• Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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    9 months ago

    Your still viewing things from a motor normative lense with statements like I need to drive to get to work and I need to park my car. This sort of thinking naturalizes things that are actually part of a system that can change if we decide to. We can collectively decide to ban cars and humanity could continue to thrive, there’s nothing necessary about cars. They may be personally necessary in the current system, but the system itself isn’t, and this is critiquing the system not individual decisions.

    The point of critical theory like this is to look at things we take for granted or think are necessary, show that they actually aren’t natural or necessary, and expose some of the problems we ignore because we think the problem is required to live.

    You have to step outside the system and look at it like you don’t come from car centric culture and with the knowledge that it’s a choice and not necessary. From that point of view questions like why is it ok to spew toxic fumes in a populated area? Makes sense since you know the system is a societal choice, not just the way things have to be.

    With that knowledge you can try and change the system. That doesn’t mean never driving, because it may be necessary to live, but driving less and taking public transit when you can and advocating and supporting public transit and biking infrastructure over car infrastructure.

    • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      You seem to have no idea that there are places with zero options aside from cars right now. I live in such a place. You criticized the statement “I need to drive my car and I need to park it.” I do advocate for better but there are no legitimate qualifiers to that statement. I still need to. Period.

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        9 months ago

        You seemed to have missed the part where I said

        They may be personally necessary in the current system, but the system itself isn’t necessary, and this is critiquing the system.

        You may need to drive because the system forces you to do so to live. But that system that forces you to drive isn’t necessary and we can work to change it. If you are working to change that than good. If you dismiss problems with the current system by naturalizing it with unqualified statements like “I need to …” Then that’s a problem, you should instead say “I’m forced to…”

        Like if the government is restricting your speech statements like “I need to not criticize the government” makes that seem unchangeable and just the way things are, if you say " I’m forced to not criticize the government" or qualify it with “I need to not criticize the government because it’s repressive” then that shows there’s nothing natural about it and that some system is preventing you from doing something, not nature. Then you can recognize the system can change and work towards changing the system, instead of accepting it and moving on.

        • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Not if you can’t afford to move. And other people would still live there even if you could. So I’m just advocating and it’s slowly working.