(DE)

Cyclistes et automobilistes: pourquoi tant d’incompréhension?

… Les automobilistes suivent … des règles implicites strictes qui leur sont propres. Ces règles ne se confondent pas avec celles du code de la route “officiel” mais le complètent sur certains points et le contredisent sur d’autres. Le malentendu vient du fait que les automobilistes oublient que ces règles n’ont aucune raison de concerner les cyclistes.

Le meilleur exemple est probablement la règle implicite du respect de la file. Petit rappel ici. Un automobiliste vit son déplacement urbain comme le passage d’une file d’attente à une autre file d’attente… surtout en heure de pointe, ce qui de nos jours représente la majorité du temps. Il fait la file le plus souvent sans savoir pourquoi, sinon qu’il est bloqué par la voiture qui le précède et accélère dès que c’est possible pour se positionner au mieux dans la file suivante. Car une place d’avance dans une file peut éviter une phase de feu rouge, ou même deux si le carrefour est bloqué, comme c’est si souvent le cas.

Et il y a une bonne raison à cela : les automobilistes estiment qu’ils ont le droit de conserver leur place dans une file, même au carrefour. Pour cela, il est nécessaire d’empêcher les automobilistes qui viennent d’autres directions de s’immiscer dans la file en ne se laissant pas distancer par le véhicule qui précède. Le droit de défendre sa place dans une file prime donc largement sur le code de la route, puisqu’il autorise (de facto) à bloquer un carrefour sans susciter l’animosité des autres automobilistes. Au contraire, lorsqu’un automobiliste refuse de s’engager dans un carrefour encombré, il se fait copieusement klaxonner (dans le meilleur des cas). De même, la plupart des automobilistes sont soulagés lorsque celui qui les précède brule un feu, puisqu’il libère une place dans la file. (Mais un cycliste qui brule un feu ne libère rien du tout : c’est un geste purement égoïste!) Bref, l’obsession de préserver sa place dans la file est devenu la seconde nature de l’automobiliste. D’ailleurs, il adopte la “file-attitude” même sur autoroute, où ce comportement est totalement inefficace et surtout très dangereux pour lui-même et les autres.

Dans ce cadre implicite, il est clair que le cycliste est un provocateur puisqu’il ne respecte pas la file. un automobiliste lambda ne sait pas très bien si le code de la route autorise les cyclistes à remonter une file de voitures. Mais ce qui est sûr, c’est qu’il juge ce comportement inacceptable ! Ce n’est pas en respectant rigoureusement le code officiel que les cyclistes cesseront d’être pris pour des anarchistes …”

aus: Quentin Wibaut: Cyclistes vs. automobilistes : pouquoi tant d’incompréhension? In: Ville à Vélo 144, sept./oct. 2009, S.12

Abb.: Brandalism, 2020?, im Internet.

09/09

“Humor … hat nichts mit der deutschen Vorstellung von staatlich genehmigtem Massenfrohsinn zu tun, bei dem man sich gegenseitig die Ellbogen in die Rippen stößt und die Witze wie beim Mainzer Karneval durch einen Tusch einen Genehmigungsstempel erhalten. Humor ist vielmehr die Fähigkeit, indirekt zu reden und sich dabei selbst zu relativieren, indem man sich in ein komisches Licht taucht. Es ist ein Gegenmittel gegen die eigene Wichtigkeit”.

aus: Dietrich Schwanitz;: Bildung. Alles, was man wissen muß. München: Goldmann 2002, S.581.

Abb.: Straußvögel vor dem EU-Parlament, MS/A-Architekten, bezahlt vom Belgischen Föderalstaat. Abb. aus: Brussels Eyes: La Peur, 2020: Est-ce bien l’endroit pour “faire l’autruche“?, im Internet

07/06

“Deutsche sollten nicht den Fehler machen, die spanische oder auch italienische Großzügigkeit im Umgang mit der Zeit als eine Art Defizit, als einen noch nicht erreichten Zustand der Zuverlässigkeit anzusehen. Das hieße, mediterrane Einstellungen an unserem Tugendsystem zu messen. Unpünktlichkeit ist keine Unfähigkeit, mit der Zeit umzugehen, sondern eine Demonstration der Freiheit, der Weigerung, das eigene Leben zu planen und es aller Spontaneität zu berauben. Der höchste Wert ist nicht die sklavische Befolgung eines Stunden- und Wochenplanes, sondern die Demonstration der Souveränität, die allein zu einem Leben in Grandezza und einem würdigen Stil paßt.”

aus: Dietrich Schwanitz;: Bildung. Alles, was man wissen muß. München: Goldmann 2002, S.591.

07/06

“[Holland] hat sich von Deutschland getrennt …, weil es eine radikalprotestantische, demokratische Bürgerkultur in seinen Handelsstädten ausgebildet hat. Im 17. Jahrhundert war Holland eine europäische Großmacht und kann für sich die Ehre beanspruchen, ein Zentrum der Kultur, der Buchproduktion, und der Toleranz gewesen zu sein. … Um so stärker wirkt das Trauma der Kollaboration während der Besetzung durch die Nazis. Im Rückblick haben viele Holländer das Gefühl, korrumpiert worden zu sein. Sie glauben, daß die Deutschen ihnen ihren guten Charakter gestohlen haben”.

aus: Dietrich Schwanitz;: Bildung. Alles, was man wissen muß. München: Goldmann 2002, S.596/597.

