After years of being completely dependent on personal cars to get anywhere, Americans display characteristics of Stockholm syndrome. We're all Patty Hearst now.
There’s a bit of laziness involved in becoming a “hostage” to traffic jams as well. Upon seeing huge backups in the opposite direction on our way “out”, I insisted that our return be on “back roads” (actually just state highways) rather than the interstate, even though it was hours later. Zero traffic and far less boring driving. Google maps also has a “traffic” display that can show where jams are.
Fun fact - Stockholm Syndrome is actually a piece of BS. In 1973 a bank robber, Jan-Erik Olsson, held up a bank and got caught out, taking some people hostage in an attempt to avoid being returned to prison. The women hostages, most notably Kristin Enmark, a 23-year-old bank clerk, were labelled as having what became known as 'Stockholm Syndrome'. However, Ms Enmark herself tells the story very differently - the Swedish police, who had never dealt with a hostage situation before, seemed to be making an awful hash of the situation and the hostages genuinely feared that the police would end up getting them killed through incompetence. Ms Enmark even had a long conversation during the siege with the Swedish Prime Minister in which he told her that if she died she should be proud to have died at her post. She didn't fall in love with her captor at all, she just had no faith in the police's ability to get them out safely and did whatever she could to make herself safe. The 'syndrome' continues to be used as a victim-blaming strategy to this day.
This opens up interesting possibilities in the realm of transport. If ordinary travellers and commuters are the victims, who are their captors, and why don't the victims trust the authorities to make them safe?
And yet there's the well-documented Patty Hearst story. I write a lot about the absurdity of victim blaming, especially in the context of traffic safety marketing campaigns. But there are real life examples of people developing twisted views of people/places/things that hold them in some type of captivity. We humans are funny creatures. See also Car Brain -- the way people will justify or commit antisocial acts involving a car when they strongly oppose those same antisocial acts in other contexts.
Yes, lots has been written about Hearst, and I find it hard to get an accurate read on that. The psych who examined her soon after her arrest suggested she had been brainwashed, and she herself said that she was tortured and coerced into taking part in the robberies. Neither brainwashing nor torture is involved in Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe she did voluntarily take part in the SLA's crimes. However, two cases, one of which is clearly wrong, don't make a 'syndrome'. Stockholm Syndrome doesn't appear in the DSM and psychs don't believe it is a thing.
It's often used of domestic violence survivors, and advocates say the idea takes the heat off the perpetrators since it suggests the woman is complicit in her own abuse. We need to keep the focus on the perpetrators in transport policy too. You know the history of how we got to where we are now better than I do.
Oh great, now I’m a hostage, and I have no possible way of escaping in my lifetime…;)
There’s a bit of laziness involved in becoming a “hostage” to traffic jams as well. Upon seeing huge backups in the opposite direction on our way “out”, I insisted that our return be on “back roads” (actually just state highways) rather than the interstate, even though it was hours later. Zero traffic and far less boring driving. Google maps also has a “traffic” display that can show where jams are.
Fun fact - Stockholm Syndrome is actually a piece of BS. In 1973 a bank robber, Jan-Erik Olsson, held up a bank and got caught out, taking some people hostage in an attempt to avoid being returned to prison. The women hostages, most notably Kristin Enmark, a 23-year-old bank clerk, were labelled as having what became known as 'Stockholm Syndrome'. However, Ms Enmark herself tells the story very differently - the Swedish police, who had never dealt with a hostage situation before, seemed to be making an awful hash of the situation and the hostages genuinely feared that the police would end up getting them killed through incompetence. Ms Enmark even had a long conversation during the siege with the Swedish Prime Minister in which he told her that if she died she should be proud to have died at her post. She didn't fall in love with her captor at all, she just had no faith in the police's ability to get them out safely and did whatever she could to make herself safe. The 'syndrome' continues to be used as a victim-blaming strategy to this day.
This opens up interesting possibilities in the realm of transport. If ordinary travellers and commuters are the victims, who are their captors, and why don't the victims trust the authorities to make them safe?
And yet there's the well-documented Patty Hearst story. I write a lot about the absurdity of victim blaming, especially in the context of traffic safety marketing campaigns. But there are real life examples of people developing twisted views of people/places/things that hold them in some type of captivity. We humans are funny creatures. See also Car Brain -- the way people will justify or commit antisocial acts involving a car when they strongly oppose those same antisocial acts in other contexts.
Yes, lots has been written about Hearst, and I find it hard to get an accurate read on that. The psych who examined her soon after her arrest suggested she had been brainwashed, and she herself said that she was tortured and coerced into taking part in the robberies. Neither brainwashing nor torture is involved in Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe she did voluntarily take part in the SLA's crimes. However, two cases, one of which is clearly wrong, don't make a 'syndrome'. Stockholm Syndrome doesn't appear in the DSM and psychs don't believe it is a thing.
It's often used of domestic violence survivors, and advocates say the idea takes the heat off the perpetrators since it suggests the woman is complicit in her own abuse. We need to keep the focus on the perpetrators in transport policy too. You know the history of how we got to where we are now better than I do.