The good news is that it is, indeed, possible to avoid the tyranny of 'likes', 'fast-track' culture, and the entire judgmental (emphasis on the 'mental' part) culture of competitiveness, fashion, body-building and all that status-related stuff. All you need do is somehow reach retirement age, basically in one piece, with enough put aside for a modest lifestyle with reasonable creature comforts. Oh, and do your darndest to avoid ending up in one of the many condo commando (Read: yenta-controlled) 'adult' communities for which my state is justifiably (in)famous. And if you happen to be a residing shareholder (I'm not sure the term 'living' always applies) in that oddest of New York area institutions, the co-op, you might want to sell out before the board realises that you're no longer working, working out, or 'dressing for success'. Jes' sayin', as we say down heah in the ol' South.
2
The people who spend enormous of their time and effort on the airline treadmill process are amateurs. In the past 20 years, I have been on something like 350 flights for business and pleasure. It is hard to get excited about something you have done 350 times (especially these days when seating is more cramped, the food has gotten worse and behavior more boorish).
These days, I sit back and let the other people who don't know any better waste their time and energy. Having been through a good number of our airports from sea to shining sea, the process is not any better anywhere and each airport has its own challenges. Preparation is key.
These days, I sit back and let the other people who don't know any better waste their time and energy. Having been through a good number of our airports from sea to shining sea, the process is not any better anywhere and each airport has its own challenges. Preparation is key.
1
It's most unfortunate that we do not feel "liked" by our selfless contributions to society. We define "progress" by our socio-economic status relative to society's "success stories." But progress should also be measured by the continuous development of the human conscience. How we treat employees, the marginalized and the unfortunate is critical to our overall progress. We fail to live a fuller life if all that we seek is to narrow the materialistic gap. For many, the gap between being self-centred and selfless remains vast; wider the gap, greater is the likelihood that our consciences will never be "liked."
On our Alaska cruise, many paid a fortune for helicopter rides to the glaciers. We three took a city bus to the National Park and saw real people, locals mostly, enjoying a truly special place. Had some interesting conversation with the highly professional US Ranger. On a trip to Cancun we skipped the costly and crowded cocktail catamaran cruise and took the public ferry out to Isla Mujeres. Shared the ride with local Mexicans, out enjoying a lovely day off with their families. In Lihue, Kauai our (admittedly fancy) hotel is located on a very accessible public beach, and it is a great joy to boogie board and play in the sun, right alongside the locals. I really have no reason to hang with the rich and/or famous, nor to envy what their obscene wealth affords them.
5
Actually, there's never been certainty about anything but death - a certainty we don't like admitting to. But "tending your garden" is the best way to learn its acceptance. In the garden, lives grow, bloom, fade, die, just as we do. The human mind is a marvel at making things complicated, "exciting," painful. The search for gratification, being "liked" and admired and rewarded, brings more unhappiness than pleasure. Yes, in the long run, one's own garden, whether inside or outside, holds the answers, or at least the right questions.
3
Something should be said about the 'privilege' of the airline clubs. It is a joke to go into the clubs expecting some peace and maybe a cup of coffee but it is jammed with people wearing the strangest of offensive clothing, stuffing themselves with peanuts, while missing their mouths and landing on the floor.
As for a little peace and quiet, I did not notice one person who was not on their cell phones with raised voices and gestures. What a privilege? I do not fly commercial anymore - it is worse than an endurance test.
As for a little peace and quiet, I did not notice one person who was not on their cell phones with raised voices and gestures. What a privilege? I do not fly commercial anymore - it is worse than an endurance test.
2
The stoics understood the significance of a Sapphire card as well as the significance of its holder. A spec of dust, in the hand of a spec of dust, on a rotating spec of dust that is revolving around a spec of dust. Relatively speaking we might seem important, but death will equalize the Emperor and the peasant, so why waste time struggling for an advantage that will be lost as soon as your last breath leaves your lungs.
6
Evidently, some people are "more equal" than others...
What a strange belief for Americans.
What a strange belief for Americans.
1
When people are not expecting anything, not much disappoints them. Expectation pretty much defines how much disappointment we feel when we are denied having anything. The actual experience of riding a plane from one point to another may differ in the size of the seats and the diversions offered the riders but the trip is pretty much the same for all, along with all the inconveniences and risks or benefits. The status for the passengers seems to be mostly an added cost that serves to keep loading and unloading well ordered.
1
Privileges can be gained from the airline gods, they can also be taken away.
American Airlines took back 35,000 miles from my account. Not enough activity. Maybe they calculated my age with the ratio of spending and concluded: DEAD. Did they ever consider that taking back those miles might make me never, ever, under any circumstances want to fly American again?
Delta Airlines somehow got the news of my demotion by American (do their computers exchange data late at night, when no one is looking?) and cancelled my miles, too. Suddenly, without any warning, I had become a non-person to the airlines I had utilized for decades and on which I had racked up something like 800 to 900 thousand miles.
