Mobility Matters Extra - Transport's Culture War and how to survive it
Grab the tin-foil hats and the report button, its time for war
Key points
Wider culture wars will now start to shape how transport is debated
Consider changes in morality and how they affect your plans
Seek out perspectives that challenge your own
Find your own balance between being evidence-informed and evidence-led
Identify who influences debate in an area, and target them
Debates and forums need both challenge and policing, so do it
When someone is clearly wrong, tell them
Threats of action must be taken seriously and swiftly responded to
Defining the culture war
We are in the middle of a culture war. Apparently. The battle for the very heart and soul of nations and people is raging across the Western World, enabled by technology and stoked by people blinded in their fervour and rage. I would like to say that transport is somehow immune to this, but just a short search on some social media channels reveals how what are transport debates often descend into different world views.
Of course, social media is far from representative of the people. But these messages can spread like wildfire, and there are definitely people who like to fan the flames as much as they possibly can. A recent article on openDemocracy, that partly influenced this post, shows that a lot of money is now being invested in stoking a culture war around climate action, which if successful would have terrifying consequences.
But I have got all this way without actually defining what a culture war is, and why on Earth us transport professionals should care about it. In its most simple form, a culture war can best be defined as:
A social conflict to determine the dominance of a set of values, beliefs, and activities between social groups.
To be honest, its even hard to get consensus on whether there is one at all, or whether it is just a lot of angry people shouting at each other on social media Some have even commented that the only reason a culture war is a thing is because those who want to fight one want one to happen.
The thing is, when it comes to questions of morality, values, and what we do, it can become a very dangerous debate quickly. This is because these arguments become all encompassing about every issue. Whilst there are some issues across which the divide is particularly acute, including climate change, every issue and debate is a battle ground where participants go into battle.
The reasons why we as professionals should care about this sort of thing is because this goes to the heart of why we do things. Our values, our principles, and ultimately the way that we work. For example, I look at the Transport Planning Society’s principles of good transport planning from May 2018, and I see ample ground upon which fiercer discussions around what we should be doing are taking place, such as:
Supporting options that encourage the least damaging alternatives, such as non-motorised modes, sustainable goods transport and digital connectivity
Meet the key quality of life objectives of…environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Be led by clear quality of life objectives, to understand the impacts of transport plans and projects on individuals as well as society as a whole and to listen, understand and acknowledge the views of all those affected (whether users or non-users).
We can talk about methods, evidence, being objective and playing everything straight because it is sometimes easier to sit on the sidelines of a debate than to take part. The exception to this is when you are asked why you are doing this. That speaks to matters of values and principles, and when those are being openly contested, the consequences of that - no matter how well evidenced your argument is - become severe.
The consequences of inaction
The thing is, we know how social and cultural norms impact upon how we do things. Because in the past we have experience of policies and programmes that were morally questionable but understandable at the time, but now we would find morally horrific.
The obvious example of this is Robert Moses. Who had a bit of a tendancy of building freeways not through the nice neighbourhoods but through the neighbourhoods of poor people and black people. Whilst some of the more extreme characterisations of his decisions and what he was like as a person are questionable when you look at the evidence, it is worthwhile considering at the time that his views were not as morally repugnant as they are to us now.
Perhaps we could also look at the much-lauded Victorians and their railways. A key part of which was the ladies-only waiting room, attended to by the widows of dead railway workers. Mind you, many of the more eccentric people of the time believed that riding on a train would cause instant insanity, or that the coming of the railway in Windemere would mean that people who do not have access to culture and cannot appreciate the majesty of the English countryside would be able to come and visit, in the words of William Wordsworth:
Rocks and mountains, torrents and widespread waters, and all those features of nature which go to the composition of such scenes as this part of England is distinguished for, cannot, in their finer relations, to the human mind be comprehended, even very imperfectly conceived, without processes of culture or opportunities of observation in some degree habitual.
Imagine nowadays simply saying that we cannot allow this new bit of infrastructure because it might mean that poor people will come and visit.
Society and culture is a space that is continually contested and norms challenged. Even now in the UK, there is a debate as to whether protests which cause disruption should be allowed in light of the Insulate UK protests. Challenging such norms makes people uncomfortable, but it allows society to progress and for views to change.
For example, would views on same-sex marriages have gone from 60% against to 31% against if people in the LGBTQ community had simply acted nicely and did nothing to rock the boat? Unlikely, is my guess.
The thing is, if these aren’t challenged, then things do not change. That matters for us as professionals, because we are stuck in a balancing act. On the one hand, we professionally push for the interventions that, based upon the best available evidence, would have the greatest impact on achieving our objectives. On the other, we need to take the public along with us otherwise our solutions lose their legitimacy.
On many of these matters, we have to overcome a sticky knot. Whilst morally the majority of people consider tackling climate change to be a good thing and they trust the science behind it in most countries, asking them to give up their car is a whole other question entirely.
