#619: What Driving Tells Us About Agency, Skill, and Freedom

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2020

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

According to Silicon Valley, self-driving cars are the future of transportation. Instead of owning and driving a car, you can just summon an AI-operated vehicle with your smartphone and have this superpowered computer taxi you to your destination. No more car maintenance, no more traffic, no more accidents. It may sound great on the face of it, but my guest today argues that shifting from being a driver to being a mere passenger represents an existential risk in and of itself, as well as a symbol for the potential loss of much broader human values. His name is Matthew Crawford and he's a philosopher, mechanic, and hot rodder, as well as the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft. In his latest book, Why We Drive: Towards a Philosophy of the Open Road, Matthew investigates the driver’s seat as one of the few remaining domains of skill, exploration, play, and freedom. Matthew and I begin our conversation discussing how freely moving around in our environment is a big part of what makes us human and then explore how shifting from being the drivers of our own cars to the passengers of self-driving cars could result in a loss of that humanity by eliminating agency, privacy, and proficiency. As our wide-ranging conversational road trip continues, Matthew and I take detours into what things like hot rodding and demolition derbies can tell us about mastery, play, and competition. We end our conversation on what driving ultimately has to do with the overarching idea of self-governance. Get the show notes at aom.is/whywedrive.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
0:11.1	Courtney and Silicon Valley self-driving cars are the future of transportation.
0:14.7	Instead of owning and driving a car, you just summon an AI operator vehicle with your
0:18.4	smartphone and have this super powered computer tax you to your destination.
0:22.1	No more car maintenance, no more traffic, no more accidents.
0:24.8	It may sound great on the face of it, but my guests they argue that shifting from being
0:28.3	a driver to just being a mere passenger represents an existential risk in and of
0:32.4	itself as well as a symbol for the potential loss of much broader human values.
0:36.3	Same as Matthew Crawford, he's a philosopher, mechanic, and hot rider,
0:39.5	as well as the author of shopclasses Soulcraft.
0:41.6	In his latest book, Why We Drive Towards a Philosophy of the Open Road,
0:45.2	Matthew investigates the driver's seat as one of the few remaining domains of
0:48.5	skill, exploration, play, and freedom. Matthew and I begin our conversation
0:52.5	discussing how freely moving around in our environment is a big part of what
0:55.7	makes us human and then explore how shipping from being the drivers of our own
0:59.0	cars to the passengers of self-driving cars could result in a loss of that
1:02.3	humanity by eliminating agency, privacy, and proficiency.
1:06.0	As our wide-ranging conversational road trip continues, Matthew and I take
1:09.3	detours into what things like hot rotting and demolition derbies can
1:12.0	tell us about mastery, played competition, and we end our conversation on what
1:15.4	driving ultimately has to do with the overarching idea of self-governance.
1:19.7	After the show's over, check out our show notes at aam.ias-why-we-drive.
	...

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