Belatedly, long after the event, American somehow managed to find my address, which they had for years and to which they had been sending regular messages about their superiority to all known forms of life, and informed me that I could buy my free miles back. Huh. There was a date attached, after which no appeal, even to the Supreme Court, would be heard.
There was a time when I considered American Airlines my apartment in the sky. At some point in the "flying experience" you acquire a look in your eyes not unlike the 1,000 yard stare of those who have seen deadly combat. The airline personnel at the traditional carriers come to recognize this look and take mercy on you. It is actually better to be helped because people want to help you than it is to be "elite". Remember that.
American Airlines took back 35,000 miles from my account. Not enough activity. Maybe they calculated my age with the ratio of spending and concluded: DEAD. Did they ever consider that taking back those miles might make me never, ever, under any circumstances want to fly American again?
Delta Airlines somehow got the news of my demotion by American (do their computers exchange data late at night, when no one is looking?) and cancelled my miles, too. Suddenly, without any warning, I had become a non-person to the airlines I had utilized for decades and on which I had racked up something like 800 to 900 thousand miles.
Belatedly, long after the event, American somehow managed to find my address, which they had for years and to which they had been sending regular messages about their superiority to all known forms of life, and informed me that I could buy my free miles back. Huh. There was a date attached, after which no appeal, even to the Supreme Court, would be heard.
There was a time when I considered American Airlines my apartment in the sky. At some point in the "flying experience" you acquire a look in your eyes not unlike the 1,000 yard stare of those who have seen deadly combat. The airline personnel at the traditional carriers come to recognize this look and take mercy on you. It is actually better to be helped because people want to help you than it is to be "elite". Remember that.
2
same experience with United. My only revenge is to NEVER fly them again. A pox on all of them.
Alas, Roger, it does matter to some extent how soon your board the plane... that is if you want to find a home for one's oversized carry on, the type that proliferates these days along with the equal proliferation of airline baggage and other fees.
not sure what you're talking about...
Thank Heaven!
Thank Heaven!
4
Television sets some pretty miserable examples as well, and those who immerse themselves in it seem to start to believe that that is the way the world is, or should be.
Common decency doesn't sell adds.
Common decency doesn't sell adds.
1
I often reflect upon how fortunate I was growing up to have a father who shunned status and status seekers. He taught his children that they needed to try and do their best in life but that in the end they were their own harshest judges and the approval of others was highly overrated and frequently dishonest. The Facebook-Twitter crowd is destined for failure.
1
Lovely piece, Mr. Cohen. I wish it was all true to life, but the sentiment was just lovely.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
Comparisons are odious. Be what you are with patience at your side. In any case, our current collection of "leaders" is a joke. We have no one to follow who is worth their salt or can lead with a clear conscience.
Great piece. As the mileage and status games are now tied to the amount of dollars paid to an airline, and TSA Pre-check is available to those who pay 85 dollars and apply, and, if approved, can enjoy five years if expedited security processing, there is ample opportunity to tend to the garden of one's own humanity. Maybe even bring some lovely petals on board, instead of entitlement attitude...
1
I laughed till I cried. Cohen captures the essence of phony privilege with wit & humor.
1
We think the abolute state should be some ideal from which we fell, but it is the essence from which we rise.
Yes, absolutely brilliant and on-target. I recently returned from a month-long trip to Italy where I witnessed the indignity of air travel at its worst. For example, while I was there a fire consumed a baggage terminal at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, causing a certain amount of havoc at other airports around the country. One of these, Naples was subjected to the kind of behavior you describe in your piece, Mr. Cohen, i.e a number of flights were delayed, causing the magic carpet flyers to rub shoulders, whole bodies in fact, with us cardless mortals assigned to our air ship's steerage section. Added to that was that the terminal's air conditioning system appeared to be on the blink, a fact that became even more obvious as the privileged began removing one garment after another until, heaven forbid, they soon looked like us--the sort of people who simply don't deserve to sit on a throne at the front of a plane while being pampered with champagne, mimosas and hot towels. But at the end of our journey, we all looked the same. So much so, that at Washington's Dulles Airport it was gratifying to say the least that, among the exalted, there were at least two whose "Priority"-labelled luggage was, according to an airline representative, on their way to Istanbul. Clearly, there is a God.
3
We have a growing body of knowledge about what actually makes people happy and a diminishing cultural wisdom to use this information to improve our lives.
The final paragraph reminds me of the closing lines of Candide.
Sage advice indeed.
Sage advice indeed.
Remember: When everyone becomes "special," then no one is special...
2
Some people just want to impress. It's laughable sometimes. Eventually we all get the same thing. to the same place. It's actually amusing to me how shallow this all is, but sometimes I am guilty of this show off stuff. Insecurity I guess.
