Being Safe? You'll Be Sorry!!
Being Safe? You'll Be Sorry!!
Are you really safe when you drive your car or ride a bike or walk down the street? What if I told you that there are people who will do anything to make themselves safer in their own lives, even at the expense of others. And what if I told you that those people have been listening to someone for decades who has been telling them that being safe is being selfish. Someone eventually discovered this and wrote about it and published it in 2008. The author's name is Janusz Korczak, but he wasn't just any old person- he was a children's doctor.
In an article written over 20 years ago entitled Privacy Is Theft!, the author, who was actually advocating for personal civil liberties, drew on the work of Janusz Korczak, a Polish writer and physician who had worked extensively with underprivileged children in Europe before he was sent to the concentration camp in Treblinka at age 50.
Korczak's book, "Never Again" was a fictional story about his experiences as director of an orphanage in Warsaw from 1932 until 1942. In that book are some comments that have relevance for our own time. The orphanage was taken over by the Gestapo after Korczak refused to send its Jewish charges to a transit camp during one of their many roundups. A few days later, all but the youngest children were sent away on a cattle car.
While Janusz Korczak, fictionalized as "Dr. Korczak", was also sent to Treblinka, his book--written in the form of a diary kept by Dr. Korczak--tells of his experiences in Warsaw from 1939 to 1942 and in the camp at Treblinka from 1942 until he and all but one of the children --Ruth who was played by Ingrid Bergman in the movie "The Garden of the Finzi Continis"--were murdered.
Dr. Korczak's comment, published over 20 years before the events of September 11, 2001, were most likely written with the author's awareness that they would not be understood until after that day; but by then it would be too late to do much about it.
"Never Again" is a great book full of interesting information and provocative ideas. In one scene he describes a game in which children play at being dead by pretending to ride their bicycles over imaginary graves. They pretend they are riding their bikes across a grave in order to safely complete the journey from one end of their playground to the other.
In this game they are pretending to be safe. In fact, they are pretending that the dead will watch over them and protect them. Dr. Korczak mentions that this is how many adults behave--they try to make themselves feel safe by making someone else feel scared for their lives.
Now, which "someone else" does your average driver think about when he or she passes or meets a cyclist? The answer is obvious: the cyclist. By the mere act of driving a car in traffic, the driver is making a solemn oath to do whatever it takes to keep himself or herself safe for as long as possible.
How does this square with what Dr. Korczak wrote? "Whenever we try to make ourselves safe by making someone else feel unsafe, we become unfree." Safe- is it really worth it? It's a good thing he didn't live long enough to see those towers fall.
On the morning of July 29, 2013 I was riding my bike with my children on the sidewalk of West Sunset Road in Hendersonville. We were being passed by vehicles left and right as I was holding up traffic by attempting to ride across the street in front of a funeral that had just passed us as we waited for them to pass. A car horn sounded as a vehicle drove towards me from behind. I saw the source of the horn was a middle aged couple who were in the far right lane. As I had done so many times before, I looked over my shoulder to determine if there was any traffic behind me. This time I was right as a car started coming towards me from behind.
I kept riding as they both passed us and we all continued on in our respective directions with the funeral passing on the other side of us.
While all this was happening, however, I did not hear the driver say anything that would have given me any indication of their feelings towards me nor what they might have been thinking about why they were passing so close to a cyclist in their funeral procession only to keep going after passing.
But I've thought about it a lot since then, and I came to an interesting conclusion. One which puts it back into the perspective of Dr. Korczak's comment about children pretending to ride their bikes across graves in order to feel safer.
When I was riding on the sidewalk, I had no traffic behind me to slow down or stop if need be. After all, no one would be around me so my not being in front of the cars was safer for them than being behind me or beside me as I rode a bike with two children on either side of me on a sidewalk that did not have enough room for a car to pass us without coming close enough to brush any one of us with their vehicle.
My not being in front of the traffic was safer for them, but also, I had to admit- it was also safer for me.
While watching the funeral go by, and when I was riding on the sidewalk in front of it, I did not have to wonder if I would have time to jump off my bike or move over out of the way should a driver be distracted or start moving faster than they should.
I didn't have to wait for them to slow down. They were coming up behind me so I could just keep going and let them pass me as they came around me at whatever speed their determination was going to make them do.
I didn't have to worry about them swerving or making any bad turns that could pose a threat to me.
I didn't have to worry about what they were saying to themselves as they passed me on their way up the road. I know that drivers often talk to themselves when they are passing and doing other things driving and I had no access to their thoughts as I was behind them and not in front of them.
I felt safe. It was safe for me to be behind them.
But I also felt free. My freedom was my not being in their way or on the way of any of their vehicles as they were moving towards me.
When I heard someone yell "Hey!" and saw a couple of pats on my back as one of the funeral attendees made his way over to me and said "We're sorry! We didn't mean to make you nervous" I didn't feel angry or bothered, nor did I need to explain what had happened or ask why they had yelled "Hey!" at me.
Conclusion: It was safe for me to be behind them, I felt free and I had no need to explain to them why they were passing so close to a cyclist in their procession or what they said or thought when they were passing me.
I realized that those drivers were doing all of the same things Dr. Korczak describes as being done by the adults he sees on his street every day on the way to his office or home.
It was safer for them, but it also made me feel free and also gave me no reason to question what they were thinking or how they felt about me as they passed by.