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The Ministry Of Silly Hats

By Michael J. Smith on Thursday June 12, 2008 08:34 PM

I. Iconography of the enhanced cranium

The bike helmet ought to be the emblematic headgear of liberalism, as the mitre is of episcopacy and the Borsalino fedora of orthodox Judaism.

All clothing is a system of signs, of course, and all clothing choices say something. But headgear speaks a lot louder than, say, socks. Maybe even louder than shoes. What does the bike helmet say?

Most importantly, it says that the wearer cares a lot about safety. In fact, he cares more about safety than dignity. He's so concerned about safety that he doesn't mind looking like an idiot.

Even liberals, of course, don't wear bike helmets on the crapper, or in the shower, where so many deadly falls occur. So there are -- at least for the present -- some limits to the liberal's concern for safety. What, precisely, defines those limits?

The answer is easy. The liberal needs prophylaxis when he (or she) is doing something deviant. Cycling, say, or non-marital sex.

Now the safety-conscious liberal could just strap a pillow on his/her head and secure it with a hand-knotted, hempen macrame band. But that would be a bit trailer-park and un-technological. The liberal always wants a solution expertly engineered by a person with sound academic qualifications, working on some large organization's R&D budget.

Say what you will about the modern bike helmet, it certainly is that -- or appears to be that, anyway. The complex curves! The intricate system of vents! The lift spoiler and the aerodynamic little beak, which dissipates the shock-wave front (guaranteed effective up to Mach 2.56) and also prevents melanoma on the bridge of the nose!

Seldom in daily life do we see the rhetoric of high technology exhibited with this kind of studied, elaborate virtuosity. Obama's bike helmet is such an obviously consummate triumph of engineering, it makes the B-2 bomber look a little clunky and pedestrian.

So the liberal, in his bike helmet, still looks like an idiot -- but an idiot who possesses the very latest and highest technology.

How very American.

* * *

II. You'll be safe. Whether you like it or not

Since I ride a bike myself -- probably more often than Obama does -- I'm very familiar with the missionary zeal of helmet Pharisees: the folks who are not only happy to look ridiculous themselves for the sake of some more or less illusory increment of safety, but who are also determined to make everybody else look ridiculous too.

This too is part of the liberal canon: to make people do things for their own good. People ought to have health insurance -- well, make 'em buy it. Or else.

* * *

III. Helmet to helmet

The last Democratic presidential candidate I remember seeing in a helmet was Michael Dukakis:

Now on the surface you might think these images are opposites. Obama, even when he's being dorky, looks cool, and poor Dukakis always looked dorkier the cooler he tried to be. Dukakis was riding in a tank -- surely the ne plus ultra of bad transportation choices -- and Obama on a bicycle, surely the second most benign (human feet, of course, take the number-one spot).

But it's more interesting to ponder what these images might have in common. One word: safety.

The world is such a dangerous place. There are all those furious towel-heads out there -- towel-heads whom we have made furious, of course, by messing with them for the last sixty years or so, but still. And there are all those cars out there on the road -- cars that we have encouraged people to buy, and subsidized them to drive. But still.

Strap on the helmet. And, if you want to be really safe, line it with tinfoil.

Comments (16)

Al Schumann:

People who wear their helmets and vote Democratic suffer 13% less bicycle-induced melanoma. They endure concussions that are a full 17% less severe than similarly attired Republicans, and 42% less severe than people who use only the tin foil. They recover from road flu 67% faster than un-helmeted, un-Democratic unliberals. Thanks to President Clinton, liberal helmet people also enjoyed a whopping 7.85% average annual increase (relative to the increase in the Reagan/Bush regime) in the value of their compensation packages and suffered 31% less bicycle-related sexual dysfunction. The latter two are correlative factors, but nevertheless compelling.

These are the helmet facts that MJS doesn't want you know.

StO:

I think maybe "second most benign" should go to the trusty trike.

Are you against motorcycle helmets too?

MJS:

Motorcycle helmets don't look quite so dumb. But y'know, I think I *am* against making people wear 'em. I'm getting to be quite the libertarian in my old age.

StO:

Seat belts? My father used to bitch all the time about how the man had no right to punish him for disregarding his own safety. It occurs to me, though, that a vehicle doesn't necessarily stop when its driver dies, so that other people on the road might have a legitimate interest in other drivers staying alive.

Libertarian socialist, or... the other kind?

MJS:

It's getting so I'm inclined to agree with your Pa. However there are some other considerations. What you can do with a motor vehicle seems to me to be a legitimate state concern since a motor vehicle is a dangerous instrument -- dangerous to others, that is, not just yourself. But I'm not sure the argument that a belted driver somehow poses less of a threat to others holds much water. In fact the opposite may be true if there's anything to the theory of "risk compensation".

"What kind of libertarian" -- well, not the other kind. A lefty libertarian, not a market cultist. I mostly use the word for shock value, but there's a grain of truth in it -- I've come to value individual autonomy and privacy very highly of late.