5
I don't know exactly how many decades it has been since that marvelous BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances has been off the air, but the times are rife with fodder and Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet), Rose, Onslow and the gang need to be resurrected to pillory the culture of conspicuous status. Well done, Mr. Cohen. Or may we call you, "Sir Roger."
11
Great article! Where is the "like" button so I can really let Mr. Cohen know how much I liked it?
13
It was Voltaire who said to cultivate your garden to protect yourself from boredom, vice and need.
And remember when you plant that garden, all you did was to plant it; something other than you was around to create the beauty that you think you created.
1
Is this what Don Draper was thinking about as he meditated?
3
The only reason I can think of to board early is if you have a carry on that must go in the overhead bin. Late-boarders often have to check their luggage. Otherwise, sit in the gate area read,relax, enjoy the leg room until the last call. As many of the comments state, we will all get to our destination at the same time.
1
When I was young and poor, and before we were "blessed" with airline deregulation, I loved to fly and did it rarely.
Now that I have some money and plenty of time, I hate to fly. It is the ruination of vacations. Thank you, conservatives.
Now that I have some money and plenty of time, I hate to fly. It is the ruination of vacations. Thank you, conservatives.
6
A country, countries, or even world devoid of love, compassion and empathy where human contact can be misunderstood as harassment or even molestation social media is a port in the storm. We are a society where human association is replaced by flickering lights on a screen which is safer than actually speaking to someone in person or, horror, physically touching someone. We seek approval and human contact in the only way that seems acceptable, in a way that is safe as we do not really get close to each other. In fact we do not even really know each other. Our only contact is through our eyes which do not even see each other only the words we choose to write. We are becoming an electronic world where even when in the same room we use devices to communicate with each other or be entertained or work together.
How can such creatures be complete and who can wonder why we need "Likes" to find our value.
How can such creatures be complete and who can wonder why we need "Likes" to find our value.
3
The Chinese also say: "A man with no food has one problem.....a man with plenty of food has many problems"
15
What would we have without some schadenfreude? Sehnsucht followed by weltschmerz and a vacation of ennui.
A Swiss once taught me to always be the last person on the plane, that way you can stay in the lounge reading with zero crush and then walk peacefully to your seat. They usually call your name if you are browsing the magazine rack.
Same with Southwest: get a big number on B or C and then YOU decide who you want to sit next to. Low A's sit trembling in their seats hoping that no one will choose the seat next to them, bringing on board a rank-smelling, dogs-dinner of fast-food.
On national flights remember it is an opportunity for the 99% to lord it over the subservient 1% in First Class as you swan past them; a good knowing snarky smirk does wonders.
On international flights, 'turning right' does not offer much opportunity for reversals of fortune, but stay away from premier economy, as the seats are boxed in and too far from the fuselage so you cant stretch or lean against the wall. Always bring a 100% down pillow for your own upgrade, over time it will be the best $300 you will ever spend on airline comfort.
Making the best of what you have is simpler than hollow desire.
Same with Southwest: get a big number on B or C and then YOU decide who you want to sit next to. Low A's sit trembling in their seats hoping that no one will choose the seat next to them, bringing on board a rank-smelling, dogs-dinner of fast-food.
On national flights remember it is an opportunity for the 99% to lord it over the subservient 1% in First Class as you swan past them; a good knowing snarky smirk does wonders.
On international flights, 'turning right' does not offer much opportunity for reversals of fortune, but stay away from premier economy, as the seats are boxed in and too far from the fuselage so you cant stretch or lean against the wall. Always bring a 100% down pillow for your own upgrade, over time it will be the best $300 you will ever spend on airline comfort.
Making the best of what you have is simpler than hollow desire.
1
Most travelers with "status" on airlines are those who travel for work. They are on the road, 2-3 times a month or more. They are not on vacation, reading novels in the lounge. They are answering emails, taking calls, etc. When they get off the plane, they need to get to a meeting -- and so, yes, they are anxious to find space in the overhead compartment for their carry-on bags. Can you really blame them for not enjoying the moment?
4
Eliza, you're breaking my heart! I'll never be able to forgive myself for my unwarranted ridicule of the boarding practices of today. I feel so worthless, now. Should I, the next time I fly, station myself by the boarding gate door and genuflect to the royalty as they pass?
In other words, someone else is paying their freight, and they have not parted with any "hard-earned" money of their own to get the privilege of bigger seats, better food, wine by the glass, etc.
Sorry, I still don't feel sorry for them.
Sorry, I still don't feel sorry for them.
1
A bit like EZ Pass at times. The 'fast lane' for frequent road milage EZ Passers is backed up while the peons who have to pay cash, zip past.
3
Uh, you can get an EZpass for free with a small deposit and credit card subscription. Hardly like what you have to do to earn elite flyer status or trusted traveler cards.
Which airports? I am curious as I have not experienced what you write about and I have travelled a bit, east and west, north and south. Also which airlines? Low cost airlines boarding looks like a remake of the last helicopters out of Saigon, not bejeweled crowds there.
