I don’t like writing book reviews. Instead, I prefer to think aloud about a handful of interesting questions that a book raises. This essay was inspired by Tools for Conviviality, by Ivan Illich.
We can understand something of a society’s values by the way it stratifies its social classes. Our traditional image of wealth is one of conspicuous material possession and display. “Possession” is important, because not all societies possess in the same ways. That, too, implies a value. Imagine the archetype of a rich person. They probably own land, and on that land maintain large, expensive buildings. Their wardrobe is extensive, and equally fine. If there’s a creature comfort, or a toy, they have more than one copy. We may even see precious metals and jewels, exquisite livestock, a large serving staff, and the most beautiful appearance that can be conjured from the raw body given the treatments of the day.
Conspicuous wealth is still popular, but compared to a few centuries ago, or less in some cases, it’s falling out of favor. Sure, there are still people showing off their cribs on TV, their surgeries at philanthropic events, their lifestyles on social media. That said, in 2022 most westerners find it somewhat distasteful for a person to overtly lord their class over the less-fortunate. Even if the display manages the signal, they wouldn’t dare suggest, “I’m better than you.”
Nevertheless, the signs remain. According to Ivan Illich:
“Speed is one of the means by which an efficiency-oriented society is stratified.”
We erroneously jump to the wealthiest in the world when we think of class displays. The outward differences between the regular rich and the working class poor, for example, seem trivial compared to a few centuries ago. However, there are many strata, many gradations within those strata. People often dismiss the notion that they are upper-middle class, or even upper class, and I think most of them truly believe it, at least consciously. But the reduced interest in material display doesn’t mean we’re more equal. It marks a change in values. We care less for showing our hoards than for our consumption. The shift to a machine age brings to the forefront a value our feudal ancestors hardly considered: efficiency.
The middle classes need no gold. They have conspicuous travel. Consult any good dating profile, and you’ll find that “traveling” is now a hobby rather than a means. It’s obvious that a higher frequency of travel costs more, and thus demonstrates disposable wealth. Less so is the speed of travel.
Going faster costs more. Any peasant can shuffle along at 3 mph. If he has an old plowhorse, we can add a few more, but someone with enough to buy a thoroughbred outpaces him. A rusty bike is good, but an ebike is better. A jalopy can do 60, but a sports car can double it. On water, the speedboat beats the rowboat. Is there any advantage to arriving on one or the other of these, besides the shorter trip and the admiring crowd?
Even mass transit stratifies, Illich points out. A bus is slower than a train, which is slower than a plane. If we both buy a ticket on the train or the plane, the wealthy signal their status by paying a higher fare for the same speed.
We also pay for speed beyond transport. Those of us who grew up with the first discordant notes of a dial-up connection groaning to life recall the joyful day our parents finally splurged on DSL. We use those fast connections to buy a lot of the things we used to spend precious time going to the store to acquire. The truly elite have them expedited to their doors in two days with an Amazon Prime membership.
The Bounty of Efficiency
Many of our modern western values owe their lofty position to machines. Above all, machines are more efficient. The ideal worker is tireless, wastes no time, and is easily replaced by another should she decides her wage is insufficient, or that she prefers to see her children for more than three waking hours per day. And who doesn’t love efficient travel when we consider the alternative? I’d be lying if I said I preferred to walk for four hours to reach a place that I can drive in twelve minutes—and then return home.
Travel in the past wasn’t only a time-consuming affair. The modes available were for the hardy. Grandma had a habit of dying in transit. Now, she’s more likely to be the one who lives in some remote place no one wants to visit.
It saves time. There’s another statement I’d love to unpack in a few thousand words. Why is it that we commodify an abstract mode of perception as if it were fiat money? We can’t accumulate more of it. If anything, time is the equalizer. Everyone has only so much, and will exit this mortal coil regardless of their personal wealth. So we conceptualize a way in which the more fortunate can hoard more of it, then “invest” it more wisely, due to their financial means.
