techne and episteme

[otto]

I'm with Samuel becket on this one, T


The bicycle's chain and wheels are continuously moving forward but never escape their cyclic nature and always return to where their motion starts. The bicycle for Beckett seems to have been an infinity machine. Cycling enthusiasts know that of all moving animals and machines, the bicycle has been scientifically proven to be the most efficient. Mankind never came closer to the old dream of a perpetuum mobile than with this fascinating two-wheel machine. Weather and terrain permitting, a bicycle and its rider can stay in motion for hours on end without exhausting all energies.

Cartesian because in another explaination becket saw the bicycle as the perfect example of Descartes mind body dichotomy. The cyclists mind is free to think and wonder whislt his body , as if a separate entity, continues its mechanical automatic exersions.

Free your mind.....ride a bike

[Roygbiv]

The trick with social narratives is to not get bogged down in anecdotes; because it's about much broader issues than that. Your generalisations have to be accurate, ie. they have to accurately describe reality at the anecdotal level. But at the level of the 'discourse' (look it up) which you are creating, it's wise to stick mainly to the higher and more abstract forms of understanding, and find your patterns in those instead.

I knew a guy once with a master's degree in sociology (speaking of being anecdotal!), and it was a big learning experience trying to follow what he said when he discussed such matters, and (even more) trying to picture exactly what he meant by it.

He used words like 'discourse', and went on about significance, signs and symbols. Symbolic meanings are everywhere, eg. everything that a given motorist thinks about "all cyclists" is symbolic - a cultural meme, propagated from one person to another in bars, homes and offices, through a word or a look here and there; or through little stories told and retold; and through the media, movies, adverts and 'news', etc. Those things then feed back into the media from the people, creating a 'discourse' which constantly reinvents itself and changes how people perceive things. (Some people naturally see those things and think in those terms.)

That's the kind of thing you are describing at this level (of 'social narrative'), but in generalised terms. There isn't really any place for rants; only for fitting the pieces together and understanding how memes and concepts are generated and perpetuated.

(Or something like that!!!)

So the question is, how could we construct such a narrative, which makes sense and explains how cyclists integrate into society, what their function is, and what 'cycling' means to different people, without relying on endless anecdotes. I was wondered last night about this, and I thought perhaps - we could start by making up a list of the forces at work - ? Simon wants to know where cycling is heading, or how we can change its course in society, especially in how it is seen by other people - so that we can attract more people into it.

So what people think about the distances covered is relevant - that is one part of outsiders see cycling. But there is a lot more to it aswell.

I'm sorry, I've misunderstood. I failed Sociology you see but I only took it because the class was full of fit birds. To be honest I'm not the slightest bit interested in constructing a narrative because I don't believe that in itself, it will encourage any one to take up cycling. In my opinion "our" (as in all cyclists) time would be better spent trying to get new bums on saddles because I firmly believe that the more cyclists there are on the roads then the less need there will be for such things as narratives. Good luck with your navel gazing! 

Seriously, I suspect I'm not the right person to contribute as I don't see myself as a "cyclist". Riding a bike is just one of the ways in which I enjoy myself.

[Si Davies]

To be honest I'm not the slightest bit interested in constructing a narrative because I don't believe that in itself, it will encourage any one to take up cycling. In my opinion "our" (as in all cyclists) time would be better spent trying to get new bums on saddles because I firmly believe that the more cyclists there are on the roads then the less need there will be for such things as narratives.

 ah, but that, as i see it is the whole problem and the question.  How do you get more bums on saddles?

Do you do it by describing the virtues of cycling such as fitness, health, greenness, etc?  Or do you do it by making people buy into cycling as a distinct activity that allows them to follow social trends and thus 'fit-in'?  Another example: there's a lot of people out there driving very flash and fancy cars.  Do they choose these cars because they need all the fancy features or do they pick them because they see the right car as a social statement?  Just look at how much is spent by the advertising industry on pushing forward products not on their basic practical merits but on the advantages they give in demonstrating identity.  People will go to much more effort if they believe that they are keeping up with the Jones's!

[bardsandwarriors]

I'm sorry, I've misunderstood. I failed Sociology you see but I only took it because the class was full of fit birds. ;)

And now you've failed this one aswell. Goodbye!

BTW, my reply wasn't directed at you. I was addressing anyone who wants to learn about it. I suppose you think that atom bombs would have been invented much more quickly if Einstein had just started building one, instead of writing bollox such as 'a general theory of relativity' first.

[The Glue Man]

Any narrative, even social one's, have to have a narrator though he may be implied or embedded deeper than an NBC reporter with the 24th tank reg.
Advertisers do a good job but their take on what matters is pretty flawed unless you're overwhelmed with status anxiety and badge dilemmas.
Motorists -I hate the term, you may as well say house dwellers or air breathers- won't change unless you make them or offer sweet alternatives and distractions but we've been here before recently.
Cyclists show no sign of wanting them near their (campag equipped) hobby horses. In the face of such stone-walling a retreat into curley lugged romanticism seems almost pioneering.
Have you meta-diegesis you like better?

[Roygbiv]

I'm sorry, I've misunderstood. I failed Sociology you see but I only took it because the class was full of fit birds.

And now you've failed this one aswell. Goodbye!

BTW, my reply wasn't directed at you. I was addressing anyone who wants to learn about it. I suppose you think that atom bombs would have been invented much more quickly if Einstein had just started building one, instead of writing bollox such as 'a general theory of relativity' first.