Nice populist piece, but that's all
Nice populist piece, but that's all
2
It's irony, Mr. Fantechi.
Who among us low income types would deny themselves the schadenfreude of observing the privileged passengers' undignified scramble to be first on board? Perhaps the airline staff would serve these poor rich folk better by including in their boarding instructions advice to "be aware that the easiest way to enter this aircraft may be behind you".
4
Upper middle class liberals use their emerald status to champion those with no status all. Those with no status don't jump their lines, board before them or even have garnet status. They can't move into their neighborhoods, shop at their markets or get into the schools where their kids go. They are safe to help because they don't threaten the liberals' emerald lives.
Upper middle class conservatives use their emerald status to champion free competition for frequent flier miles. They know they have a leg up and that competition will confirm their status. That way their neighborhoods, their markets, and their schools will also remain emerald.
Upper middle class liberals can displace upper middle class conservatives and vice versa. So every idea one side has is evil to the other, whether it is reasonable or not. The two sides would bring down the communities where the rest of us live to win hegemony in their own community. They seemingly are in endless, mindless competition. And when it comes to the garden, they compete to hire the better gardener. Apparently a spiffy garden is worth 100,000 frequent flier miles.
Upper middle class conservatives use their emerald status to champion free competition for frequent flier miles. They know they have a leg up and that competition will confirm their status. That way their neighborhoods, their markets, and their schools will also remain emerald.
Upper middle class liberals can displace upper middle class conservatives and vice versa. So every idea one side has is evil to the other, whether it is reasonable or not. The two sides would bring down the communities where the rest of us live to win hegemony in their own community. They seemingly are in endless, mindless competition. And when it comes to the garden, they compete to hire the better gardener. Apparently a spiffy garden is worth 100,000 frequent flier miles.
2
Superb summary of human angst and envy. We are all indeed creating our own Hell on Earth. Values, principles and morals are cast aside for instant gratification.
But I wonder how much of this collapse in morals is due to personal foibles and how much to the miserable examples set by our leaders and politicians. If our leaders can cheat, steal, embark on Wars of Choice and take care only of their own 'constituencies', how can one expect ordinary citizens to remain or even become selfless? Reform starts at the top, and each nation needs a strong justice system to monitor those reforms. Inequality and impunity are failures of justice and encourage the selfish behaviour described by Mr. Cohen.
But I wonder how much of this collapse in morals is due to personal foibles and how much to the miserable examples set by our leaders and politicians. If our leaders can cheat, steal, embark on Wars of Choice and take care only of their own 'constituencies', how can one expect ordinary citizens to remain or even become selfless? Reform starts at the top, and each nation needs a strong justice system to monitor those reforms. Inequality and impunity are failures of justice and encourage the selfish behaviour described by Mr. Cohen.
38
Love it!
"By comparison, having little or less seemed relatively straightforward..." I think that it is not so much about how much one has as it is about attitude. Those with resources need not buy into the superficiality which you describe. I have always thought that the yearning to be 'special' or set apart whether a separate line or door or seating section or lounge was a sign of low self-esteem. People with this affliction endlessly need external evidence to show others (and by extension, themselves) that they are important or not like "ordinary" folks.
Others with significant assets and/or position have no such need and are perfectly content to sit among hoi polloi. I, for one, have always considered the rush to be boarded first at the airport as odd. Those on first simply have to sit and wait longer for the flight to commence. If I have my druthers, I'd rather dart in just as the door is closing, i.e., I sit and immediately the plane gets underway.
"By comparison, having little or less seemed relatively straightforward..." I think that it is not so much about how much one has as it is about attitude. Those with resources need not buy into the superficiality which you describe. I have always thought that the yearning to be 'special' or set apart whether a separate line or door or seating section or lounge was a sign of low self-esteem. People with this affliction endlessly need external evidence to show others (and by extension, themselves) that they are important or not like "ordinary" folks.
Others with significant assets and/or position have no such need and are perfectly content to sit among hoi polloi. I, for one, have always considered the rush to be boarded first at the airport as odd. Those on first simply have to sit and wait longer for the flight to commence. If I have my druthers, I'd rather dart in just as the door is closing, i.e., I sit and immediately the plane gets underway.
7
The reason for getting on first is to get space for your luggage. If you get on last you often have to check your bag.
1
That would be a perfect argument except for one thing: when you are last onto the plane there's no room left in those dreaded overhead bins for your stuff.
2
bring less stuff
1
For me so much of a rewarding experience must include seeing other "people" being jovial and happy. It must include the opportunity to share it rather the exclusions of the act of sharing, to be a part and not apart of it, to be normal at the expense of being exceptional. It's not culture. It's marketing. It does not make all things better, but a few things better at the expense of the many, sometimes the 99%. It boost the consumerism for the few who would rather pay up than to have to play down. In reality, those who have the ability to pay lacks the capacity to play. Evolution is not fair. http://transmundano.blogspot.com
3
Oh ye sons and daughters of privilege, please feel free to trade me your real food and wide seats in other than economy class and save me from a five hour agony squished in 14 inches between two overweight, overstuffed frequent fatties unable to move an elbow on either side.
