The completely secluded first class section of an Emirates airlines Airbus A380.https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/20…/…/air-feature.jpg…Photo: AP
LIFE IS TOUGH OUT THERE
Let's face it, things are tough
out there
and if you don't have the right stuff
life isn't fair.
You may have learned this already
and that's why your career has been unsteady:
because you just haven't got enough greed
to really succeed.
But hold on, before you give up the ghost--
All may not be totally lost:
It's not like sitting on a cactus,
all it takes is practice, practice.
First work at stealing milk from babies
and then give a few playful puppies rabies
and after such firm precedent
you could even run for President!
HzL
5/10/16
If there’s been one word overused by the candidates this election season more than any other, it’s “unfair.”
Bernie Sanders uses it to describe Hillary Clinton’s attacks on him, the banking industry and international trade agreements. Clinton defends her gaffes (such as saying Wall Street banks gave her money because she was in New York City on 9/11) by questioning the fairness of the criticism she gets. Would a man be subject to the same attacks, she wonders rhetorically? Donald Trump uses it daily, probably with a pout and a foot stomp, to describe anything that doesn’t go his way.
And while it may seem funny that a billionaire, a senator and a former first lady/senator/secretary of state don’t feel like the world is giving them a fair shake, evidence suggests this isn’t a top-down cultural phenomenon, running from our leaders to the people. In fact, it’s likely the opposite: an epidemic running through the general population and only reflected in our political class.
A recent study found that air rage — when a passenger basically loses the plot on an airplane and freaks out at those around him — happens more often on flights where coach passengers have to walk through the first-class cabin as they board the plane. Researchers Katherine DeCelles from the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management and Michael Norton from Harvard actually found that even the existence of the more luxurious cabin on the airplane made people feel disadvantaged and emotional — and more likely to act out.
“The chance that an economy class passenger will become unruly or noncompliant is 3.84 times greater when a first-class section is present,” they found. And “when passengers have to board the plane from the front, the chances of an in-flight incident among economy class passengers is 2.18 times greater compared to when they board from the middle.”
DeCelles told the website Gizmodo that airlines should make some basic changes to the design of airplanes to alleviate the feeling of inequality, such as removing the curtain separating the cabins, removing the red carpet from first class and, of course, stop baking those delectable cookies so the smell doesn’t waft toward the have-nots.
And sure, airlines seeking to limit in-flight incidents may take her advice and make the changes (though airlines aren’t exactly on a make-our-passengers-more-comfortable kick lately). But the fact that they have to do that should make us look long and hard at the horrifying degree of envy and entitlement present in society.
Let’s start with this: If you’re on an airplane, you’re already one of the most advantaged people in the history of humanity. The comedian Louis CK had a bit that went viral a few years ago about people complaining about spotty WiFi on an airplane where he sarcastically asked complainers: “Did you fly through the air, incredibly, like a bird and partake in the miracle of human flight?”
There’s no doubt that it’s hard to maintain gratefulness 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So when you’re stuck in a tiny seat with no leg room, you don’t focus on how lucky you are to be having the experience at all. But the message we should send each other in times of mild discomfort like that is: “Suck it up.”
The last few years have been dominated by talk of inequality and the idea that some people have more than others. We collectively focus on what we don’t have instead of what we do and the feeling of unfairness permeates.
We then reinforce each other’s envy and bitterness, often without even realizing it. That is, we just get used to complaining. In public.
In another study, this one out of the University of Bonn in Germany, researchers found that “people who feel treated unfairly usually do not direct their anger only towards the perpetrator. They frequently unload their aggressions onto uninvolved outsiders who then in turn behave similarly.”
No kidding. This cycle of behavior has led us to a coarser, more violent society. It’s time we tell adults, including all the ones running for president, the same thing we’ve told kids for generations: Life is unfair; deal with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment