Project Vision 21

Francisco Miraval

The man was driving east on a busy avenue in the middle of the day when he decide to cross all three eastbound lanes and all three westbound lanes and make an U-turn right there, in the middle of the block, oblivious to other cars and certainly not caring about the saying U-turns were not allowed at that location. And then he parked next to a liquor store.

I saw that incident at a distance. It did not affect me at all, but it got me thinking about the growing number of similar incidents. For example, last week, I saw a young couple with two huge dogs crossing a four-lane avenue when, according to the traffic signal, they should have been waiting.

And just a few days ago I saw a woman exiting a parking lot and trying to make a left turn. Suddenly, when she was half way through the street, she stopped her car, blocking two lanes and forcing cars to stop. I thought perhaps there was something wrong with her vehicle. When it was my turn to go around the stopped car, I notice the woman was just trying to light a cigarette. Once she did it, she kept driving.

What does it mean that traffic laws are no longer respected? I frequently say to my students that we moved away from an individualistic society and we are now become a narcissistic society.

The individualistic person, I explain to them, believes he/she is the center of the universe and everybody else is there just to serve him/her. But the narcissistic person believes he/she is the universe and nobody else truly exists. The others don’t matter at all.

In that context, I believe the growing attitude of not following the traffic laws is a clear example of the undeniable narcissistic attitude of many people in our society. For them, the only laws and desires are theirs.

Do I want to buy liquor? Then I will cross six lanes and make a U-turn making the traffic to stop. Do I want to walk with my dogs? Then I don’t care about annoying traffic lights because they don’t apply to me. Do I want to light a cigarette? I will do it even if I am blocking two lanes. I only care about myself. For me, the narcissist, you don’t even exist. I just want to satisfy my desires and I want to it immediately.

What would happen –and it is already happening– if this narcissistic attitude towards traffic laws is also applied to other aspects of social life? What kind of society will we have? Because we will be moving from disrespecting people to not even recognizing the others as human.

If I don’t care about respecting same basic laws and I don’t want to have any contact with others (for example, letting them know I am about to change lanes), what kind of society I am promoting? By the end of next year we may have an answer.