A bunch of Geeks are against SUV's

[Ripsnort]

I laughed like hell reading this.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002940

The Scarlet SUV
Who's against sport-utility vehicles? A bunch of geeks.

BY DAVID BROOKS
Tuesday, January 21, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
I don't own an SUV, but now that they've been identified as the locus of evil,
I'm thinking of getting one. And if I do, I figure I might as well let the inner
wolf out for a rampage and get the most obnoxious SUV I can find.

My SUV, assuming Hummer comes out with a model for those who find the current
ones too cramped, will look something like the Louisiana Superdome on wheels.
It'll guzzle so much gas as I walk out to my driveway there will be squads of
Saudi princes gaping and applauding. It'll come, when I buy it, with little
Hondas and Mazdas already embedded in the front grillwork. Inside I'll install
video screens so that impressionable youngsters can play Grand Theft Auto on the
way to weekly NRA meetings. And there will be room in the back for tobacco
lobbyists nibbling on french fries and endangered prawns.

Please understand that I don't want to do this, but the campaign against the SUV
is so fevered that I find myself being propelled in an equal and opposite
direction. Princeton's Peter Singer, the most mysteriously prestigious thinker
in America, wrote an essay in which he helpfully pointed out that SUV drivers
kill far more people than the Sept. 11 hijackers. Arianna Huffington, leading
those who have kitchens the size of Texas on a crusade against people who have
cars the size of Colorado, has also compared SUV drivers to terrorists.

The main charge is that people who drive sport "utes" are moral savages. SUV
drivers "tend to be people who are insecure and vain" not to mention
"self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities," writes
Keith Bradsher in his book, "High and Mighty: SUVs--The World's Most Dangerous
Vehicles and How They Got That Way." Thoughtful people are usually skeptical
about broad generalizations about people's souls on the basis of what car they
drive. But the pot of revivalism is aboil. The moral fervor that was in past
epochs fixated on witchcraft, whiskey, fur coats, cigarettes and child-abuse
rings is now etching SUV in scarlet letters. How to explain this fervor, which
has risen to the level of a liberal fatwa?

First, remember this is largely a civil war within the educated class. Nobody
seems to assault pickup-truck drivers, even though some of the newer pickups
look like wheeled aircraft carriers and their beds are surprisingly unscuffed.
Nobody picks on minivans, though the Dodge Grand Caravan ES gets only 6 miles
more per gallon than the Dodge Durango SUV. Remember also that, as Van Wyck
Brooks, Santayana and others have observed, there have always been two educated
classes. On the one hand, there's the genteel elite, which lives in a world of
literature, ideas, refinement and modesty. On the other, there's the aristocracy
of commerce, people who thrive through self-assertion, competitiveness, daring
and magnetism. To put it in modern terms, there are geeks and jocks.
 
This anti-SUV fervor strikes me as a classic geek assault on jock culture. Here
are the geeks: thoughtful, socially and environmentally conscious. They
understand that only spiritually shallow people could possibly get pleasure from
a motor vehicle. Then there are those jocks. They cruise through life
infuriatingly unaware of how morally inferior they are to the geeks. They make
money, become popular, play golf and have homes that are too large. And they're
happy! For all the wrong reasons! And so every few years the geeks pick on some
feature of jock life (McMansions, corporations, fraternities, country clubs) and
get all worked up about it. And you know what? The jocks don't care! They just
keep being happy. The geeks write, protest and fume. The jocks go to St. Croix.

So the anti-SUV crusade is part of a pattern, but there's also a more worrisome
element. In centuries past, the armies of righteousness tended to at least fret
about things that really matter: character, virtue, innocence, sin and
depravity. These days moral energies are directed at health, safety and risk.
Narcissism, dishonesty and promiscuity are regarded as mere lifestyle choices.
But driving a car with trunk space is a sin worse than seven of the Ten
Commandments. This is defining righteousness down.

If we're going to have moral fervors--and though they're insufferable, they're
overall a positive feature of life--then let's at least have them about things
that really matter. And let's resist the do-gooders' temptation to see
everything fun as morally suspect. The anti-SUV brigades like to point out that
most owners never actually take them off-road. Imagine what environmentalists
would say if they did!

