Monday, July 22, 2013

right vs wrong ft. THE BICYCLE



Holy mother of faulty perspectives... I'm very sorry :S

 Bicycles. They just look better when they're depicted from the right. We have been schooled to think so.


And it's because we read left-to-right. Now, you might think that is an odd connection to make, but it's actually very simple.

Left to right reading has become so ingrained into our way of thinking, that it affects the way we perceive the world. The direction right, is simply the right direction. Since we read from left to right, that is now also the direction that our subconscious minds tell us is forward. The direction right is a strong symbol of progress, and the future.

Bicycles, interestingly, are also symbolic for progression, because bikes are clever, and they go somewhere. This symbolism has always been the general consensus, it just makes sense.

So what happens when a bike faces the left? A symbolic disparity. On one hand, it's the archetype of progression, a bicycle. But, it's going the wrong way, because progress goes to the right. It fucks with our heads.

In addition to the symbolic anomaly, there's a psychological aspect to it. It's alot simpler, too, as it requires no understanding of symbolics whatsoever. Our subconsciousness is used to right being the direction that is forward, because it's how we read. On the other hand, we know that the bike is facing the left, and should therefore also be going to the left. We don't know what to believe, where is the bike actually heading? 

Reason versus intuition, it's an age old struggle, albeit subconsciously. It confuses the brain. All we know is, bikes heading left are a pain in the ass.


When you Google "bike", and query pictures, the wast majority of these bikes point to the right, and now you know why.

2 comments:

  1. The biker is wearing crocs!! Ahh, the pain, THE PAIN!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was actually meaning to tie the biker into an entry about mediocracy, norms and social conformity, but I had a terrible stroke of writers block, so I was forced to come up with something else instead.

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