What Car Are You?

Or  should the question really be WHY DO OUR CARS DEFINE US? Ridiculous???

Let me see – For example on arriving at a social function your car tends to determine how you’ll be parked…how well you’ll be received…and how you’ll be seated…or entertained. Because of this, your car, the quality, the model, or indeed the lack of one, affects many social interactions and business transactions at different levels of the economic strata.

 

Our cars define us because they, unlike our homes, are mobile. Thus they are perhaps the most visible marks of our wealth in a country which equates wealth with status. In a country where there are no real criteria for achievement other than wealth, our material possessions are the only markers of success.  Each high status possession symbolizes that we’re good enough, like gold stars in elementary school signifies the progress of a child or the gold medals on the breast of an army officer signify superiority.

In developed countries nobody cares what you drive. They have a different value system which defines status mainly by what you create and what you contribute to society. Stupendous wealth without any visible source of creativity is disregarded along with all its lavish trappings. Your status is carried within you as en embodiment of your talent.  And because this status is within you, like the car; it is mobile. It is however also free of wealthy trappings and can therefore show up in any vehicle it chooses. People of high status in developed countries often move about very simply without any obvious trappings of wealth, favouring modest often battered cars and conservative clothing belying the extent of their fortune. Their wealth is invisible to the ordinary eye, so much so, that a new terminology has been coined for it – STEALTH WEALTH!

There is a theory that what motivates us to seek high status is not only a longing for money, fame and influence, but: love

Alain de Botton suggests “Once food and shelter have been secured, the predominant impulse behind our desire to succeed in the social hierarchy may lie not so much with the goods we can accrue or the power we can wield as with the amount of love we stand to receive as a consequence of high status…To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern. Our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care we flourish… [and] enjoy protection under the benevolent gaze of others”. 

Yes this may be true, but in Africa it is only one half of the story.  Whereas in Europe your status is your own; you may be admired, indulged and deferred to, but ultimately people leave you alone, content only in the pleasure of being able to say they know you. However in Africa, especially in Nigeria, because of our inherent feudal nature, our African values place a reliance on external assistance to solve our problems. Therefore one’s status is seen as a source of energy that can be readily tapped into by others. Wealth suggests hope! A good car suggests the possibility of hope and ready energy available to be tapped. Let me rephrase that – There is an assumption that if a person is driving the latest car they are wealthy and therefore may be of value to you. Your status is seen as a means of security by others, to tap into and draw from. Your wealth is akin to a possibility of – a loan by association!

So does it really matter what car we drive? Where we live?  What clothes and accessories we choose to wear? Well unless we as Nigerians decide to change our core values and give merit to productivity, creativity, integrity ,hard work and the core values of humanity,  the only things people will be able to asses  us with  are these meaningless materialistic talisman of success.  Which, in any event as we all know are not a true measure, but unfortunately today these are the all access pass needed to gain entry into the inner sanctums of business and society.

But does it really matter? ...well I guess it doesn’t, if you don’t mind being treated brusquely, being asked to wait while others are hailed forward, and being generally ignored!
If you really don't want to be ignored...just watch this space! 
By the way I'm a sassy red Mercedes SL convertible ...what car are you?