thehappycon
I spent last week with the real conservatives at ISI. They’re much, much smarter than I am.
But I heard a few very disturbing things while I was there, not the least of which was a chemical dislike of the Interstate Highway System. They berate it for its alleged homogenization of American local culture. Never mind that homogenization is a word borne of a questionable parentage, the real problem here is one of marginal ignorance.
Whatever the cost of the interstate system with regard to local culture, and it doesn’t even matter what the cost was, the correct decision is the decision at the margin. What are the costs of the interstate to local culture now? An infinite number of variables have changed in an infinite number of ways since the interstates were created; we can’t go back there. What matters to this discussion is an assessment of the relative value of the interstates today. Note that this approach doesn’t require the assessment of purely mercenary variables. That is, one can be consistent in caring about local culture and still using an economic approach. Tories are burning Hayek as I speak, but economics isn’t just about money and pleasure. Sorry, gents.
Should we shut down the interstates and keep everyone at home on the farm? Absolutely not. Without the interstate, there would be no local culture. What is unique to Tarkio would disappear; we would reduce to subsistence or abandon the town altogether, and it would begin to look like every single other town in America. Cities would feel no pain; airports are a good substitute for the interstate. But the good people of Tarkio, Fairfax, and Rock Port would leave. Local culture would die.
The real evil here runs throughout the Tory rhetoric. I love tradition as well, but the evils of the day are a sunk cost. Decisions are made at the margin. What can we do now to encourage the good society? Whatever it is, it probably stops short of confining most of America to the local county blacktop.
Filed under: conservative | Tagged: conservative, interstate, ISI, Tarkio, Tory
It seems important to add that the highway itself is a large part of American culture and, furthermore, that an overarching feeling of an American nation is necessary if there is to be an American country. The highway is one element of the national conscience that makes the cattle rancher in Iowa feel connected to the butcher in Chicago; the wheat farmer in Idaho to the baker in New York; the car-manufacturer in Michigan to the gas-station attendant in Oregon. The interstate is not just a way by which one can travel from one place to another. It is a symbol of the vastness, the infinite possibility, the incomplete Odyssey which is the United States. Of course, the highway may take a toll (no pun intended) upon several local cultures: the Amish group in Pennsylvania seeking solitude from the outside world or the American Indian tribe in California whose religion dictates silence on certain plots of sacred ground. But, ultimately, it is wholeness, not dispersion, which defines a nation and our subcultures would not be able to communicate with one another, nor feel connection to the overarching American culture, if the interstate did not provide the flow of people and livestock and machinery from town to town, city to city and coast to coast.
Great blog, subscribed to your rss feed. Thanks.