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.
