SUVs and Crossovers: Material Expression of Societal Regression
Societies and civilisations are in constant development and one would hope for the better¹. On a personal level, for the past decades I have been observing a positively perceived evolution in many ways which can be summarised in a list of words marking the current state:
- mindfulness, thoughtfulness, tolerance, inclusiveness, kindness, humbleness, modesty, etc. all on a human level, and
- respect for nature, recognising the environment as the foundation of our existence, energy efficiency and sustainability.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals capture this new mindset very well. However, despite this very welcome trend, the evolution of cars seem to be going the opposite way, towards larger, heavier and bulkier versions, aka SUVs or Crossovers. This development is inconsistent with the aforementioned evolution of the common mindset; it is rather the expression of a regression in the value system. For instance, where there is a version of the car that is driven by the aforementioned values, there is quite often an SUV version, too, as shown for a Peugeot 5008 below.
While the family edition is guided by practicality and expresses modesty, the SUV version appears to be the materialisation of the opposite of both the modern mindset and the sustainability goals:
- it projects detrimental values: self-importance, self-elevation, bully mindset, get-out-of-my-way attitude, hubris, vanity, division;
- has a larger environmental footprint: heavier, consuming more natural resources, more energy and more space.
These SUV style cars appear to me like an aberration of an industry; they remind of the spaceship-like cars of the 1950ies. Expressing a more primitive mindset they represent a regression in the evolution of mankind. Are these hypertrophic vehicles a backlash to the evolution of mankind, or merely an expression of latent instincts suppressed by the modern mindset? Wouldn’t a vehicle reflecting the modern mindset be as small as it can be, expressing modesty, and be possibly shared?
Footnotes
- When it comes to defining what is better, some metric is needed, backed up by data. In statistical terms, things are actually getting better, like described by the late mathematician Hans Rosling in talks such as Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes — The Joy of Stats. There is lots of evidence for these claims, e.g. with regards to child mortality, poverty or natural resource consumption.
Defining what is “better” for, or in a value system is a difficult task as the definition would have to be articulated in a language which already carries an implicit value system. Nevertheless, my impression is that mankind does evolve, in every cycle of civilisation and from one cycle to another. Spiral Dynamics proposes a model that sounds sensible to me, but I am certain that others or even “better” ones exist.
