1/ Mini thread on restrictions to cycling during the CV19 lockdown. I have heard 3 main reasons for restricting the activities of cyclists during the lockdown: 1. If they crash they'll put pressure on the NHS. 2. They spread disease 3. If they break down they'll need recovering.

2/ I don't intend to engage in detail with any of these reasons, other than to say all three are either obvious rubbish, or equally applicable to other groups who aren't being restricted. So if the arguments are so spurious, why are they so persistent & why do travel so far?

3/ Read your Gramsci. https://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/gramsci-and-hegemony/

4/Briefly, power is not only wielded by governments but by a conversation a culture has with itself, which reproduces the ideologies of the dominant class. Institutions such as media & education system are instrumental to this conversation, but so are families & workplaces

5/ The *dominant ideology* requires us to: 1. covet material goods 2. outwardly display wealth 3. spend money whether we have it or not 4. don't worry too much about the planet 5. fetishise speed and power

6/ Most ppl have internalised these messages from early childhood. I mean, think about the cunts you went to school with.

7/ In our dominant ideology, cycling is an aberration. It ignores technological progress, modern patterns of credit and consumption, the virtues of speed and power, and the idea of a car as a status symbol. This is where the myth of the "arrogant cyclist" comes from.

8/ Cyclists are viewed as thinking themselves "too good" for these hegemonic values. Therefore, the dominant ideology sees it as perfectly natural for cycling to be discouraged, restricted and, if possible, abolished.

9/ But calling for cycling to be abolished is too direct, too authoritarian, too cranky for all but the most dangerous and depraved idiots. Our cultural discourse, therefore, is more subtle. It seeks to "other" cyclists through reproducing the values that

10/ Cyclists are irresponsible. They are losers. Cycling is frivolous; bikes are children's toys. Driving could never be restricted because driving is serious business done by serious people. But cyclists? Meh they're just pests who spread disease.

11/ And if you think I'm exaggerating, you only need look at coverage of motoring vs coverage of cycling in our newspapers or on our TVs. Top Gear. AND FINALLY:

12/ The most disappointing but predictable thing since the lockdown is the number of cyclists and cycling advocates who have also internalised the dominant discourse and are now urging people to stay off their bikes. Those people are on the wrong side of history. /End