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Arts & Communication The riddle of the sphinx revisited

to reach the destination of their choosing. This aspect of In Khnopff’s days, the phenomenon of the obnoxious
automobile rhetorics is reminiscent of chariot similes found rich automobile drivers, les barons du cent à l’heure (the
in Platonic and Hindu texts, where the chariot compound 100 km/h barons), was a hot topic. 15(p[218]]) To control this
– comprising the chariot, horses, and drivers – symbolizes aspect of cyborg ethos, society had to subject all traffic
the upward liberation of the human soul to the domain of users to strict traffic regulations. The first Belgian traffic
pure and absolute truth. This view, however, obscures the law was already drafted in 1896, but it took years for it to
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fundamentally cyborg-like condition of the automobile be implemented. 15(p[92]]) Ever since, increasingly complex
driver. The driver is led to believe that, like Oedipus, traffic rules have become an ever-larger presence in our
control resides solely with mental will, overlooking the lives. In a Foucauldian voice, Weber 15(p7) concludes that
extent to which both mind and body have been reshaped our automobile-driven rush for emancipation has led to
by automobile technology. a situation in which “everybody who leaves their houses
in the morning enters a kind of prison, subject to traffic
Second, early automobile magazines promoted signs, traffic lights, traffic rules, and traffic police.” In
automobile driving as a technology capable of expanding another voice, Latour 16(p[38]]) suggested that traffic rules
human empathy. In 1901, the automobile magazine Le and interventions, such as speed bumps, are an extension
Véloce claimed that the automobile tourist “will not be left of our morality in the world of objects. They show that
indifferent for any manifestation of universal life, that, no our cyborg condition may be inescapable but need not
matter how far he ventures, will never exhaust his curiosity be a tragedy. We are technology-using beings, so cyborg
and empathy.” 15(p[140]]) The emerging notion of tourism identity is part and parcel of our ecological condition. It
suggested that merely touring by automobile could cultivate also shows that ecology is not what remains when human
a deeper sensitivity to the world’s natural splendors and interventions are removed from nature. Ecology is the
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cultures. The esthetics of cruising, it was believed, would constant intertwining of diverse “actors,” creating hybrid
give rise to an ethics of care, fostering compassion for intelligences – human and non-human, living and non-
people and places the traveler might otherwise not even living.
have encountered.
The tragedy of our cyborg condition is rather that, just
Paradoxically, this ideal of empathy was coupled like Oedipus, we tend to go blind for it. For instance, we
with the third aspect, a radically different function that erase our cyborg hybridity from our self-image, as Oedipus
associated automobile cyborg with an esthetics of speed did when he claimed that his victory over the sphinx was
and an ethics of downright cruelty. In 1907, a journalist due solely to the power of his mind. Alternatively, we fully
from La Patriote offered a splendid phenomenological identify with the power of technology, like the baron du cent
description of the experience of high-speed driving: à l’heure – a late 19 -century Cyborg Tyrannus – whose
th
Where are we? I don’t know and I don’t care. I only faith in the guaranteed good outcome of technological
have one desire: To go even faster. I am quite aware progress made them drop off their sense of care for their
actual environment.
that an accident would be undoubtedly mortal, but
my drunkenness is so strong that it only gives me 4. The blinding gaze within
appetite for more. Faster! Faster! If suddenly we
perceived a village, would we have to renounce this A second obstacle to the development of ecological
joie?… Horrified, I sense that an unexpected cruelty is Anthropocene morality is the widespread Western habit
rising within me. For a few seconds, I feel capable of of placing the seat of morality within the individual’s deep
committing a crime, just so won’t have to interrupt this inner core. This is less explicitly reflected in Caresses itself
delicious drive towards the abyss. 15(p[220]]) than in its popular reception. In post-Freudian Western
culture, it is difficult not to be tempted to interpret Caresses
As the fourth ethical function, the automobile served as as a condensation of the Oedipus myth into the single
an embodiment of the unstoppable, triumphant progress theme of forbidden intimacy. The unsettling coziness
of human power, and well-being through technology. This between Oedipus and the sphinx thus becomes a reflection
unstoppable nature made it possible for traffic casualties of Oedipus’s future incestuous relationship with his
to be justified and even mythologized as sacrifices on the mother. The painting appears as such in a (deleted) scene
path of human emancipation, of which automobiles were of Paul Schrader’s cult horror movie Cat People (1982),
considered an inevitable part. A Belgian Senate report from which explores the sexual attraction between two human-
1908 even explicitly compared the automobile to Moloch, panther siblings. In a dream scene, the inappropriate
an ancient Canaanite god mentioned in the Bible, to whom sibling-intimacy is doubled in the Caresses-like posture
children had to be sacrificed. 15(p[286]]) of the brother (played by Malcolm McDowell) with their

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 5 doi: 10.36922/ac.5868