A lack of action means that we cannot move these debates forward. Its not just about changing people’s minds and getting them to use bikes or public transport more. It is about how doing that helps to re-inforce their values and morals, and seeing how just because you make a certain transport choice doesn’t mean that it becomes who you are.
It’s important that we as professionals start to tackle complex moral issues and link action to them, because the battleground is about to come to us.
Transport as the next frontier of the culture war
Starting off this section, I need to say that much of this is anecdotal evidence and my own personal reflections from my time as a Town Councillor. I urge you to do your own research using fully evidenced and referenced sources to develop your own view.
Last year, I became a Town Councillor, and it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Despite this, I have had the experience of seeing this culture war first hand, and I can assure you that nothing is off limits. Even grass cutting.
We took the decision to cut back on our grass cutting schedule from 4 times a year to 3 times a year, and to deliberately leave some areas of grass in our recreational areas to grow long. The reason wasn’t financial (we still have to pay the groundskeeper their wages, so there was no financial saving) but to encourage the growth of wildflowers. That in turn would encourage bees, butterflies, and insects, which in turn would encourage birds and you get the picture now.
From the reaction on some social media groups, it was like we had gone out and personally punched in the face the mothers of everyone in town. My personal favourite comments were:
This is so typical of the out-of-touch councillors who think they know better than the working people of Flitwick.
I guess I should be shocked, but I’m not. Everyone knows that the council likes to cut the services of the people of this town, but the second a developer comes along with a brown envelope and ‘favours’ they listen to them.
These sorts of eco-experiments are right for places where there are people with smaller brains like Luton. But your liberal zealotry is not welcome in family towns like Flitwick.
I mean, jeez. This is grass cutting. But when you start looking in context, more of this sort of thing starts to make more sense.
Jimmy Tidey has written a series of posts on the Twitter debate around Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in London that took place last year. They are truly great bits of work that you should read, but perhaps the most important conclusions from this, and one which corroborates with my own experience, is that these debates and engagement are often driven by a few people generating a lot of content.
The top 20 Twitter users are responsible for half of the total activity. These accounts typically belong to campaigners. Subjectively, comparing Facebook and Twitter LTN discussions, the same individuals are often active on both platforms. This suggests that online debate may be influenced by just a hand full of individuals.
I was surprised by the sheer volume of interactions. Looking through the data, it became apparent that some Twitter users engage in long threads with up to 40 users tagged in, allowing them to generate huge numbers of connections. As a side note, many of the participants must invest huge amounts of time on this topic. On the one hand, much of this effort is poured into unproductive shouting matches; on the other, it does show Twitter’s capacity to drive civic engagement.
This is also corroborated on evidence from political debates on social media that indicate that a core of users produces much of the content and so have an outsized influence on the debate that takes place on these platforms. In this case, there is a heavy concentration of debate both for and against Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
You must, of course, take such analysis of online debates with a pinch of salt, and the ability that seeing posts on social media has on influencing values is limited. There is evidence that the majority of social media users are worn out by political posts, and the connections between action in the offline world and online communities is still being understood even now (although there are plenty of stories and anecdotes linking social media posts with offline action).
Transport itself is also closely adjacent to many factors that are seen as driving social division. For example, climate change conspiracies and questioning the science is sometimes reported as endemic online. Add to this the historic and continuing identities of freedom and choice often associated with motor vehicles, it is easy to see why another front is now opening up in wider cultural and social debates, and it just so happens to be where we do our work.
I should also state right here that this is not the ‘fault of social media’ as is so often said in debates about the culture war. Feeling of togetherness, otherness, and wanting to fight to protect both have been around as long as humans have been around. What social media has done, like the printing press, radio, and the TV before it, is make it easier for people to get their message out, and in doing so helping to change minds. So just deplatforming people from social media will only have a limited effect.
Whether or not a culture war is a good thing I will leave for you to decide. My point is that it is here. When it comes to engaging with people on transport matters, this will be in the background, it will be an ever-changing thing, and some people will just outright pull their respective wordviews into their responses. We as professionals will have to deal with it whether we like it or not, and it will affect what we do.
Tools and tips for fighting it
If you Google how to fight a culture war…lets just say that the results are somewhat partisan, and it is extremely difficult to state definitively how you can fight it. How can you be truly objective in matters of morality? I do not know your values, although I hope through my newsletters you have got a sense of mine (in case it wasn’t clear: socially and economically liberal with a strong sense of climate and social justice).
All I can really recommend to you are some generalities in terms of how you approach your work as a professional. If you want a tool that somehow magics away arguments over bike lanes and car parking, and makes us all happily get along, good luck with that.
Consider changes in morality and how they affect your plans
Long term strategies assume technical changes based upon technical matters, and plan policies and projects based upon a forward projection of our current value set. But run a thought experiment as part of your work. What if an issue became a moral imperative or taboo? Then use system mapping to identify how that could affect factors that influence how we get around.
