Those low 2 wheelers make no useful sense whatever to many. Ecological
referance in the current marketplace is lacking at best, amid refining
lifelong searches for transportation solutions in one (or another)
approach; which is questionable, cannot be solved by one bike, one
design, one company, in one country, and so on.
Social scientists have reacted in a number of ways to the existence of
global crises and potential crises. Their responses, of course, have
been consistent with their ideological assumptions, resulting in the
unfortunate avoidance of several possibly productive avenues of
research and speculation.
As an example, one major emphasis within psychology and other fields
has been a growing literature that is in large part an outgrowth of
Hardin's 1968 article on "the tragedy of the commons." Hardin, a
biologist, described a situation in which "rational" individuals
looking out only for their own self-interest will inevitably destroy
what they use in common, so long as they each get the full benefit of
their individual use of the commons but only have to pay a small
percentage of the costs (note the assumptions behind Hardin's
definition of rationality, which comes directly from similar treatments
in the economics literature--e.g., Olson, 1965). Hardin advocated the
public acceptance of stringent controls on the right to have children
and to consume resources, in the belief that people will not
voluntarily cooperate for the good of all in a large global commons. He
later went on to urge the adoption of a "lifeboat ethics" as a means of
ensuring human survival in an overpopulated world (Hardin, 1972; Hardin
& Baden, 1977).
Hardin's thesis has been echoed by many who have accepted his
assumption of scarcity, his profit-maximization view of human nature,
and his call for a stronger, more coercive, centralized state capable
of saving the commons. Heilbroner (1980), for example, wrote that "as I
examine the prospect ahead, I not only predict but I prescribe a
centralization of power as the only means by which our threatened and
dangerous civilization will make way for its successor". True,
Heilbroner indicated a measure of discomfort with his prescription, and
with his view that survival depends on our "susceptibility to appeals
to national identity" and our "willingness to accept authority", but he
saw little hope of any alternative.
Research in social psychology has focused on prisoner's dilemma games,
market simulations, bystander intervention, and related areas in an
attempt to identify the conditions under which the tragedy comes into
play. Researchers often agree, explicitly or implicitly, with the
conclusions of Hardin and Heilbroner: In our modern, technological,
complicated world, a tragedy of monumental scope is inevitable unless
we resort to increased centralized governmental power (see the
examination of this view by Orbell & Dawes, 1981, as well as the review
by Stroebe & Frey, 1982). This seemingly obvious centralist conclusion,
however, is convincing largely because it has what A. Roberts (1979)
called "the advantage of simplicity" (p. 159), an advantage that leads
to the "largely uncritical acceptance of...false assumptions" and to "a
search for salvation along paths which all unwittingly lead to
destruction. We might call it 'the tragedy of "The Tragedy of the
Commons"'" ; so then, of what importance is a NoCom really??? It still
flops over without unclipping, not to mention truly throwing off "even"
balance by geometrically throwing off weight tolerances with a rack,
pannier, fairing, etc.
Chris Jordan
Santa Cruz, CA.