Abb.: Alan Dunn, The New Yorker, 4.11.44.

07/06

“Yet there is a sense today that globalisation as we are now experiencing it really is of a different hue … All that can be said at this stage is that it is likely that those who lived through earlier episodes of imperial domination probably felt the same.”

aus: Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz: Culture Troubles. Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co., 2006, S.168.

Abb.: I Wayan Upadana: Glo(babi)sation, 2013, indoartnow, im Internet.

09/09

“the State as it emerged and was consolidated in Western Europe over several centuries was the result of complex processes. … What were the main processes that led to the constitution of the State?

• First, there was a movement towards centralisation.
• Second, it entailed a protracted dynamic of resource concentration and then an attempt at monopolisation, in the first instance of military means. … the State then succeeded in monopolising legitimate violence both internally and vis-à-vis competing external polities. The process of monopolisation also (and crucially) concerned taxation. …
• Thirdly … centralisation and monopolisation led to the establishment of a bureaucracy … This involved a dynamic of differentiation and the emergency of a clear distinction between public and private spheres. … the rise of the State marked the end of patrimonialism. …
• The last aspect in the development of the State … was institutionalisation. This took the form of the written codification of laws applicable to all citizens and entailed legal responsibilities on the part of those who held political or bureaucratical office. …
• There are of course a number of other considerations that are of importance … Of note would be the relationship between the State, the nation, other territorial entities and different types of political regimes; its role in regulating competing social forces and in imposing order; its links with the élite; and, finally, its economic function, either as actor or regulator or, possibly, as manager of the welfare system …

… the use of the notion [of the State] in settings where the four processes discussed above have not occurred, or have occurred erratically, is a form of ‘concept stretching’ that is inimical to the proper understanding of the exercise of power.”

aus: Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz: Culture Troubles. Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co., 2006, S.227-229.

09/09

“Paradoxically … it is the West that holds most strongly that revolutionairies are able to provoke cultural ruptures, when the evidence (as in Russia or China) is that this is not the case.”

aus: Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz: Culture Troubles. Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co., 2006, S.165.

09/09

“… rational choice is helpless simply because its examination of self-interest is always made ex post facto. In other words, the explanation is tautological: conflict occurred because it was in the interests of the actors concerned to engage in violence.”

aus: Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz: Culture Troubles. Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co., 2006, S.144.

09/09

“The only credible justification for comparison ought to te pragmatic: that is, to enable us to understand better what is happening in the world in which we live.”

“The choice of questions and case studies must be appropriate. Only meaningful comparisons can yield meaningful insights.”

“… an analysis of the political order requires an understanding of power at the local level. … It is not possible to ascertain, a priori, which are the most relevant units of analysis. … Meaningful comparison must be demonstrated, not assumed. …

comparisons … [can] only be set up once the question being investigated has been related to the appropriate level of analysis within the relevant context. In this instance, an assessment of party politics in Muslim and non-Muslim societies requires an analytical framework that would enable a comparison of notions of representation rather than party competition …

… a cultural approach stresses the importance of taking a dynamic, historically based view of social relations. …

What is at stake is the appreciation of the variegated ways in which power, authority, control and influence impinge on the workings of the politics that really affect people’s lives. The difficulty here lies in identifying such webs of power and in finding means of advancing comparative analysis. …

A cultural approach makes possible the identification of important political actors in two ways. First, it proposes to make explicit the systems of meaning that validate authority in society. … Second, it recognises that significant political agency is to be found in both the formal and informal sectors of political life – two areas that need equal research attention. … Finally, it provides a means of studying the increasingly salient role of non-state actors in international relations. …

The first and most significant political function of culture in all societies is to provide a framework for the enunciation of rationality. … This entails working out its two distinct aspects: the first concerns the ‘logics’ of a political system; the second involves understanding how actors explain what they do. … Political logic is always constructed, contextually, within the culture of which it is a part. Thus the aim of a cultural approach is to seek to understand how such logics emerge, or are ‘invented’, how groups of people come to agree, even if only implicitly, on what rational political behaviour is. …

Myths … are usually a response either to the necessity of constructing a clearly defined sense of identity or to meet a perceived threat from other groups. Myths are thus the material from which communities are ‘imagined’ … What matters …. is the fact that myths of this ilk make possible large-scale political violence. …

We are … interested in identifying, understanding and discussing the ways in which the people concerned make sense of the changes they witness or undergo; how they explain what they do, in the ways in which they do it. … culture changes tectonically – meaning that the process is marked by three characteristics: it is perceived by us to be subteranean, unpredictable and to proceed in unequal quantum jumps. … What matters is how political meanings evolve and why.”

aus: Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz: Culture Troubles. Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co., 2006, S.125-155, 177, etwas umsortiert.

09/09

“‘Culture … denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards live‘ [C.Geerts].

Let us unpack what this characterisation implies for political analysis. The key notion here is that culture is a ‘system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms’. That makes it plain, first, that what may appear merely as a conglomeration of discrete ‘values’ is in fact an inter-related and structured whole. Second, it hightlights the historical dimension of culture, which is to be understood not as being simply the current ‘language‘ of norms and habits (synchronically= but as the living environment, evolved in the longue durée (diachronically). Finally the emphasis is clearly placed on the fact that culture is expressed in symbolic form, and not, as is sometimes believed, only in factual statements. Comparative analysis, therefore, must concern itself with all three aspects of culture …”

aus: Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz: Culture Troubles. Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co., 2006, S.23.

09/09