4
I had to chuckle reading this as it brought me back to the first hours of my recent vacation in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It started with a flight from LAX to Istanbul, and the airport experience in Los Angeles was about what you described here. Had I been going to most other destinations, it might have been the same in Istanbul as well. But at the gate for Tashkent, I found myself surrounded by Uzbek citizens, most of whom had never flown abroad before, clutching multiple plastic bags from their shopping trips in the city. They had little understanding of such concepts as carry-on limits, and the exasperated attendants for Turkish Airlines were doing their best to explain the situation. Pretty soon people were asking me if I was going to Tashkent, then holding their shopping bags to me and saying, "Please, mister," not realizing that I would NEVER take someone else's bags at an airport! It all made me wonder what kind of people I would be traveling among for the next few weeks.
Turns out that kind of either naivety or innocence, depending on you point of view, made for a wonderful 3 weeks of traveling. That authenticity made for some of the friendliest, kindest, most curious and helpful people I've ever traveled with. Give me that any day over the "Diamond lane." And if you're wondering why Uzbekistan:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10186213@N07/collections/72157651939222206/
Turns out that kind of either naivety or innocence, depending on you point of view, made for a wonderful 3 weeks of traveling. That authenticity made for some of the friendliest, kindest, most curious and helpful people I've ever traveled with. Give me that any day over the "Diamond lane." And if you're wondering why Uzbekistan:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10186213@N07/collections/72157651939222206/
10
I've long dreamed of traveling around Uzbekistan, and now you've whetted my appetite for it. Thanks! What a wonderful trip.
If you are not already familiar with Prokudin-Gorskii's color photographs of the Russian empire taken over a century ago, I'm sure you'd find them interesting. Just google the name and prepare to see some wonderful images of where you just traveled.
Or, the riffraff take the grandees down. Extreme stratification is unstable. Just look at the 1930s.
5
Sounds like you are describing "Industrial Disease" (Dire Straits) the enough is never really enough crowd. Or this could be a description of the more money than anyone could possibly spend in a lifetime crowd: The Entitled. Or then there's Peggy Lee's famous "Is That All There Is?" The need to be recognized, fawned over, feared (not respected), envied, jealous, lording some fantastical and imagined status that Bob Dylan devalued in "Even the President of the United States Must Sometimes have to Stand Naked" line. So everyone wants to be famous, have what nobody else has in special privileges and exclusivey.
Yeah I guess we all want backstage passes once in a while, but it's just not healthy to want "Everything All the Time. Life in the Fast Lane" is the ticket to dying young burnout and disappointment. But the "Keeping Up With The Jones" even applies to the super rich. When Bill Gates was listed as the richest person in the world in the mid '90s with somewhere in the 40 billion dollars neighborhood in Forbes Magazine, Wall Street seemed to suddenly go bonus crazy. A lot of damage can be done with those 7 deadly sins. The "Don't Worry, Be Happy" finally came to an abrupt end and the '80s greed motto of "He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins" surged ahead as the Nations (World's?) final Creed.
Yeah I guess we all want backstage passes once in a while, but it's just not healthy to want "Everything All the Time. Life in the Fast Lane" is the ticket to dying young burnout and disappointment. But the "Keeping Up With The Jones" even applies to the super rich. When Bill Gates was listed as the richest person in the world in the mid '90s with somewhere in the 40 billion dollars neighborhood in Forbes Magazine, Wall Street seemed to suddenly go bonus crazy. A lot of damage can be done with those 7 deadly sins. The "Don't Worry, Be Happy" finally came to an abrupt end and the '80s greed motto of "He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins" surged ahead as the Nations (World's?) final Creed.
6
There is no greater satisfaction or accomplishment than to be comfortable in one's own skin, regardless.
12
"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity." Kohelet, aka Ecclesiastes. .
Or as I would put it much less poetically, they think they're better, but they're not.
Or as I would put it much less poetically, they think they're better, but they're not.
7
Richard Watt
True, and they have the power to do damage which can make one feel blue, if one is not towing the line.
True, and they have the power to do damage which can make one feel blue, if one is not towing the line.
We are intensely competitive people. We see that every day, when someone in a BMW cuts us off in traffic. A half mile down the road, we pass them in the right lane in a traffic jam. What's the difference? We will all get there at about the same time.
The truth is, more fun is had in steerage than on the upper decks. That was true in "Titanic" and is true pretty much everywhere. We may strive to be better than everyone else. But the striving blinds us to the worth of everyone else.
Just chill.
The truth is, more fun is had in steerage than on the upper decks. That was true in "Titanic" and is true pretty much everywhere. We may strive to be better than everyone else. But the striving blinds us to the worth of everyone else.
