🚀 go-pugleaf

As seen from la.general, on
Wed, 05 Jan 2000 14:04:40 -0800, John Higdon <no-spam@gotmoo.com> wrote:

>in article 3873B986.30B3@thetruth.net, mulders_notpair_noidnuff  wrote:
>
>> After yet another run-in with ANOTHER asshole driving an SUV, it makes
>> one wonder: is it that assholes buy SUVs or is it that the SUV turns
>> those that drive them into assholes?
>
>An non-insignificant portion of "SUV-attitude" results from people who
>expect SUV drivers to have attitude. People find what they are looking for.

    Oh, I dunno..  Sometimes that's true, but sometimes recognizable
    patterns do emerge in a series of similar experiences.  To me a car
    was just a car until I began to recognize what I termed "Beemer
    (BMW) attitude" several years ago.  I realized that I was seeing the
    results of an incredibly successful snob appeal ad campain that
    turned a small car (if you've ever seen an early BMW) made by a
    manufacturer better known for their motorcycles into =the= status
    symbol of the 80's and 90's, a campaign that exhorted people to
    (among other things) "Emerge from the freeway victorious, not
    victimized."

    When I was studying sociology and psychology in school 20 years ago,
    there was already a solid body of evidence from experimental
    research that people are more willing to harm others if they're
    anonymous, ie. unknown to those they injure.  At least one popular
    psychologist has observed that being isolated in separate vehicles
    creates a high degree of anonymity, which fosters this phenomenon
    (and people do heap insult on each other while driving in ways that
    they'd never dare to do face to face).  Add to that the need many
    people have to feel that they're at least better than =someone=
    (often accompanied by the need to demonstrate it), and it should
    come as no surprise that at least some people will decide that
    they've earned the right to be cavalier to everyone else.  Of
    course, it's when two of these bang their hard heads together that
    you have yet another "accident."

-- 
jhurwit@netcom.com                                       Jeffrey Hurwit
         "Sometimes, I just can't help myself!"  --Babs Bunny