There seems to be a primitive certainty, a surety of one's right to do what one's doing, as citizens speed in their motor cars early in the morning. A pedestrian is a nuisance, and a mouthy surly pedestrian deserves no mercy.
From this surety that one knows one's rights can spring violence, accompanied by a sort of righteousness (and it is for that reason I would never use that word in translating or discussing Socrates) that permits and endorse one's meting out what one is convinced is a just punishment.
I recall reading that in this very country, after the war, a pregnant German woman was pushed off a bridge to her death.
I have no doubt that those who murdered her were filled with the same self-righteousness that leads cars and bicycles to be annoyed by pedestrians. You say it is a trite comparison. But the potency of global warming means that the mad morning commute is part of a much greater madness and those who engage in it are madder still than other madmen. Loving the countryside, they destroy it. Loving their children, they leave them a ruined inheritance, and as they speed along the road hurrying to work, their life is not especially pleasant.
And anyone who gets in their way or protests may receive more than words in response. (So I learned this morning.)
This I have learned in Eastern Europe.
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