by B.J. on 10/24/2004 07:48:00 PM 2 comments Print this post

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Maybe the middle and upper classes are escaping from some other form of dominance, too. Domineering parent, a dominant but boring culture, etc. Except this time it's no longer about physical survival but something like mental survival, mental well-being.

--Antonio
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 9:34 PM
 
Interesting, I did not think about that at all. But now that I have, I would agree that part of temporary and permanent travel might be to get some mental escape. In particular I can think of the white flights from Downtown LA in the 1910s Inglewood in the 1950s, South Bronx in the 1950s and 1960s. More mental dwelling upon this to be done as it relates to the bigger picture.
# posted by Blogger B.J. : 6:50 AM
 
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Travel in the 21st Century

From a western biological evolutionary historical point of view, it seems as if the weakest of a species have always had to find ways around the dominants to get resources.

Part of finding a way to survive: get away from the dominants. Travel. And migrate !

I mean, as a human, if you were part of a group of dominants and surviving well, why would you ever want to leave your spot and go into barbaric territory unless you were going to conquer it ?

Nowadays there still is this element of migrating to get away from a home territory for better opportunities elsewhere. It seems to have always been a survival mechanism (wow with all this Western reasoning and some definitive affirmative adverbs like "always" I am just opening up a lot of questions for anthropologists to investigate).

However, ever since we've developed technology and gotten super-fast vehicles like trains, travelling is something done not only by the weakest of the species but now mostly by the middle to the upper classes in Western society, arguably the strongest of the species in the sense that they are better able to reproduce and ensure survival for their young. They go everywhere and sometimes may even hold this up as another sign of their affluence.

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