Just chill.
16
I guess I consider air travel as an extreme endurance trial, and just try to be as efficient and quick about it as possible in planning and execution. To me, the only benefit of getting on the plane early on is having more of an assurance of getting a carry on bag into an overhead bin somewhat near your seat. Perhaps 20 years ago I enjoyed the process of getting somewhere by air, but corporate greed has made the whole process so painful for me that I put my head down and plow through the process from beginning to end like an unhappy robot. Sad commentary, eh?
31
What in world are you talking about?
4
This was a very strange column that in no way reflected anything I encounter in my life.
3
The Muse was with you on this one Mr. Cohen. Great writing and great comments too.
As several poster said, we all travel in the "cattle" plane. The truly rich travel in their private jets or they rent them. They are probably wearing truly old, beat up jeans and sweatshirts that say absolutely nothing. No need to say anything when you have everything.
As several poster said, we all travel in the "cattle" plane. The truly rich travel in their private jets or they rent them. They are probably wearing truly old, beat up jeans and sweatshirts that say absolutely nothing. No need to say anything when you have everything.
4
Leaving aside the status symbols. Cohen forgets the effect of fees for luggage. If you don't get on early, you may real problems with finding an overhead place for your bag.
4
Nothing is more absurd than boarding the front of the plane first when boarding from the front of the plane.
It takes forever for people to take their seats blocking the aisle in the process which could be avoided if the back was boarded first. Also, if first class was boarded last, it would cut down the amount of time first class has to endure sitting on the plane and eliminate the royals having to watch the riff raft shuffle past them to find their seats in the back.
But that makes too much sense so it will never happen.
It takes forever for people to take their seats blocking the aisle in the process which could be avoided if the back was boarded first. Also, if first class was boarded last, it would cut down the amount of time first class has to endure sitting on the plane and eliminate the royals having to watch the riff raft shuffle past them to find their seats in the back.
But that makes too much sense so it will never happen.
18
Boarding first assures one of obtaining convenient access to sufficient bin storage space. If in "first" class (domestic) or real business class international--say Emirates--one can enjoy a drink and snack while settling in. Though when flying business international, remaining in the lounge also provides food and comfort if one so chooses. For the eight years, I lived abroad and flew in excess of 150,000 miles a year, perks do matter--and not for reasons of status. Rather, to reduce stress and hassle.
The point of being a royal is to be first, not necessarily to be faster. As long as the riffraff suffer more, royal sensibilities are satisfied. The airlines are well aware that boarding back to front is faster (as are other methods). They maintain the current and inefficient procedure to maintain status differences; if they wanted faster and more efficient boarding they would do so.
"Status" is the key.
The day that "higher status" is perceived by "royalty" to be the "last to board", the airlines will board riffraff first and royals last. Strange that they have not yet caught on to that.
"Status" is the key.
The day that "higher status" is perceived by "royalty" to be the "last to board", the airlines will board riffraff first and royals last. Strange that they have not yet caught on to that.
2
If first class boarded last, it would be less time to get that first drink, actually probably impossible to get that first drink. Holding a glass, whatever may be in it, as you watch the riff raff pass is important affect.
Being a seldom flyer, I witnessed this boarding phenomenon with total surprise for the first time last weekend, this extensive and incomprehensible array of categories of flyers with different special privileges.
As one of the "riffraff," I zipped through security faster than I remember having moved through in forty plus years!
I did notice, however, that large people sitting in the riffraff seats really do not fit in the space allowed for them.
As one of the "riffraff," I zipped through security faster than I remember having moved through in forty plus years!
I did notice, however, that large people sitting in the riffraff seats really do not fit in the space allowed for them.
8
I hope the airlines soak the rich and status-conscious for all they’re worth and pass the profits on to me—an economy class passenger. I want to fly as cheaply as possible: I have no interest in legroom (I’m 5’ tall), free meals or even free rest room access. I want bare-bones service for bare-bones prices. I vacation in youth hostels (which mercifully have no age limit) in multi-women dorms with bunk beds and gang bathrooms down the hall; I fly on frequent flyer miles, which have black-out dates and route me through crazy places. Gimme the cheapest possible base price—if I want goodies, I’ll pay separately and selectively for them.
13
Spirit Airlines was invented for you (and you can have it)!
"..the airport conduct was illogical. In the end it does not matter how fast you board the plane."
I would suggest the airport conduct is ideological: the quickest way to board a plane - the only case where it "could" matter re: take-off time - is back to front. Instead, the airlines use a boarding process that reinforces class distinctions based on revenues per passenger. Indeed, the more recent plane models are now visibly divided into three very distinctive sections.
But to the larger issue of status envy, we are living through a disruptive time, an in-between historical era brought on by technology, economic opportunity, among other things. It is difficult to know how status is measured since the standards are in constant flux.
