Over the past few days, the local weather has been unusually excellent. So while I regularly ride my bicycle on a daily basis regardless of the weather, I have taken the “fair weather” opportunity to take my bike out on a few extra tours.
I guess in most so-called “advanced” economies bicycle riders are considered to be somewhat abnormal. People who dare to ride bicycles on ordinary roads are even more extreme. People like me, often finding themselves in situations together with normal folks (which in these so-called “advanced” economies usually translates into motorized participants in traffic) appear to be seen quite like “lone wolves”.
My experience this weekend was no exception to the rule. When riding along an open road from one town to the next, I experienced several people driving cars and also passengers in cars rolling down their windows — not to experience the warm sunny weather, but rather to scream out some inaudible mumbo-jumbo in my general direction. I consider such people to be, um, rather remarkable (to put it mildly).
Yet I realize that the society I live in is rather intolerant of any deviations from the norm. The local government itself is often on a campaign to outlaw dissidents. So often ordinary people feel legitimated in hacking away at anything somewhat out of the ordinary. Never mind that I guess quite often these very same people feel somewhat “holier than thou” when they vote for political parties which proclaim to be aligned with environmental issues. Apparently, inconsistency and self-contradiction are not abnormal.
Socio Business blog 