Having driven around Europe April-June - through nine countries - (and experienced the habits of caucasian and central asian drivers) I think I am entitled to make some generalisations about driving habits. The combination in Hungary of their strung-out villages and speed limits make driving there very frustrating. People are just too slow and cautious. Across the border - in Romania - you meet the opposite extreme - aggressiveness on a scale I have never encountered and feel is growing. I try to make sense of it culturally - Romania has reinvented itself in a more radical way than its neighbours and its younger generation has made superficial, American worship of money and conspicuous consumption its trademark in a way you don't notice in the rest of central Europe or Balkans. The testosterone level of the Romanian male seems pretty high - and finds strong expression in their cars. They will tailgate you; flash as they approach; dart in and out of lanes; and drive on the opposite side of the road around blind mountain corners. The last trick is becoming even more frequent.
The policy advisers and think-tankers who write so eloquently about nudge and steer in their attempts to ensure policy tools can more relevantly affect social behavious should come to Romania and help create an effective framework to change these driving habits.
a celebration of intellectual trespassing by a retired "social scientist" as he tries to make sense of the world..... Gillian Tett puts it rather nicely in her 2021 book “Anthro-Vision” - “We need lateral vision. That is what anthropology can impart: anthro-vision”.
what you get here
This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!
The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020
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