Thursday - February 19, 2004

Category Image Institutional Lies


Okay, maybe "lies" is a bit strong. The thing is that I don't understand why they can be so persistent.

My rant now is about the Porsche Club in particular, but it could be any other human endeavor. Many organizations develop a story that may or may not have had any basis in reality in the past, but clearly is no longer true. Nonetheless the story is told, sometimes with a tenacity that is laced with overwrought emotion.

In this case, the people in the Porsche club insist that you are less likely to wreck on the race track than you are in daily driving. I have no idea where this comes from, but if you point out obvious facts, no matter how politely, you can be confronted with extremely hostile reactions. I'm not sure why that is, because all (well, almost all) of the people involved are some of the nicest I've ever met.

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Institutional lies are a hint as to how religions thrive.

I'd been through this topic with club members before and it was very ugly, but tonight while at our monthly happy hour, a new instructor brought it up again in front of me not realizing how much hatred it caused in the past. Strangely, even though he didn't know of the animosity it caused before, he had the same hostile reaction to a polite objection to his claims.

Okay, here's the scenario: We're there talking about our cars, and a new member is present and being encouraged to take her brand new boxster out on the track. So far so good. The track is not only more fun than most other things I've ever done, but you learn some very valuable skills. Personally, I think anyone with a sports car needs to get this training.

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But this new instructor has transferred to Austin from the Northeast and is by all accounts an accomplished driver and has recently been certified in our region as an instructor. Joining our conversation, he volunteered to the new member that the track is the safest place you could ever drive. This is nonsense on its face, but this is the institutional lie, and people believe it despite all evidence to the contrary.

I politely suggested that you can certainly wreck your car on the track and it happens often. In fact, I have not yet witnessed a weekend at the track where at least one car wasn't damaged, sometimes quite severely. And here's where the institutional lie gets its force. Even though he is new to the group and didn't know of past conversations and hate mail locally on this topic, he quickly raised his voice and used the "I'm right because I'm talking louder" method of reasoning. Then he quoted some non-existent statistics that more accidents per mile occur on the highway than on the track. Raising his voice further, he makes the oft repeated claim that accidents are "rare" on the track. I decided that I didn't want any part of the conversation any more and went to chat with others.

Okay, I don't mean to pick on this guy, he really is a nice guy. But his response is typical. A belief that is held strongly is not lightly cast aside, no matter the evidence.

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After I left that little circle, a very nice and reasonable man whom I much admire joined me and we talked about this. He is much more open minded, yet even with him, he suggested that accidents that occur are only because the driver is a student who ignored his instructor's advice, or the instructor failed to give the right advice. It seemed obvious to me that if the driver doesn't make a mistake, he's less likely to have an accident, but the reason we're there is to push our skill level. It's inevitable that some one will exceed their ability at some time. Usually it results in a spin with no damage, other times aren't so lucky.

Oh, and the first thing everyone does is accuse me of being resentful for wrecking my car on the track. My objections are dismissed only because they accuse me of being a bad driver. I don't claim to be a good driver, but this classic ad hominem attack does nothing to change the argument except to encourage them to ignore any claims from me because of it. I could point out that some of our best drivers have totaled their cars on the track, but I don't like to dignify this deflection of the facts.

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So, let me present my case briefly: My interest in this issue is only to promote a better attitude towards safety. From my experience in Marine aviation, I've learned that very dangerous activities can be done safely, but only by understanding the dangers involved. Pretending that everything is safe is a recipe for creating the conditions for someone to stop paying attention to that danger and have a mishap.

Every time I have gone to the track, either as a driver or just to watch, I have seen at least one car each weekend receive some structural damage. Sometimes it was major, sometimes just a fender bender, and once there was a high speed car-on-car collision. Sometimes it was a new driver, but most times it was a driver in the higher levels.

So why do people argue that accidents are rare, and that being on the track is safer than being on the public roads? I'm not really sure, but it's devoutly believed by many, and they react with anger and shock if anyone suggests otherwise.

And here we're talking about driving cars. It's not an earth shattering topic. What if we were to discuss something more important, like someone's most fundamental understanding of how they conceive of reality and the structure of the universe they live in. If you think arguing about car wrecks causes illogical and emotional responses, you can be assured that challenging someone's religious ideas could be down right dangerous to your health. For this reason, I never do this to someone's face or even in personal correspondence without extreme trepidation. I pretty much know better than to do it at all except in mostly impersonal writing such as this.

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The history of man is filled with people killing each other over this topic. Politics is filled with religious bigotry, with people insisting that their god tells them what is best for us all. Despite that there is no evidence for the existence of a god, despite that most definitions of a god, especially the Christian god, are down right illogical, people believe. It doesn't have to make sense, they just believe. They structure their lives around the institutional lie of their deity, and any challenge to that lie is a danger to their immediate lives.

The good and well-meaning people of the Porsche Club of America seem to believe that if they acknowledged the danger of driving on a race track, that newcomers would be deterred from joining in. They value newcomers because they keep the club alive and growing, and make it more fun. Perhaps they are concerned that a more sober look at safety issues will reveal that it is indeed too dangerous and may result in someone calling for an end to it. I have no idea. I never want to discourage anyone from driving on the track. It's fun. But it is dangerous and cars get destroyed and people can get hurt -- or why else do we always have tow trucks and ambulances present?

The good and well-meaning people of the Christian churches, and all other religions, believe that questioning their beliefs could be dangerous to our entire society, and indeed those who don't accept their make-believe are menaces to good order and civil behavior. Without our modern recognition of civil rights, non-believers would be burned at the stake just as they have been in most societies throughout the entirety of history, all based on a stubborn and non-rational insistence on institutional lies.

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