SLUM CADILLACS

Back in 1978 I took part in Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Jamboree. The deal was you could speak about any subject you wanted, but for no more than 5 minutes. Here is what I said.

I’d like to talk to you today about slum Cadillacs and technological incongruity. In the 50s it was quite fashionable to study slums and the people who lived in them. One of the startling facts that came out of those studies was that a lot of poor people drive Cadillacs. What’s interesting is the kind of reaction that people gave to this fact. Some people were upset because they had Cadillacs and this somehow reduced their status symbol, but a lot of people were upset because they saw that this was somehow inefficient, and in some vague way, immoral.

This kind of philosophy has colored American thinking about technology for some time and that is that technological development must be congruent, everything has to move across the board on a step-by-step basis. According to this thinking, a poor person should drive a poor car. And a poor person driving an expensive car has this touch of immorality. I think that this is not a useful type of philosophy to have, even though it touches Buck Rogers type technologies as well as appropriate technologies. It’s not a useful thing, and I think that by looking at other cultures, we can see that it’s not an inevitable thing either.

I was doing some work once for an Indian band in northern Canada in a small village of about 500 people. There are many examples here of technological incongruities. The [Indians] are mainly trappers and they take long trips in the forest in the winter, where they rely on ageless woodcraft for survival. At the same time, they charter planes to get to their trap lines, rather than spending a lot of valuable time slogging through the bush.

The houses of these people have very little of what you would consider amenities — no running water, very simple methods of heating and cooking. They have no electricity but most of the houses have small cheap portable radios. They have no running water but most houses have washing machines standing outside, powered by gas motors. Some people even have small Honda generators they’ll crank up from time to time to watch color television by satellite. You might say, “Well this is just another example of white man’s technology taking over.” Well that’s not true, at least I don’t think it’s true. It seems to me that the Indians in this case are not hung up on this question of technological incongruities. They can put old and new things together. They’re not afraid to do that, and they’re not afraid to choose which things they want to put together.

Another brief example, from the Philippines. I was invited to give a talk in a squatter settlement, and I wanted to show some slides to some students. About ten minutes before this talk, there was still no slide projector, so I assumed that I’d have to give a talk and we’d forget about the slides. I was quite wrong because my friend who ran this school said, “Well, a slide projector isn’t that complicated, it’s just a lamp and a lens. I’ll just make one.” This is, I think, to the modern American, a flabbergasting reaction. If your shoelace breaks, you look for a piece of string, but if any of our modern technology goes wrong we just throw up our hands. The reason I think this person could react in such a sensible way is that his life was full of technological incongruities, he wasn’t a slave to the technology, he wasn’t afraid of it. So, when people tell you that you have to choose, one or the other, I would be very suspicious of that. I think that, in fact, we have to choose both and only by evolving both, side by side, do we get a healthier reaction to either. I could leave you with just one thought: wouldn’t it be surprising if the first Chinese astronaut used an abacus? Thank you.

1 thought on “SLUM CADILLACS”

  1. Ha! Hello from Indianapolis, I have not bothered you in a while. What you just wrote reminded me of our trip in a beautiful wooden boat in Venice a few years ago…July 27, 2015. That whole trip must have cost a fortune because of all the missed connections. We got to our airport for the late afternoon flight to the first city. Checked our suitcases. Got through security and in a short while a massive thunderstorm came through and the sky was black. Delays. Pretty soon the airport was closed. We were told to go home! Come back tomorrow, same time. Back home we went, to no toothbrushes as I recall, they were in the luggage in the airport. I got busy and tried to contact our two night hotel in Sorrento. I had pre-paid, a big mistake. We could not get a refund for the first night lost. And to add a second one to the new first one was out since it was booked. I said, just forget it, it’s our gift to you. We found a more expensive hotel but it had a stunning view…the hotel Tramontano, I think was the name, high on a cliff, right in town. Next fiasco, our luggage is lost. We were going to Capri, first time since 30 years ago. It does turn up over there. The hotel there, our room’s a/c won’t work. We walked our rolling suitcases down the lane a few hotels and found a better one, at least we did get that money back. We are one day off though. Flights to take us from Naples to Venice….sorry, can’t change them, and paid for! The train! Second class tickets stopped at every tiny town. And our four day hotel…now arriving one day late…..somebody coming in after us, we cannot add a new day at the end so we elected to stay two there and move to a different one over by Saint Mark’s Square….and this is were this wooden boat comes in. It pulls up and we get in, with luggage. Briefly we are on the Grand Canal then into small waterways. The handsome young man with polo shirt with popped collar and his cell phone drives the boat. How ironic that as the waterways get smaller and tighter, going past gondolas parked, under many small bridges with people walking, we come to a corner of sorts and in this world of technology, what does he do? He reaches out to the left wall of a building beside him, grabs ahold of a chain with a long hook on the end and uses the leverage of that to maneuver the boat around the corner! How could he done that if the chain and hook had come loose from the wall and fallen in the water? I wonder! I just sat here and watched my little under two minute video I made of the process….it’s priceless…the juxtaposition of the new and old worlds. What would they do without each other!
    If you send your texting info I’ll send the video.

    Margaret Huff

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