It is common to refer to Americans and their autos as "having a love affair with the automobile." (A recent book entitled "Divorce Your Car!: Ending the Love Affair with the Automobile" by Katharine Alvord and Stephanie Mills discuss the history of the automobile in this country.) A love affair is often described as illicit or passionate or short term or sexual. Love affair implies a set of values, one of which is self satisfaction at the expense possibly of spouse, family or community.

American values for cars include speed, comfort, trendiness, convenience, power (over others), fashion, "sexiness", conspicuous waste, peppiness, conspicuous consumption, etc. Ad language includes words like "muscle," peppy, performance, and acceleration. An anti-value, and one of the worst words to describe a car is to call it "sluggish." All these values inevitably lead to larger cars, bigger engines and more driving.

There is also an impliedvalue of violence in the culture, most apparent in media. This value carries over to our selection of automobiles. Joan Ryan wrote an article entitled "An all-American vehicle" in the April 6, 2003 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle about the 2003 H2 Hummer. (The Hummer is a recently developed large automobile. Its ad program includes cartoon pictures of a Hummer terrorizing cabs driven by caricatures of third world citizens.) She quotes the salesman as saying "All steel. You get into a head-on collision with a Suburban, say, and this will win by a lot." And "The only thing you have to worry about when you're in one of these things is a semi or a bus. The vehicle you hit – that's the one that needs the extra air bags." The steel Hummer weighs 6400 pounds and gets 10 miles to the gallon. The aluminum Honda Insight weights 1800 pounds and gets 70 miles per gallon. Ms. Ryan goes on to talk about what she calls the "strain of self-preservation-at-all-costs taking root across the country." She then relates this to the fear in our country and the world situation particularly the Middle East.

The name of the cars, their size, the macho adventuresome advertising all combine to provide an air of competitiveness, danger and violence around the car. There is a sense of excitement at having a large powerful "muscle" car. The concerned person buying a small car in order to conserve resources is viewed as quaint, not quite "with it" and to some extent as weak. This partly explains the continued purchase of every larger cars in the face of resource depletion. They are not transportation vehicles – they are "fundamental to our way of life" or "part of our high standard of living."

People who drive small efficient cars typically are not having "a love affair with the automobile." The automobile is a tool – a way to get from one point to another. Acceleration is secondary to thriftiness. A smaller car stops quicker and can be more easily and quickly maneuvered, increasing safety. The owner of a small car is not viewing himself or herself as in combat with another driver. A small efficient car includes the values of frugality and thrift as well as caring for others – caring for the progeny (children and grandchildren), caring for the other motorist and caring for environment.

E. F. Schuhmacher notes in the chapter called Technology with a Human Face of his seminal work, Small is Beautiful: "The modern world has been shaped by its metaphysics, which has been shaped by its education, which in turn has brought forth its science and technology. So, without going back to metaphysics and education, we can say that the modern world has been shaped by technology."

America is a machine culture. That means the machine determines the culture within which we find ourselves. This current culture is addicted to machines and thus to the burning of ever increasing amounts of fossil fuels. As we reach the peak of world oil production, a frantic effort is underway to continue this wasteful way of life by finding a new machine to replace the old machine that is depleting the resources in question.

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