As an analogy, look at the introduction of printing in England in 1470s. Within 100 years, the Protestant Reformation took place, the New World was discovered, the English language became more standardized with a much larger vocabulary, and individuals began to live longer. Given the number of the elite courtiers who lost their rubied and sapphired heads, one can only imagine the status anxiety.
I would suggest the airport conduct is ideological: the quickest way to board a plane - the only case where it "could" matter re: take-off time - is back to front. Instead, the airlines use a boarding process that reinforces class distinctions based on revenues per passenger. Indeed, the more recent plane models are now visibly divided into three very distinctive sections.
But to the larger issue of status envy, we are living through a disruptive time, an in-between historical era brought on by technology, economic opportunity, among other things. It is difficult to know how status is measured since the standards are in constant flux.
As an analogy, look at the introduction of printing in England in 1470s. Within 100 years, the Protestant Reformation took place, the New World was discovered, the English language became more standardized with a much larger vocabulary, and individuals began to live longer. Given the number of the elite courtiers who lost their rubied and sapphired heads, one can only imagine the status anxiety.
4
watching TV about old people's life expectancy associated with positivity - seemed to confirm my observation - busy mind endless recycling of negative thoughts rethinking/resentment can be a downward spiral to depression, ill health and early death; meditation/dropping thoughts for a empty no-thought no-mind can give you a crystal clarity view of the beauty of the world - and every moment can be a joy of gratitude - to be here now in this amazing world !
1
Mr.Cohen, l am reading you over 10 years and sir this is one of your master column, before came over to America, l use to work for Turkish MIddle East and BEA airlines, early 1050's summer, Turkish airlines than had DC3 took some Muslims to MECCA , so they will be come a MULLAH when that is happiness the haven doors open for them, l was in the air plane with them for helping any way l can, than one day l smell like some think is burning , one of the old guys was trying make a fire for make some tea, and off course when l stop this he was angry to me and report me to the Air lines and l was punished for that, than when l left Turkey for USA, flying with PAN AM , , than l use to have a king size bear , PAN AM hostesses told me if l shave this they all will give me a kiss, l and l did and get it, so we have to make things easy and dignity for ourselves, be happy for life, be a gardener. it depends what you have in your garden , a poppy field makes you happy for life
3
Oh did this column resonate. Partially because I'm feeling like Major Tom adrift in a culture I no longer recognize and partially because the last time we flew I made the comment to my husband that they should also have a Cubic Zirconia category. It's so silly and so tiresome. I might even start traveling with a special napkin to cover the revolting ads that now stare up when one puts the tray table down.
I will contemplate the napkin color and fabric while inspecting the milkweed plants in our garden.
I will contemplate the napkin color and fabric while inspecting the milkweed plants in our garden.
7
I was thinking about my neighbor this morning. She's in her mid-seventies and keeps a schedule based on the seasons.
She's a farmer's daughter, and she gardens out back and on a little plot in a community garden. Her apartment is filled with plants. She never throws anything out. I know because I babysit her cats and her dozens and dozens of plants from time to time, including the tiny, infinitely fragile tomato seedlings that sit on the windowsills. You have to water them from below, a breath can crush them. One time I knocked one over, it felt like a hurricane had blown through the house, disaster. I confessed when she came home; she said many die like that, from an overzealous touch, even a breath.
This year the seedlings thrived and there are, perhaps, too many. If the weather is decent late summer and autumn should be a treat. The sunflower seeds kicked aside by the birds will grow gigantic, gorgeous. One year the blossoms were the size of dinner plates. Last summer they were more than ten feet tall.
The birds change with the seasons too. In winter we have falcons, hawks, bedeviling the feeder birds. In summer the male goldfinches glow bright yellow. The cardinal pair stays all year, stunning in all seasons.
This morning there was a brand new mourning cloak on the spruce tree, his deep velvet wings fringed in palest yellow, sporting blue polka dots.
She's a farmer's daughter, and she gardens out back and on a little plot in a community garden. Her apartment is filled with plants. She never throws anything out. I know because I babysit her cats and her dozens and dozens of plants from time to time, including the tiny, infinitely fragile tomato seedlings that sit on the windowsills. You have to water them from below, a breath can crush them. One time I knocked one over, it felt like a hurricane had blown through the house, disaster. I confessed when she came home; she said many die like that, from an overzealous touch, even a breath.
This year the seedlings thrived and there are, perhaps, too many. If the weather is decent late summer and autumn should be a treat. The sunflower seeds kicked aside by the birds will grow gigantic, gorgeous. One year the blossoms were the size of dinner plates. Last summer they were more than ten feet tall.
The birds change with the seasons too. In winter we have falcons, hawks, bedeviling the feeder birds. In summer the male goldfinches glow bright yellow. The cardinal pair stays all year, stunning in all seasons.
This morning there was a brand new mourning cloak on the spruce tree, his deep velvet wings fringed in palest yellow, sporting blue polka dots.
