SPEED JUNKIES

Nov 01, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

In this week’s column, we examine the internationalization of speed in relation to the tragic events of last Friday when a minibus carrying a number of passengers was involved in an accident with a truck on the Corentyne highway resulting in the deaths of twelve individuals.
We have become a market-oriented world. In this world, time is money and therefore we have been culturally conditioned by the mass production line in which the faster the line goes the more production.
The greater the production, the better chances you have of retaining your job and getting a fatter bonus at the end of the year. Speed therefore counts. On the production line things cannot move slowly for slowness connotes a lack of progress.
Speed is the deal. The production worker hurries off the line at the end of his shift and goes home. He has been conditioned to believe that time is precious so as soon as he gets out of the factory it is straight to his preferred mode of transportation. No time to stop and look around and experience his environment.
When he reaches home, he also does things quickly unable to break the rhythm of his work. To relax, he sits in front of a television and seeks to fill the emptiness that has been caused by a process that treats him like the product he is making on the line. To fill that void he has to seek more thrilling things. He needs thrills and thrills are usually fast- paced.
The market fills these needs by providing products of excitement: movies that are filled with action and rapid twists of scenes, high-voltage entertainment and drinks that hype your energy; and of course recreational parks where flirting with danger is transformed into a fun activity.
The need to flirt with danger becomes more acute because of the weather which denies outdoor activities for a substantial part of the year. Thus when the weather is good, hay is made of the conditions. The need for thrill becomes a tonic to satisfy the disconnectedness caused by living in a consumer society.
This is the culture that is penetrating into Guyana because of the advent of television and the increased travel by Guyanese and those who come to Guyana. It is creating a culture of moving fast. It is leading to speed and trying to get things done.
But that is not the traditional way of the Caribbean. Hard work does not mean fast work. And getting somewhere fast does not mean that you will end up better off.
Twelve persons die because somewhere along the line speeding was responsible for a horrific accident. It is not yet clear who was speeding or who was reckless but from the Internet edition of the Kaieteur News last Saturday, speeding had to be a factor in the accident.
The pictures were gruesome and there will be some who will say that they ought not to have been published. But people also need a wake up call to bring them back to reality. Unfortunately, there have been many such calls in the past, yet the hunger for speed is still insatiable.
People are not slowing down. They are racing to go to the market; racing to go to work; racing to get home; racing to get out of the house after they have gotten home.
Even in cricket we have seen the popularity of a shortened form of a shortened version of the game, all because of the need to provide greater thrills rather than showcase greater skills. People are impatient to get where they are going even though when they get where there are going they seem to have a great deal of time on their hands.
Guyana is addictively hooked to the fast-paced culture. We need that regular fix of speed to make us feel alive. We are speed junkies
The consequences we see are tragic. We are destroying our lives by this addiction to speed.
We need to stop and take stock and ask ourselves whether this preoccupation with speed is improving the quality of our lives or whether it is doing just the opposite; making our lives less meaningful and satisfying.
What we see happening on the roadways is part of a material culture that is wreaking havoc with lives. We need to stop and take note of this fact and to try to make sense of what is taking place within our society.
To make sense about what happened last Friday in that accident requires that we slow down and ask to what extent what happened on the roadway is a reflection of the type of lifestyles that is being thrust upon Guyanese by foreign influences.

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