You know what I’ve never done? I’ve never written an op-ed for CNN about how I think people who appreciate wine are a pack of pretentious numbnuts who think they can taste leather and oak and plums in something made exclusively out of grapes. I’ve never done that because, while I am fully capable of drinking wine, both the maroon kind of wine they call “red” and the golden kind they call “white” I don’t really give a shit about wine, and I don’t know jack shit about wine, and as a result, have no business at all telling my opinions about wine to anyone. CNN should definitely not hire me to write a wine op-ed because it would be terrible. I also think this same logic should have been applied to Paul Hockenos, whom CNN paid (presumably; this could be part of some charity work for all I know) to write an op-ed bitching about cars with manual transmissions, and manuals’ decline, which Hockenos is happy about. But the problem is that it does not seem like Hockenos really ever understood the appeal of driving stick, nor does he seem to care about manual transmissions, at least beyond the fact that they annoy him, somehow. Which is probably why his op-ed, charitably, sucks, and, even worse, is strangely and needlessly sexist.
I don’t really know anything about Paul Hockenos, other than he does know how to drive stick, which isn’t surprising since he’s based in Berlin, where manual transmission cars have been much more common than here in America. But as soon as he starts to talk about driving manual transmissions, things start to go wrong, fast. This is from the very beginning of the op-ed:
“For old-school connoisseurs of the automobile — usually men — driving means operating a beloved vehicle by touch, with three pedals underfoot and a shift stick at hand.
In Europe, this clientele is responsible for a good deal of the moaning about manual transmission’s demise. And perhaps nowhere is it louder than in Germany, the home of Porsche, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes Benz.
Take for example the German automotive writer for the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung who waxed melancholy in a heartfelt “homage to the good old days of the clutch and gear stick.”
“What could be a greater pleasure… than tooling along winding roads in a sports car at high speeds? Accelerate, downshift before the bend, turn in, roll, upshift again, and ‘fly away,’” he wrote.
He affectionately describes the stick shift’s smooth knob nestled in his palm. (Sigmund Freud would have had no trouble deducing the grounds for this allure.)
Okay, two big things are worth pointing out here: the “usually men” part is the first. There’s no citation for this and while sure, maybe you can find surveys or studies or confident ex-recto guesses from experts that more men drive stick, who gives a shit? Plenty of women drive stick, and enjoy driving stick, and it’s frankly just stupid to try to cast the enjoyment of a manual transmission as anything related to gender. I’m not having it. It goes against everything we believe here at the Autopian, which is that cars and their enjoyment are for everyone, and I’m pretty sure penises are not required for the shifting process, and if you find you are using yours for that, well, I wish you well on your sexual journey, but it’s not really part of driving.
Speaking of penises, I was also deeply disappointed to see that incredibly tired, century-old Freud reference there. I mean, come on already: How long do we have to endure that lame-ass joke that stopped being funny around the Great Depression? Yes, automobile shifters, much like salamis or rocket ships or some fire hydrants or a variety of squashes or any number of other things roughly tube-shaped sort of resemble penises. I get it. Everyone gets it. Children get it. I bet most dogs get it.
I also get that when you feel the shift knob in your hand it doesn’t mean you’re imagining it’s your dick, if you have a dick. Or even if you don’t. If you want to touch a dick and have one, I can’t think of a more achievable dream. I managed it at least twice today before lunch.
The point is, the whole Freudian thing about stick shifts and dicks is stupid and tired and lazy, and it’s decades past its retirement age. Grow up, Paul.
So, what’s the point of this op-ed? It’s not really clear. Hockenos seems put out that there are still groups of people in Europe and America that genuinely seem to enjoy shifting their own gears, and he likens this predilection to the famous book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but only does so in the most superficial and dismissive way, with no effort taken to dig into any reasons why someone might appreciate understanding and appreciating how the machines in their lives work. Instead, we get this:
“It’s not just that I cringe at the grating screech of a botched downshift, that high-pitched sequel [sic] worse than fingernails across a chalkboard. The sound upbraids and shames me for having wronged the drivetrain. But this obviously never happens to alpha men, the kind who love their engines and coax them to purr.”