I haven't reduced it to a system, or even an aphorism. But I do think that many lefties' thinking is unnecessarily infected with the white-collar elites' managerial mentality. We'd do better to have more respect for the average Joe's desire for a minimum of meddling with his life.

StO:

What distinguishes your non-system from anarchism?

MJS:

I don't actually know a whole lot *about* anarchism. I gather there are many flavors. But sifting the various schools of Left thought doesn't interest me much, these days.

Son of Uncle Sam:

What about Construction worker hard hats?

MJS:

Aiiiee! I surrender! I surrender!

I love this thread. Takes me back to the rant Alexander Cockburn had once. He went to Europe or something and saw traffic moving nice and fast without stoplights and declared that we in the U.S. should just ditch all our stoplights pronto.

Please. The U.S. is not Europe. I once spent six long weeks on crutches after surgery and had to get to my bus stop at rush hour across two uncontrolled intersections-- without stoplights. The only reason I didn't lose my job over the vast amount of time it took (when one must have "libertarian" trust that drivers will stop for somebody who can't walk well) is because my then-boss was an easygoing guy.

People, don't drive like shitheads. That goes for cyclists, too. Obey the signals and wear your fucking helmets, and if you're really nice to me I'll open a pub where you can have a smoke. :p

Son of Uncle Sam:

Probably not a VIrginia Slim though ey

Son of Uncle Sam:

Well, besides the lame grammatic failure attempted catch phrase of 'Click it or ticket' it strikes no one as bullshit that all of public transit fails to offer any safety devices?
I have to where a seatbelt in my car traveling at 25 mph or pay the state a fine, and a motorcycle rider (the highest risk vehicle besides the XF-11) is completely safe with a helmet at 65mph duty free?
I know redundant. I've ansewred my own question though. There's no equestrian law,yet. If the handicapable can take Golden Retrivers to diners, stores bathrooms wherever, I expect the same courtesy with my flea bitten grey at the movie theatre when I decide to go green. Shit I'll take him on the MBTA like the yuppies with DUI's take bicycles. The state of Mass will probably try to tax the Alfalfa I feed it but ey, fuck it I can grow it at home. I'll dress up like Paul Revere to throw em' off for a while maybe do a little something for the Pats pre-season and of course the kids on bunker hill day, cloppity clop through Charlestown or some shit like that.

Al Schumann:
Obey the signals and wear your fucking helmets, and if you're really nice to me I'll open a pub where you can have a smoke. :p

Deal! Although as it happens, I already drive like the most kindly and sober and safety-minded grandpa one could hope to encounter. Even my kitties have little airbags for their kitty seats (that's kitty, not kiddy).

JJR:

agree w/ you strongly on this one:

II. You'll be safe. Whether you like it or not
This too is part of the liberal canon: to make people do things for their own good.

_________________________
I think that THIS is part of the impetus behind Democratic party support for Gun control, which, aside from being flatly unconstitutional, has caused the party to shoot itself in the foot over this issue in election after election, pardon the pun. Another factor feeding the anti-gun hysteria would be an uncritical, new-agey pacifism taken to extremes.

Most ordinary Americans will never budge on this because the mentality of "only the cops and military should have guns, and only they can protect us--ever" is just so contrary to reality and common sense...and allowing the Right to seemingly monopolize the basic human right of self-defense (which shouldn't be a partisan issue at all) has been one of the most effective divide-and-conquer moves the Top has deployed against the mass at the Bottom.
The real struggle has always been Top vs. Bottom. What plays out in contemporary American political theater is billed as "Left v. Right" but even this is really more 'Center-Right versus Right', and in any case a mere cartoon-like caricature of the real Top versus Bottom struggle.

I have definitely come to nurture my inner anarcho-syndicalist, if not outright anarchist. I'm still mostly socialist and anti-capitalist, but I have enough anarchist streaks in my worldview to respect some Libertarian positions, just not when it comes to economic policy. To be in favor of further civilian disarmament with the Empire running amok and capable of deploying its fearsome powers inward as well as outward...that's just insane.

Aside from the fact that Obama's no less a phony than Kerry was, his anti-gun Illinois mindset may find me just sitting out this election. I wouldn't vote for McCain...not in favor of endless war without end amen, either.

Probably a number of Greens are anti-gun, but this is also unwise since many hunters are among the staunchest environmental supporters and nature conservationists there are. Sometimes I get the feeling the New Left somewhere along the way utterly emasculated the Old Left, working-class militancy, and that this has been an unmitigated disaster.

I don't really get what it is in the American psyche that demands so many damn guns. As long as I'm living here, I guess I'm stuck with it. So some kind of legal access is going to be more reassuring to me than none at all.

Call me sentimental if you must, but I will never be enthusiastic about gun culture. Resigned, yes. Enthused, no. The prospect of a neighborhood arms race doesn't cheer me any more than the global arms race does.

Yours in girlish "emasculation,"

ms_xeno

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