British Voluntary Motorcycle Organisations and the Cosmic Plot – In her book entitled ‘Risk and Blame’, Mary Douglas summarises trust within voluntary organisations and pressure groups and how threats are dealt from within.
She argues that “the cosmic plot provides an idiom for bringing hidden hostilities into the open. At one point the threat of being accused controls and at another point it fuels factional discord, allowing the social unit to get rid of elements it cannot contain peacefully.
In all these cases, disasters, natural and man made, trigger the enquiries which trace the real distribution of power and its challengers” (1994:77) Douglas suggest that perhaps this language is too dramatic to bridge the gap between anthropological work and the current bemusement about perceptions of risk.
“But fetish power, ancestors and cosmic plots are not more dramatic than what we commonly read about impending catastrophe or the vituperations against the deceits of the tobacco industry, advertising interests, the industrial-military complex, and the aggressive ploys of the nuclear industries” (ibid). In Douglas’ view the language of civic criticism should be dramatic.
According to Douglas, another reason why the bridge is difficult is that this sort of analysis takes the focus off physical dangers and turns it inward to the state of trust in political life. She points out that as people are being asked to attend to the physical dangers on the horizon, this argument turns to the kinds of political contests in which they are made to figure. “The key point is the way that nature is politicised and engages in the legitimation and de-legitimation of power” (ibid).
Douglas argues that organisations which are most keenly alert to low probability, high consequence danger are religious sects, political lobbies, new political movements, public interest groups, i.e. voluntary organisations. The difficulty they have in holding their membership together and getting common dues paid, the more they are tempted to call in the cosmic plot as a low-cost solution to their organisational problems.
Mancur Olsen (cited in Douglas 1994:74) contends that when there is no coercion and no selective individual benefits – such as in a voluntary organisation, this group is going to be bothered by free-rider problems. Each member will expect to be able to enjoy the public benefits created by the others without anyone noticing whether or not he puts in his bit. Olsen argues that such a group has a problem even in raising funds for its minimum organisation costs and must be judged to be especially fragile and especially vulnerable to internal dissension.
Douglas believes that the voluntary organisations need the existence of ‘the dangerous Other’ to keep membership and she argues that “the first step towards a solution for this kind of organisation when trying to collect contributions and prevent secession, is to draw a clear boundary around members against the outside world, painting the latter as a corrupt and nasty place. Second, it will need to keep the hundred per cent participation rule so as to prevent any one member from seeming to reap more benefits than the others and so creating discord. Further, the organisation works much better if an ambitious power-hungry member is said to reveal those very corrupt tendencies which make the outside world so threatening” (ibid:74).
Douglas maintains that “being committed by internal political needs to make a virtue of equality, this organisation will be led to associate ambition with inequality, corrupt stratification, and the inhumane machinations of the outside world. So long as there are no internal crises, this is enough of a shared metaphysic to promote latent intentions that the organisation should survive” (ibid:74).
Finally, Douglas comments that voluntary organisations are prone to factionalism. She identifies faction leaders as a threat and accordingly “one way to control them is to accuse them of treacherous alliance with the bad outside world. The more the internal crises heat up, the more it suits the latent goals of the organisation for everyone committed to it to shade their eyes, staring at the horizon, spotting there, the signs of conspiracy and cosmic disaster which can only be staved off for the world if everyone converts into the egalitarian doctrines of the group. In a more extreme case, the disasters on the horizon justify expelling the unpopular faction leader” (ibid:75).
Due to the structure of the “Riders’ Rights” organisation in the UK, the regions are fundamental to its financial strength. This is achieved from the profits of the rallies that are held each summer which top up the membership fees. By reading the archives of these organisations through their publications over a 50 year period, I found that over the years there have been personalities in both the British Motorcyclists Federation and the Motorcycle Action Group who have suffered the fate of the ‘cosmic plot’ as described by Douglas. Though, in spite of (or because of) the identification of potential ‘conspirators’, the organisations have survived, though whether they continue to thrive will be due to a number of factors. Firstly the fact that the leadership of these voluntary organisations are the same people that were in charge 40 years ago, still with the same rhetoric and still not very attractive to look at. Does being old have its merits? Looking through the photos of the various conferences and meetings, it’s not a pretty picture. The members get older and more wrinkly, so one wonders if the younger generation find riding with a bunch of old and not so cool looking bikers, an incentive to join these organisation? Unlikely one would think.
Will the gradual decline of the use of ICE vehicles put off people from riding motorcycles? Probably not in the short term, if the alternatives are not only electric but also e-fuels, there should be no reason to believe that this form of transport will disappear. Consider that there are c.2 billion PTWs globally, in regions like Africa and the far east, they make up a fundamental part of personal transport. So for the vast majority of people throughout the world motorbikes make sense. But that’s a completely different perspective. It’s called survival.
In comparison, the UK market is miniscule and the majority of motorcyclists have other means of transport as an alternative. With regards voluntary organisations and motorbikes, really the slice of the pie in terms of “riders’ rights” (average 5 thousand members per organisation) suggests that unless they find something better than the argument that riding these vehicles is “fun”, it may be all that these organisations have left. In simple terms, the Cosmic Plot may no longer be sufficient to survive.
Will the younger generation having just discovered the buzz of e-scooters (which for now are limited to private land) really listen to these old farts? These e-scooters require a Q licence (which is included in a full or provisional category AM, A or B driving licence) and for now only rented e-scooters can be used on public roads, but it is assumed that this will change. With the ability to hit a maximum speed of 28 mph (though most often limited to performance-built, high-powered scooters), why bother spending the time and effort to ride a motorcycle? Then there are electric bikes. The fact is that over time vehicles change and so do modes of transport, it’s a whole new world.
Could it be that the Cosmic Plot has run out of speed?
Interesting times.
Elaine Hardy PhD
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