This may or may not come as a surprise but guess what? I've never thought about it!

Now I'm off to do some colouring-in but I'll keep an eye on this thread to see how this narrative comes along. It'll be educational for me.

[Simon L3]

I've always thought that the bedrock of cycling was pleasure. Pleasure in freedom. Sensual pleasure. Pleasure in transcending your legged-being self and becoming an airborne kind of thing. Pleasure in transgressing - crossing the county boundary of convention that confines you when you're in a car - or even when you're motorised. Pleasure in having all those hormones running round your head.

And pleasure in efficiency and economy and simplicity - you pick up this simple thing and you're off, without the frustrations, expense (money and matter) and complications of travel. Here, I think Otto is really on to something. Cycling's nothingness is it's perfection. And the complexity of life, of traffic, of bicycle theft, of potholes all detract from it's nothingness. You may know that I ride a C40 with DA wheels, gears, brakes. It is like riding nothing. The gear change is like nothing. The wheels require nothing of me. Of course it takes me ten minutes to get it into a steel cage at work and wrestle with three locks, and that is quite something.

And I believe in pleasure - by which I mean not that there is an oh-so-pure pleasure that defies any analysis, but that we can take pleasure, and make it our own. And that is the charm of cycling - that we make it our own and simultaneously share it with others. And by make it our own, I mean that in the act of taking pleasure in the world we free that pleasure of its guilty history, provided that our pleasure is not some other persons pain. And that's why cycling is such a pleasure, because you can traverse the country, taking pleasure, without causing offence or discomfort to anybody. It is as if you weren't there. You could probably say the same sort of thing about Architecture (and I would, if I'd had enough to drink) or reading, or sex (not even tempted) but cycling is as straightforward a pleasure, a bodily pleasure, as a body can find.

Bards' point about Einstein is so correct that I'm really put out that I didn't think of it first - but I'm also compelled to agree in part with JT, because I'm afraid that this thread is the misbegotten child of odd and rather humdrum circumstance, and I'm embarrassed that I didn't make it clear from the start. I'm now the Chair of the Way Forward Committee of the CTC. I'm supposed to think about the future of cycling, and I'm supposed to come up with something to say at the end of that thinking. And the trouble with committees and agendas is that you usually just pick up on the minutes of the last meeting and see how much progress you've made, and then you think of a way of dividing the 'work' up into tasks or fields so that you can measure what you've thought....and I realise that I'm not really in shape for thinking.

The odd thing about cycling is that it is a deeply sociable pleasure. And that's where I'm running aground. It's plain that cycling in company is pleasurable, but I can't work out what that sharing is about, other than the basic re-assurance that comes from mutual recognition. You can get mutual recognition by putting on a uniform, or by mowing your front lawn, but to say that cycling is more momentous a form of mutual recognition is to understate the obvious. Is there some shared pleasure in our survival? Or do we just take pleasure in the pleasure of others? Do we really need each other in any meaningful way?

[ed_o_brain]

Simon, if anyone is "in shape for thinking" it's you. I am glad the job is in safe hands.

Maybe digressing slightly, but I wonder what effect a television advert for a bicycle would have on the general public? Instead of the Peugeot advert 'The Drive of Your Life' what about the 'Ride of Your Life'?

Lots of shots accentuating the carbon curves of the frame set against a background of countryside and open roads moving into a town gliding past traffic to the approval of sexy young women oggling at the riderthe bike.

And, as an added bonus it would be far more truthful than the car adverts!

[arabella]

Why does it have to be a bloke on the bike, Ed?

More seriously, though, when did anyone last see a bike in an advert, or even more to the point, an advert for a bike?  (the only one I can think of is the yellow pages one that had the dad looking for a racer for his son, so that means early 80's I think)

It was once suggested that the chief misfortune for cycing was that it wasn't invented longer before the car became so commonplace (cheers your thatchet-ness, not).

Some report on children and cycling I was reading earlier today (sorry, forgo the ref and it was on a different machine) said that more children would like to cycle to school than actually do (perceived danger).  So adverts working on the perception of danger, perhaps.  Also the fitness thing, and the fact that so many bikes are heavy and/or badly maintained.  Maybe we should all turn ourselves into Dr Bikes (I try with my friends' bikes but there's a limit to my knowledge), also work on our bikes in front of the house (like people work on cars in front of the house, not hidden away round the back - a bit of publicity (hmm, shall I try that).

I fear this is a bit mixed up and lacks style, Simon.

[geeb]

Where are we going? Where we've been. These things always seem to be cyclical. Indulge my historical inaccuracies a while, as I flex the fingers of over-egged prose...

Our history is transport. The bicycle provided mobility to the working classes when other means were slow, expensive or both. It was considered simply the norm to cycle, unless you were ludicrously privileged (or pretentious). The bicycle represented freedom for the ordinary man.

We are approaching the same position again. There is a huge cost associated with most means of transport, and few realize that cyclists do not have to pay. Financially, the majority can afford whatever means of transport they choose, but that is not where the true cost lies. The motorist is paying by wasting time in traffic jams, incurring costs to his health by failing to take sufficient exercise, and extracting a toll from the planet itself in pollution.

My vision is that the populace will realize that true status does not come from paying for something because you can, but from making the choices that give you true freedom.