What we really mean is we can skip the boring parts and spend our finite time doing things that are more fun or meaningful. Our aim is the removal of the middle. Rather than the rocky gradations of the journey, with all its nuance and tribulation, we travel directly from A to B—do not pass go, do not collect $200. A good journey is one where nothing happens, or better yet: we fall asleep on the runway and wake up at the gate. Via speed, travel is reduced to a binary and an insensible line between. There’s too much life that has to happen on a slow trip to foster this illusion.
When we commodify time, speed can also be counted in travel avoided. It generally costs more to live close to work. Only the plebs commute 90 minutes each way. One of the less-noticed and more-interesting aspects of the work-from-home wave since the pandemic has been the destratification of the individual workplace. Everyone commutes to their computer, which also doesn’t allow the boss to lord over you in his nicer suit, or enjoy your trembling when he stalks around the office to deliver orders. I’m convinced the deprivation of these privileges is why a fair number of managers whose staff could easily work 100% remote prefer to have them return to office. Preening around the house getting yelled at by his wife and child don’t have the same appeal to the VP.
On the other hand, the ability to work from home at all belongs to higher socioeconomic classes. Blue collar workers have to show up, while white collar staff logs on in their pajamas.
The Price of Gas
Those who feel the need for speed have a litany of good reasons to want it, and new technologies are heralded with a list of benefits. While the bias favors adoption, it’s useful to ask what we forfeit in order to receive those benefits. In the case of speed, it’s already here. So much so that before Illich’s book, I never gave it a second thought. What would we find it cost us if we dug out the old receipt?
Humans are adapted to life at human speeds. The fastest sprinter can’t even manage 30 mph for a short duration. Many of us will never approach 20 mph. For the most part, we can handle a bicycle at an average pace. Beyond that, things happen fast, and consequences build. We’re good enough that most of us can drive a lifetime without a major incident, but in 2021, over 42,000 people died in motor vehicle fatalities. That’s 12 out of every 100,000 people in the country (source). Totally worth it, right? That’s the implicit value.
Driving is necessary to get places because of, well…driving! When the car arrived on the scene, communities were mostly self-sufficient. People lived close to whatever and whoever they had a routine need to see. Roads, and the speeds that came with them, allowed a sprawl into the suburbs, and then the hinterlands. This ease of movement facilitated the footlooseness I discussed in another essay.
It also filled in a lot of “blank” space. There are few wild places left. Once, only the tough and the daring could visit most of the country. Whatever value that held—whether maintaining a more balanced ecological condition of the land, or building up the character of those rough travelers—is gone. Anyone with a few bucks for gas can access places that once held an aura of legend. The more often a thing is done, the less value it holds for both the doer and the one hearing the story. Now, we gain little more from these visits than a photo and a footnote.
And while we’ve filled in the country, at the same time, speed costs us the middle—that blur between points A and B. It would probably be more appropriate to call them A and Z. There’s plenty in between, but we no longer relate to it, unless it causes enough inconvenience to become a complaint about traffic upon arrival.
Speed isn’t some terrible thing I want to get rid of. As I mentioned, I use it and benefit from it daily. But it does betray the value of efficiency over a good many other things. What would our places and our travel look like if instead we preferred Illich’s notion of conviviality? If the idea sounds shocking, you know where your values lie. But how many of us were aware of the costs and benefits of the equation, or even that the equation existed? The bigger concern for me is the possibility that our values can pervade our lives to the point that an alternative becomes unthinkable, that we fail to even recognize them as values because they seep into every strata of society. Traditional class signals have been replaced with wealth markers like (average miles per hour) divided by (miles per year), and we all understand very well how to read those signals even when we make them subconsciously.
On a personal note, it’s worth reflecting on what our travel frequency and speeds say about our social standing, or what we want it to say. Do I even like how much I travel? Do I want more, or less? If I had to get around at 3 mph, where would I still go, even though it took days? Where would I give up? The destination, too, takes time. If saving time isn’t a frivolous concept, I can do it just as well by canceling a flight as eliminating a layover. I don’t expect us to slow down in the near future, but it might be nice if we paused to see what we value, even if the result is a shrug and a stomp on the pedal.