And the desire for recreation. The explosion of cars isn't necessarily that cars are so useful. Certainly they did have utility. But really they were kind of liberating. In the late 19th century, nobody ever heard of a vacation
We can see examples of other places where railways were the "liberating" technology that allowed people to go on holiday. For example:
Up to about forty or fifty years ago travelling was a solemn act, not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly,’ so writes the Belfast News-Letter in September 1888. But all of this had changed; from the inception of the railways ‘day excursions’ had become ‘entirely modern pleasures,’ the British seaside and countryside opened up to visitors who could travel there easily by train.
The "cars are liberating, what a shame they destroy the wild place I went to meditate in" schtick seems like a deep-seated cultural echo of all the automobile advertising that has been consumed for about a century.
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I suspect it is a bit misleading to claim:
And the desire for recreation. The explosion of cars isn't necessarily that cars are so useful. Certainly they did have utility. But really they were kind of liberating. In the late 19th century, nobody ever heard of a vacation
We can see examples of other places where railways were the "liberating" technology that allowed people to go on holiday. For example:
Up to about forty or fifty years ago travelling was a solemn act, not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly,’ so writes the Belfast News-Letter in September 1888. But all of this had changed; from the inception of the railways ‘day excursions’ had become ‘entirely modern pleasures,’ the British seaside and countryside opened up to visitors who could travel there easily by train.
https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2021/08/12/how-th...
The "cars are liberating, what a shame they destroy the wild place I went to meditate in" schtick seems like a deep-seated cultural echo of all the automobile advertising that has been consumed for about a century.