system of industrially definedroutes, and created time scarcity of unprecedented severity. As thespeed of their vehicles crosses a threshold, citizens becometransportation consumers on the daily loop that brings them back totheir home, a circuit which the United States Department of Commercecalls a ``trip'' as opposed to the ``travel'' for which Americansleave home equipped with a toothbrush."
Last edited by AsanaCycles; 05-31-12 at 02:31 AM.