Buying an SUV is partly an act of fantasy. It's a way to connect imaginatively
with a more inspiring life than the one you actually lead. Like every muscle car
before it, SUVs are big, dangerous and superfluous, but they're also poetry made
of metal. They're symptoms of a latent spiritedness, even in a sedate suburban
world. There's nothing wrong with having a little poetry in your life. Surely
the geeks can see that?

Mr. Brooks, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, is author of "Bobos in
Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There" (Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[nuchpatrick]

Yeah Rip..it's been a hot topic in the AOL: Autos Chat Forum...  bunch of tree huggers..

If I want a SUV I'll buy one...

[hawk220]

terrorists thank you for the support

[bounder]

Originally posted by nuchpatrick
Yeah Rip..it's been a hot topic in the AOL: Autos Chat Forum...  bunch of tree huggers..

If I want a SUV I'll buy one...

And If I want a SUV then I'll go and see a Psychiatrist cos
I obviously need to resolve some issues about vulnerability and feelings of insignificance.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by bounder
And If I want a SUV then I'll go and see a Psychiatrist cos
I obviously need to resolve some issues about vulnerability and feelings of insignificance.

Here
                                 are the geeks: thoughtful, socially and environmentally conscious. They
                                 understand that only spiritually shallow people could possibly get pleasure from
                                 a motor vehicle. Then there are those jocks. They cruise through life
                                 infuriatingly unaware of how morally inferior they are to the geeks. They make
                                 money, become popular, play golf and have homes that are too large. And they're
                                 happy! For all the wrong reasons! And so every few years the geeks pick on some
                                 feature of jock life (McMansions, corporations, fraternities, country clubs) and
                                 get all worked up about it. And you know what? The jocks don't care! They just
                                 keep being happy. The geeks write, protest and fume. The jocks go to St. Croix.

[/b]

[Kanth]

I bought a 4 wheel drive jeep after sliding my mustang down a very steep private partially paved residential hill with my mom in the car.

We ended up in a woodpile after driving over a chunk of wet clay trying to get up the hill.

The tow truck driver couldn't get his truck down the hill and he said he sure as hell couldn't tow my car up it.

He owned the same type of car so he got a running start and got up to the clay area where he too lost traction and almost went over the cliff on the rhand side...but the momentum he had was just enough to get him crawling up the top side of the clay.

The convertible mustang was great in california for getting around in traffic and such and was nice to drive in on sunny days with the top down but out here with residences on the penninsula not having paved roads or well kept roads, it's all about safety for me.

plenty of room for groceries and christmas tree and stuff too in the jeep

We sent the tow truck driver a gift basket and thank you card, tow truck drivers rock

[bounder]

don't get me wrong. I'm not "against SUVs". It's just if I wanted to buy one, I'd need my head examined cos I got nowhere to park it or drive it apart from the Supermarket.

I don't think you need to be spiritually shallow to get pleasure from a motor vehicle.

I think you need a giant butt-plug and a long drive down a rutted track to get pleasure from a motor vehicle.

Or am I wrong?

[Saurdaukar]

Originally posted by bounder


I think you need a giant butt-plug and a long drive down a rutted track to get pleasure from a motor vehicle.

Or am I wrong?

Youre wrong.  How you get "pleasure" from an SUV is beyond me as I dont do any offroading, and I dont see SUV's as any sort of "in" hot vehicle.  

Look at the sports car market... are we buying these cars because they fill some practical need?  Nope.  

I dunno - the SUV thing I dont understand... but I'd trade the girlfriend in on more than one of Stuttgart's finest and a lap around the 'Ring... so for me - yes - cars give "pleasure."  

[Thrawn]

http://www.changingtheclimate.com/

[Ping]

I drive a 1976 Chev 4X4 5/4 ton, Former CDN Mil pickup and I fall asleep quite nicely at night Thanx
Yep a nice 350 cu inch to pump out those nasty emmisions.

Course it helps that I do work with it in my line of work.

[Ripsnort]

Thrawn defines geek.

[GtoRA2]

I hope those jerk offs get put in jail for vandalizing peoples cars.

WHO THE HELL DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE!?

[Frogm4n]

bigger the car smaller the noodle. its all about the noodle.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Frogm4n
bigger the car smaller the noodle. its all about the noodle.

So, Al Gore has a small noodle? (Drives a Chevy Suburban)

[bounder]

Al Gore has a noodle?

I thought Tipper had the noodle in that partnership.
She certainly knows dick.