The fuck are you talking about, Paul? Okay, you missed a downshift, big deal, it happens to everyone. There’s no reason to go into a shame spiral here. If so, though, the shame you’re feeling is on you, and this whole “alpha men” thing – what? Loving one’s engine and “coaxing them to purr” has precisely one metric fuck-all to do with any “alpha male” bullshit. Again, driving stick has nothing to do with gender – it’s about how it feels and the fact that it’s just fun to be able to have that level of control of your car, and people who really enjoy driving very often – though even then not always – like the experience of shifting their own gears.
[Mercedes’ Note: I have to agree with Torch, here. At the bare minimum, Paul is ignorant. At worst, he’s no better than the men he wants to admonish. There are a whole lot of women, non-binary folks, and everyone in between who like cars and yes, also prefer their cars with manual transmissions. I’m pretty sure those enthusiasts aren’t trying to be “alpha men.” Yes, men are the most visible in the car world, but that doesn’t mean women don’t exist! I’ll take a stick any day of the week, sorry, Paul.
Stop trying to gender the joy of driving or turn it into some toxic thing only meant for people who hate the world. The truth is that anyone can love cars and they very much do. -MS]
That’s it.
This whole thing is as free of a point as a basketball, or perhaps a coconut. Hockenos attempts to steer the narrative to point out that in modern cars, automatics are actually faster and more efficient than manuals, and yes, that’s true. In fact, it’s been true for a couple of decades now, and the reasons Hockenos gives are generally right: modern automatics have more gear ratios than manuals – 10-speed automatics are common – and the computers that manage the shifting tend to do it better and faster than a human can. But don’t feel bad; that’s the transmission computer’s only job! You, on the other hand, have all kinds of other things to do beyond shifting gears, and you’re more fun to grab a drink with.
There are also CVT transmissions that have effectively infinite gears, and while those often feel like crap, they’re extremely efficient. That’s all true, but also has nothing to do with why people want to shift their own gears. I mean, maybe back in 1979 efficiency was a big reason, but now? Now it’s because people want to.
Remember, cars aren’t rational things, and they never will be, and wanting to shift your own gears isn’t rational, but who cares? If cars were rational there would be only a few basic models and everything would have interchangeable parts and they’d really be appliances and it would be an entirely different industry from what actually exists right here in our reality. I mean, think about the car industry; do you really need a car with 700 horsepower? Of course not, but there are many you can pick from with that much power. Do you need turn indicators that move like the signs on the Vegas strip? No, but they’re fun! Do you really need a car with massaging seats or a removable roof or one that can corner like a panther on speed? No, but all of those things are thankfully available to anyone with the money or a willingness to take a terrible loan.
Whatshisname knows this, I think, and I think knows that his arguments about how much more efficient modern automatics are don’t really make a case for the demise of manuals, because the percentage of manual cars being sold is so tiny as it is. As he says in the op-ed:
These are among the reasons why it’s ever harder to buy a new manual-transmission model of any kind in many countries. In the US, less than 1% of new models have stick shifts (compared to 35% in 1980), according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s really only sports cars, off-road truck SUVs and a handful of small pickups that still have clutches.
Less than 1%! That’s nothing! People who still choose to drive a manual car are not causing any real environmental harm because the numbers are so low. It’s just not a factor, and certainly not a reason to advocate for the wholesale elimination of manual transmissions.
I mean, I’m not even sure that’s his goal here. I have no idea what the goal is. He later champions EVs as a sort of savior for, I guess, environmental issues with all combustion cars, manual or otherwise, which further shows he just simply does not understand why people drive manual transmissions. This is made clear in the final lines of this inane piece:
But for those aficionados who really can’t go without a clutch and gear shifter, Toyota is planning a realistic-feeling fake manual transmission for some EV models.
It serves no purpose whatsoever — save to comfort bruised egos.
Egos? Bruised or otherwise, what do egos have to do with wanting to shift your own gears? There’s some kind of unpleasant insecurity going on here, or something. Did someone shitty tease Paul about not driving stick well at some point? If so, I’m sorry, but that is not why people want to drive a stick shift. It’s just something I and many others enjoy, and for fuck’s sake, why is this guy even writing about it at all?
He doesn’t want to drive stick — fantastic, pretty much every car out there now is available with an automatic. Absolutely no one is forcing him to drive stick. His screed against manual transmissions feels like someone looking up a band they don’t like, driving a couple hours to the venue where they’re playing, then setting up a table and handing out pamphlets stating that they don’t like the band. It’s fine not to like the band. It’s fine to tell people you don’t like them. But, at some point, when you’re going through all this effort to let people know you don’t like something, for reasons that really only apply to you, it gets weird.