Think that’s abstract? Ok. In the UK, we run trains on railways built at a time when physical and mental disabilities were if not shunned, then openly shamed. Least of all considered when building a railway. And we are spending millions trying to overcome that legacy to make public transport accessible for all. There is no way the likes of Brunel could have seen that change in morality, but that doesn’t stop us from thinking about similar such changes.
Seek out perspectives that challenge your own
What I am not referring to here is evidence and studies whose conclusions challenge your own. But seeking out the viewpoints of others who value set is different to your own. Neo-conservatives, classic libertarians, climate activists, Marxists, whatever. Look at their arguments, look at the logic behind them and the evidence behind them, and ask how they challenge your own views. For myself, this means reviewing the arguments of the likes of the Adam Smith Institute and the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
At worst, you get an insight into how the others think. You can check their argument logic and develop reasonable and robust counter-arguments against them. At best, you can find common ground and focus the debate on the things that matter.
Find your own balance between being evidence-informed and evidence-led
This is a deeply personal matter. My view is that we should all strive to be evidence led, and in the true sense of the scientific-method, when the evidence changes our view on something should change. Remember when switching to diesel fuel was going to save the environment? But that strikes a tough personal balance.
Morals and values that drive what we do are notably hard to shift. Morals are at the core of what you are and how you do things, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot change. That change is led by your own experience, and the evidence as well, and you must seek a happy medium between being informed by evidence, and being led by it.
Identify who influences debate in an area, and target them
This is particularly effective in online debates and forums. Social network analysis can quickly identify key influencers in a particular policy area or local area, and you should use it to see who can influence a debate.
Not only can they influence the content of the debate, but they can also influence the tone of it. Working with them to set the right tone and to frame debates and projects is time well spent.
Debates and forums need both challenge and policing, so do it
It is easy for us to sit back on the public debates affecting transport and be impassionate observers. I won’t advocate you wading into a random argument or contributing something if you don’t feel comfortable doing so, but we cannot avoid these debates any longer. You must listen, show you understand, and where possible challenge and police your own red lines of discussion.
This can only be done the hard way. Through contributing to numerous local debates in my town, I have learned to take the approach that threats of violence (e.g. “if you said that to me I would punch you in the face”) and accusations of criminal activity (e.g. “well, we all know the Council is on the take”) must be met with an immediate response that shuts it down. Kick them out if needs be. But everything else is up for debate so long as the tone and the arguments are respectful.
When someone is clearly wrong, tell them
I’m not talking wrong on a subjective matter here. I am talking about wrong on a matter of fact for which there is overwhelming good quality scientific evidence that proves they are wrong. Don’t insult them, and don’t make it personal if they do.
In practice, it depends on the situation. In a consultation event when a member of the public says that something will happen as a result of your scheme, lead them through the evidence that shows how you came to your conclusions. On social media, link to the evidence that contradicts them so even if you don’t change your mind, you can change someone elses.
Threats of action must be taken seriously and swiftly responded to
If someone on a Facebook page makes a threat, take it seriously. Chances are that when they say that they will “rip out those f**king planters and throw them at the next Council person I see” they are exaggerating. But you cannot take that risk.
The health sector has done some excellent research to tackle such threats and violence and recommends many strategies to deal with them. The most simple thing you can probably do is report it to a senior, or in the case of social media to the social media company. Such threats can never be tolerated.
Things to remember
The war analogy is a really apt one, to be honest. The reason being is that while you are in the middle of it, it is tempting to see it as an all-consuming beast that will destroy everything and it means everything that you win it. But much like in most wars, away from the main front life is, well, kind of normal. You need to remember that the vast majority of people are just going about their daily business, and even fewer really care about it. They are just innocent bystanders who, when the main battles hit them, either take cover or get caught in the crossfire.
As well as knowing who your enemy is, its just as important to know who your enemy isn’t. Seeing anybody who doesn’t support you as your enemy only leads to you being isolated, alone, and ultimately losing. To take the war analogy further, if you shoot innocent bystanders for not supporting you, at best they will continue to not care and at worst they will become your enemy through your own actions.
It is also extremely easy to mistake people shouting at one another for everyone hating each other. The evidence in fact points the opposite way. We are more compassionate than at any previous time. There is far more that unites us than divides us, and that is always a good basis on which to start to overcome divisions. It is easy to see others as arguing in bad faith or as boogeymen. The reality is always more different.
You also need to exercise your professional judgment. As much as you want to tell that idiot that they have no God-given right to drive their car and that what they are saying is that the 14 extra seconds on their journey is worth more than the lives of kids trying to cycle to school, you need to be professional about things. You can argue against them without calling them names or implying they are idiots, and doing so might just save you your job.
Now, you know what is coming. What I have written here won’t make your side win it, whatever side you are on. But it will help you ride it out and navigate it as best you can.
As for me, I plan to do this by heading to the front lines. Someone has to stand up for a creating a low carbon and just world with individual liberty at its heart. But that is my choice to make. You must now make yours, friend.