Hankalong
High speed, in fact, is inhuman, and it's the dehumanising element in driving that's going to maim Us all in time.' We all knew, before the PsYchologists told us, that a car is a potency sYmbol; and also that the act of driving is a soporific. This is why so many of us resent the idea of stopping, for food or cigarettes or even for petrol. Undisturbed emotion is a drug, and to interrupt it is to be awakened into puny reality. I have an additional theory, however, which is that in adopting the motor-car we have reversed the evolutionary process, Why did the dinosaurs die out? Because they couldn't speak. If one dinosaur accidentally nudged another dinosaur On the way to the water-hole, it might well have wanted to say 'sorry, mate,' but all that came out was a honk. The second dinosaur figured that a honk was an aggressive display and honked back. After a brief exchange of honks, they fell on each other in rage and terror and pretty soon there were no dinosaurs left. We cured that. We dis- covered the Word. I know that words can be lies, but it's the word that reveals us to one another as individuals who are worth cherishing. First the word, then human relations. So now we have , wrapped ourselves in tin-wear and regressed to the honk. In a crisis, you can sound your horn with the most pacific intentions you 'like, but the Other tin dinosaur is going to hear it as a threat. TO him, You are not another human being, but another ton of lethal tin. You therefore keep on honking, all the way to a blind corner, and become extinct. I am telling you, we are finished unless we can invent cars that speak words. Beginning with, 'sorry, mate.'
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