This is all just a protracted effort to yuck other people’s yum, a cardinal sin around here, and an absolutely useless endeavor. No one cares that you don’t like driving stick, Paul. No one understands why you’ve somehow conflated it with this idiotic idea of masculinity in your head, and no one really thinks the tiny number of people driving manuals is causing environmental collapses.
No one is making you drive a stick-shift car. You can relax. And maybe next time you decide you don’t like something you have nothing to do with, don’t know much about, and about which you have nothing substantive to add, maybe consider not writing a time-wasting article about it for CNN?
That’s exactly what I’m doing with my wine article! See, I’m actively not writing it right now, as we speak! Because, like you and driving stick, I have nothing of value to add. And I might say something really stupid, like how wine is just for Alpha Females, and that would be deeply embarrassing.
Top photo: Paul-Hockenos.com (modified)
Daily Driving A Manual In Traffic Isn’t That Big Of A Deal, Relax
Survey Shows More Than 90% Of UK Teens Will Get A Car With A Stick, Are Cooler Than American Teens
Here’s Exactly When Automatic Transmissions Became More Efficient Than Manuals
When Did We Get So Weird About Tall Shifters?
The ‘Quantum Leap’ Reboot Has The Worst Fake Manual Shifter Ever Seen On TV
I think the other issue today is the problem of learned skills.
Perhaps it’s youtube, perhaps it’s the plethora of master classes, perhaps it’s general sentiment that things are supposed to be easy in this world of the future.
Literally just last night, I overheard a conversation among two early 20-somethings talking about driving cars. One was just wowing over their friends’ braveness and ability to drive a manual car in San Francisco and going “omg, I cannot imagine how difficult that must’ve been!”
“mad props, that’s just insane”
“i can’t believe you had the balls”
“nobody can just drive stick shift, and in San Francisco!”
“you’re god amongst men”
just completely gassing him up.
the other guy was completely nonplussed about the whole matter and responded in a low voice, “like can we just eat?” “it’s not that big of a deal”
and honestly, it’s really not.
Like walking, running, pissing into a toilet without hitting the seat or the floor, it’s a skill that’s learned. Once learned, it’s as easy as any other.
People get insanely bent out of shape for no reason because they have to deal w/ something they’ve never dealt w/ before.
But that’s ok since there are several varieties of Automatic transmission, but tbh, it’s really not that big of a deal to learn how to drive a manual transmission, and legitimately, it’s easier than cooking the perfect fluffy rice by finger method for water to rice ratio.
People are turning their noses up with the thought that having to learn a skill to really enjoy driving is problematic. Perhaps it’s the issue that education is a gatekeeper is the real crime in their opinion, and honestly, in San Francisco, that’s actually not an uncommon theme esp w/ School Boards removing Calculus from the High School curriculum, decreeing standardized testing like SATS are evil, etc.
All technology exists to make me fatter
The flu made me lose 12 pounds the past 2 weeks. no cap.
> pissing into a toilet without hitting the seat or the floor
Maybe, but then again no manual I’ve ever driven has picked two gears at once after I was already underway.
this is why manual is superior, since it uses a superior computer.
This won’t win COTD, but it really, really should.
Paul Hockenos is a Deutschbag. Time for him to put his black turtleneck on and head back to Sprockets.
The heck with this uptight jabroni. There is satisfaction to be found in doing a task well. This guy doesn’t get it. Probably never will since his paycheck depends on it.
My shifter points to the left. Should I see a mechanic or a urologist about that?
Only if it stays in 2nd for more than four hours.
Bent Carrot eh?
Some folks like a nice kinky stick: https://digital.classictruckperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ctp-mar-22-transmission-1.jpg
I certainly do!
I’m a trucker. We prefer to add an extension.
I find it amusing how much the writer is getting dragged in the comments. Ultimately though, it gets what CNN wants, clicks and engagement. It’s shit stirring to drive ad revenue. Op-ed’s have always tended to do this, just more blatantly in the digital age.
Still, fuck this guy.
Let’s not be too mean here. He wrote what we think is a bit of a stinker, but he could totally be a good dude.
