Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

by J . G. Krol When fed through the statistical slicer like a loaf of salami , each human trait produces its characteristic cross-section: a curve that shows how many people possess the trait to what degree. Heigh t, weight, intelligence, and numerous other human traits tend to follow th e " no rmal distribution" , that bell-shaped curve th at say s most pe ople are about ave ra ge and only a few dep ar t fr o m th e, averag e by very much . A few people h ave in sati abl e sex drives and a few others can go th rough life without a single erotic im p ulse; m ost o f us are some w he re near t he middle. A few p eople are left wing extremists and a few others are right win ex tremists; mo st o f us arc: so mewhere ne ar the middle. S o co m m o n is this bell-sh aped curve in d escribin g human trai ts th at it provides th e only plausib le assum p tion ab out the d istribution o f at ti tu de s t o war ds moto rcy clin g. One tai l of th e cu rve represents p eople with strong p ositive feelin gs to wards the sp o r t; mo st of these , of co u rse , will already be motorcyclists and th os e that aren' t, arc: dreaming about it. More than a majori ty will be somewhere near the middle , without strong feelings on e way or th e other. And the other tail of the curve re presents people with strong n egati ve feelings towards motorcyling. From this perspective it is clear that demands to harrass and repress cy clis ts do not arise from the great number of people in the cen ter - from the public - but rather from the relatively few denizens at the far end o f the d istrib u ti o n curve. These are p e ople who for on e: reason or anot her, co nsci o us or subc o nsci o us, harbor deep an tipathy towards th e sp ort. To understand the problem, we must unders tand these p eople ... or at le as t try to . It' s one th in g to b e indifferent t o motorcycling, or b e bored b y it, or exerci se a casual preference against it , but it's quite another t o objec t to it strongly . If y o u don't like it, wh y not just ign ore it! Why sho uld anybody go so far as to oppose it? It seem s so little we ask. Just ignore us. Just leav e us alone. Ye t so me people seem in capable of granting that modest boon . Among th ese are the hoplophobes. Hoplophobia (hop as in hop-scotch , 1 as in local) is one of those long, 0 made-up words whose sole ex cuse for existence is that there's no shorter way to d escribe the same idea. It comes fro m "Hoplite" the name of a class of m ercen ary soldiers in ancient Greece, and they got their name from th e hoplon, a larg e, unique style o f shield which they carried , and wh ich became their trademark . Ul timately, the te rm goes back t o th e Greek word for "tool ", so h op lophobia t oo ls. Perhaps it is a n euro tic fear n ever occu rr ed to y ou th at any b o dy would be afrai d of to ols an d the w h o ld id ea may see m to o silly to talk about. Th is in tial imp ression vanishes wh en you reali ze th e implica tio ns of the term : th e h oploph ob e's fe ar is in proporti on to the efficacy and pow er of th e t ool. Sin ce th e greater the capability of th e t ool, the greater must be th e kn owl edge, understandin g, skill an d p rud en ce of its user. Th e effect ive t ool is only an ex ternal sy m b o l. What th e h op lophob e reall y fea rs is that he will hurt himself. It would seem virtually impossible fo r a hoplophobe to be a motorcy clist, th ough this does not n ecessarily require that cyclists must be hoplophiles and love tool s. If yo u think ab o u t it, y ou • have probably me t several people representing both extremes. The hoplophile may have a hefty co llec tion of chiesels and screwdrivers and knives. Every single one will be precisely sharpened and hones, and will be carefully oiled t o p ro t ect it against rust. The hoplophobe will not allow a sharp knife in his house. The hop lophile is likely to collect tools h e doesn 't really need, w orkin g with each new one just lo n g enough to master its operation, then moving on to something else . The hoplophobe is likely to avoid owning even the most rudimentary tools. He11 call a repairman' to tighten the handle on a cab in e t . This is not a matter of being mechanically inclined, or not. Indeed, the hoplophobe may be quite skilled with tools that are soft and yielding and safe , say paintbrushes, but hand him a naked double-edge razor blade to use as a cutting tool and he'll co me close to faintin g aw ay. At a lo cal sp orting go ods store I learned th er e had been a run on Smith & Wesson .4 4 Magn um revol vers foll owing a mo vie that had po rtrayed this to o l as the b iggest , baddest handgun ever made. In pl ain fact, it is not. Bu t to say it isn't misses the p oin t , for what b uyers really wanted was to have the image, just as the m ere sight of this gun would cause a hoplophobe to recoil in shock. (Double y o ur pleasure, double your fun, with multiple, multiple , multiple puns). A hoplophobe is not s lo w ones), explosives, crossbows, power lawn mowers , "speedboats", and mech an ical turkey p lu ckers. Yet he will not be especially concerned ab ou t the thousands of viral, bacterial and fungal dis eas e agen ts th at are in comparably more dangerous to man, and that swarm freely ab o u t us from OUf cradles to our graves, fo r th ese life forms are not tools. Their actions IN DEFENSE OF FREEDOM fr igh t ened by th e o bj ective pr op erties of a t oo l th at is loud, hard, fast , powerful, sharp and unforgiving. He is fri gh t en ed by th e th ou gh ts ab o ut th at tool wh ich h e cre a tes in hi s own head. Si n ce a tool is anything that exp an d s man 's control over his immediate physical environmen t, the hoplophobe is likely to fear knives, firearms, fast cars, fast bikes, most anything electrical, ma c hi n e tools, airplanes, freeway traffic , anything that throws sparks, chrome-plated surgical instruments, open-hearth furnaces, sports cars (even a re n o t i nitia te d, direc ted and co ntrolled by a h uman user, h en ce th e res u lts of their actions are no t th e responsibility of an y human user. avoid un desirable o utcomes by avoiding effective tools. I ca n think of no normative objection to his policy and I can think o f several practical reasons not on ly for tole rating it, but for en couraging it. A fter all, if a man tells you that he ' s likely to fre eze at th e con t rols, putting him in ch ar ge of a 74 7 would be less th an pruden r. As long as he sti cks to living hi s own life , a hop lophobe creates no great problems for motorcyclist s o r an ybody else. T he di ffi culty arises wh en 'the hoplophob e attem pts t o projec t his own fear s, atti tudes and p olicies on to other p eople, i. e., b y means of gove rn men t coercio n . He assu mes th a t everybody else shares h is attitude to wa rds effec tive to ol s. Giv en this, it is p er fec tly logi cal t o adopt what gam e theorists call a Mini max strategy: min imi zing the size of the ma ximum p ossib le loss. Whe n h e sees othe r p eople who are n ot fo llo win g th is stra tegy , he co ncl udes - correc tly , w it h in the sco pe of his assu mp tion th at t hey must be driven by some psy ch ol ogi cal defect. He concl udes that he h as ;.- so rt of moral or social duty t o s a v e the m from thems elves", a co n cl usio n all th e easier to reach because it reinforces his own attitudes and assumptions. The hoplo phobe becomes a menace to social tranquillity when he tries t o impose the consequen ces of ,h is own inner fears upon all the public. This is one case,where m o to rcy clists ar e part of the public. ~ 1l. tf. M lii M t'l c ~ ~ w Z ~ u ~ U T he hop lobe does not want to b e personally resp onsible for the untoward c onseq uences of h is decisions an d behavior. Since the main p urpose o f tool-using is to am plify resul ts whether good or bad, .or both - and , sin ce th e more effective and powerful a tool is, th e more amplification it provides , a hoplophobe 'a ttem p ts to or -

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