Maybe
But, while he used ‘manual transmissions emit more pollution’, he didn’t bother to cite any figures. Data matters. Just one example of a certain car that comes both manual & automatic with, even, mpg figures for both, that shows what he says. Instead he attacks clutch-lovers and implies they like to fondle their gearshift (not that there’s anything wrong with that—it’s the way he said it).
I’m not inclined to give him much benefit of the doubt based on what he wrote there.
It is possible, I’ll grant but I don’t believe this to be the case.
The writer has conjured up century-old, debunked pseudopsychology to serve furtive undercurrent for sexist tropes he’s grafting apropos of nothing onto his paper thin argument.
The insertion of personal experience does nothing to add to his argument against stick shifts, only a moment to pause and reflect and bitch.
He completely ignores the concept of human play or recreation because stick shifts are hurtling the human race towards extinction. Wait, did I just change arguments partway through without any transition whatsoever? Sorry, was taking a cue from the other guy.
Anyway, EVs are coming to save us, and those aren’t stick shifts, so stick shifts are bad. In fact, because of some issues he has or knows about while driving stick shifts, no one should have them!
If this were an essay, I’d give it a D, because it’s at least split into paragraphs. The arguments range all over the place and are substituted for one another at will, as suits his purpose.
So he’s sexist, ignorant (see: recreation), puts together poorly constructed arguments, doesn’t really tie together why stick shifts themselves are the issue, and smugly closes with
This is a person willingly and purposefully arguing in bad faith, casually drifting from assertion to baseless assertion as it suits him. This is not a person that at any point paused to reflect: “Could other people enjoy things I don’t enjoy? Of course not, and nor should they be allowed to!” then dashed off this clunker. This is the sort of person that holds their behaviors as actual moral standards – to drive a stick shift is to contribute to the demise of the earth, and it’s your fault! God help you if you eat a fast food or confuse satin for chiffon, you kobold. When you aren’t living a life like Paul, you’re living a life of sin, and you need to change.
This is the correct summary of the article, and the author. While I appreciate David’s positive outlook on everyone, sometimes, you just have to call a homophobic misogynistic Spade a homophobic misogynistic Spade.
His piece deserves to be criticized (of course I think this — I edited this^ article), especially due to the sexist tropes, which are unacceptable.
But I am always very careful not to judge a person’s character based on a single action/piece of content. Since we don’t know this person, we were careful in our article not to sling insults at him, but rather we focused on insulting his work.
But I get it. It’s the internet. And his article was supremely, eye-poppingly bad.
“Could”
Hurrah, Jason, hurrah.
45 years ago CNN was a decent source of news.
Now it’s just another bullshit so called news outlet.
With some real dumb ass writers and contributors.
I remember teaching my boss (wife) to drive a stick. She hated to drive an auto trans soon after.
Another idiot take here.
Fuck this idiot.
My boss (wife) taught me to drive stick (no that’s not another dick joke). I married her soonafter.
Good for you. I remember back in High School that the girls with manuals tended to be much better with it than most of the guys were.
A different time, a different world.
My experience has been that if you find a female doing a generally male-dominated thing, she’s probably much better at it than they are.
My wife was already my wife when she taught me the basics of driving in a parking lot, before I started my driving lessons. Stick of course, manuals still vastly outnumber autos where I’m from (neither me or my wife have ever even driven an auto).
Me too! Now she is the one staunchly insisting on manual transmissions, while I ponder options. I’ve never owned one, and want to just skip to electric.
I recall our Drivers Ed teacher saying that the girls were better at sticks because they had better brains than the guys at that age. And that because of this, they could handle more complex ideas, procedures, and were better pragmatic thinkers.
I thought he was right at the time. 50 years later, I know he was right.
BTW I want to go hybrid. Just still trying to make the money math work. Used hybrids here are selling over the original MSRP though.
Seems like everybody “knows what they have.”
Freud? Freud?! This isn’t about a shift from the stick, it’s a schtick shift.
Perfect: COTD?
For the record, my lovely wife taught me how to drive a manual.
Also, whilst there’s no rational reason why there’s a 12 piece drum kit in my basement, I don’t give a flying fuck (and I get a large amount of enjoyment out of it), as it is patently obvious that the human race – Paul Hockenos included – is largely irrational.
That’s gotta put a kink in your toxic masculinity. Me too.
If my toxic masculinity gets another kink, I’m changing my name to Nürburgring.
My middle name is Hofmeister.
Anything involving drumkits is a combination of reason and joy that doesn’t belong to human kind.
Yes! Torch might have ended up seeing it anyway, but I sent this in to the tips email this morning. I was hoping it would get the Torch treatment. That op-ed caused my eyes to roll several times while reading.
Based on the article at hand I would worried about a strain injury. Most people aren’t ready for that kind of sustained eye roll
i read the original. i had to reread the sexist nonsensical trope bits to make sure what i was reading wasn’t just trolling, but just ignorance+stupidity. My wife loves driving manual transmissions, and is better than most men at piloting them, so its not just men who like them. Our stickshift v70 w/ the original clutch and almost 300k can testify to this.
Plus, he makes the case for automatics, then seems to pivot towards EV’s? whats the point there? just advocate against all ICE cars at that point.
Thank you Jason, for summing up my anger at this maroon so perfectly
Sounds like someone is mad that they aren’t good at driving a manual transmission.
Clearly there should only be one car model available to everyone. It should be silver, have 5 seats, have a government approved powertrain unit (ICE if elephants are in charge at the time, and electric if donkeys are in charge that that time), and adequately get you from point a to point b. Suck any fun and individuality out of cars so our commutes can be horrible too. Why have any choices at all? Scratch all that. No cars for anyone. Take the bus.
Nissan execs, reading your comment:
“Guys, who posted the product strategy online?”
My sister can drive stick and considers it her superpower. Her stickshift car gets 36 mpg, sometimes 40, which is better than most modern cars with automatics and even CVTs, as they are pointlessly colossal.
My sister bought a brand new 5-Speed Nissan Sentra without knowing how to drive a manual. It was the car she wanted at the time and she was/is stubborn. She learned quickly.
Paul Hockenos the type of guy who buys a CVT and drives the speed limit in the left lane.
And who writes articles about automatic transmission fuel economy improvements without understanding what a torque converter lock-out is.
Oh no, he probably sticks to the right-hand lane, and won’t budge 0.1KM/h above the 80KM/h limit on any two-lane road outside built-up areas, and in general probably drives like a self-righteous prig in a way that forces every car behind him to comply as well.
I was really disappointed there was no comment section on that op-ed, so I, a 50-something straight cis woman who owns two manual transmission cars, could let him have it.
Oh there is – 675 comments and counting as of now…
Go Holly Go! 🙂
My wife likes sticks and fish sticks. Does that make her a gay fish?
My wife loves driving stick.
And also manual transmissions
I also saw this article on my feed and immediately dismissed it knowing that it had to be full of inane shit like you describe and quote.
He doesn’t get, never will, and is probably a miserable bastard. I’d rather grab a drink with the computer.
This guy would be perfect as a bureaucrat in the US govt. Maybe Biden’s next NHTSA/EPA/USDOT appointee in 2025?
I suspect that Paul has a small shifter 😉
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
What a load of ………….
I have 5 vehicles and 4 are manuals from my Monaro,my boys HHR SS , my wife’s Cayenne, the Spec Miata only the Suburban tow vehicle. So if it has a problem with manuals just move along, the rest will do fine without him!!!!
So if I grind my own coffee beans does that make me an anachronistic wanker?
For that matter, what kind of dinosaur cooks their own food when the good people at Frito-Lay’s will be happy to feed me?
I make my own bread, what must he think of me. When I make a French loaf will Paul be obsessed by its phallic nature?
Yours isn’t the only steaming loaf when this guy opens his mouth.
..I need that not to work on quite so many levels.
I’ve made my own sausage once or twice. By Paul’s estimates we should be able to power most of the UK harnessing only the energy output by Freud spinning in his urn
Don’t forget your Soylent Green because humans are bad for the environment.
I saw this article on CNN and thought it was a result of hacking at first. Clearly, Paul has been hurt by a manual transmission in his past.
I wonder if before penning his self-righteous diatribe, he ever considered the environmental impact of how poorly made automatics (Nissan CVT, anyone?) put so many useable cars prematurely out of service and into the crusher. It’s maths, Paul, figure it out.
Hahahahah. I nearly spit my sandwich on my computer screen at one point reading this. I enjoyed this rant. I saw that headline earlier today in my news feed, thought rude things at the author of such drivel, then moved on without bothering to read it. Glad I didn’t. And the fact that this comes from a major news source is just….well, typical of modern entertainment media I think. But still saddening.