6
This article reminded me of a early morning flight filled to the hilt with business people headed from Boston to California, certain they would all be on time for their appointments. When the weather became unpredictable and worrisome, off we turned to Baltimore instead. Meanwhile, I had never seen so many adults behave so badly in a space so small. The stewards were impossibly polite, and I sat there, keeping my plans visiting family to myself. Once in Baltimore, as everyone scurried off to catch a airline bus to their next plane, I noticed that another woman, with her two young children, and I had both waited until all the madness became empty. With the plane quiet, she and I began helping each other with luggage, and her young children. Then, the stewards suddenly came on board with an announcement. The plane was taking off, as soon as possible, again, destination California, and asked if we wanted to stay on board with the crew. It was incredulous. The woman with two young children, and I flew to California, with all the stewards, and had the flight of our life. There we were, with our slow patience, having reaped a reward in this sea of life. It was a remarkable, unexpected day, after all.
87
You were incredulous, not the situation - that was incredible.
1
A most timely essay for this reader because it brought to mind earlier thoughts of how I was going to become an accidental tourist and never see an airport again, except when the telly is turned on. True, I did make some friends with kindly strangers on my last flights to Paris, and my favorite companion was an airline pilot from Taiwan. He was reading how to start an orphanage in the rural parts of Shanghai, while I was delving into some short stories by Truman Capote.
Perhaps the murkiest tea I have ever been served by an airline made me punchy, but my new friend would give me a slight nudge and ask 'want to hear something else?', causing tears of quiet laughter, while on the way to a funeral. Not a bad way to travel when one thinks of it that way.
A vivacious elderly French matriarch just sent me a long list of her balcony flora, overlooking a famous site in Paris, with a vivid description of flowers she cultivates, the herbs rosemary, sage and thyme, the lemon and kumquat trees, with the olive one standing tall.
You are a lucky swan, I wrote, and my little house on the Hudson is probably buried in a jungle. Be prepared to share all your gardening secrets with me, while I go in search of the gardener who is missing again.
I should have hired a flock of sheep to mow the delicious grass, and we would all be happy campers, while I read what Montaigne has to say of life and tending to one's garden at ease.
Perhaps the murkiest tea I have ever been served by an airline made me punchy, but my new friend would give me a slight nudge and ask 'want to hear something else?', causing tears of quiet laughter, while on the way to a funeral. Not a bad way to travel when one thinks of it that way.
A vivacious elderly French matriarch just sent me a long list of her balcony flora, overlooking a famous site in Paris, with a vivid description of flowers she cultivates, the herbs rosemary, sage and thyme, the lemon and kumquat trees, with the olive one standing tall.
You are a lucky swan, I wrote, and my little house on the Hudson is probably buried in a jungle. Be prepared to share all your gardening secrets with me, while I go in search of the gardener who is missing again.
I should have hired a flock of sheep to mow the delicious grass, and we would all be happy campers, while I read what Montaigne has to say of life and tending to one's garden at ease.
4
All this means nothing. Read the article about Greece today and you know what problems are. Put yourself in the shoes of refugees from Syria and Greece feels like paradise.
5
Roger, dude, sounds like someone had a bad day. Love the comment from the reader below - "This sounds an awful lot like David Brooks..." Now that's Harsh! Regarding your rant about airports: It's been my observation that there are plenty of jerks out there, but a lot of people are just really, really tired, and they don't even realize it. Hope your next flight is better. And if you're ever looking for a new lower brow venue, skip Facebook and the Priority Lines and read the reader's comments in the WSJ!
5
The Airport is Kabuki theatre. And just like Kabuki theatre it is colorful, jarring, sometimes lovely (mostly when planes land or take off) and mostly a complex interaction of odd characters. The comedy part is when those "movers and shakers" are subject to the same laws of weather, airplane delays and TSA incompetency that the rest of us are subject to. And their cry is as dissonant as some of the Kabuki music. And that's music to my ears.
10
What you are describing Mr. Cohen is call alienation, something re-identified by Hegel, then Feuerbach, then Marx and related primarily to an economic-social system called capitalism. Religion could not eliminate it, nor mitigate it. We need radical social change.
28
All very well, Gordon Alderink, but we are always going to be labeled in some way so as to make us identifiable to society, and while pleasant and friendly, some New Yorkers I have met are going to wish to place an invisible tag on us. Whether it be the doorman who asks if you are 'one of them' because he is from French Algeria and breathes a sigh of relief because you have democratic tendencies; your dinner companion at a black tie dinner, or even an informal international workshop where participants seem to be in need of a 'title'.
If I were to be invited to lunch at Park Avenue, I would have to drum something up. 'What do you do?' is one of the first questions that is asked and if you mention that your profession is a retired typist, the hostess is going to hear about it the next day.
In reluctantly having a verbal exchange with a famous Royal name, there was something farcical in searching for my roots that would ornate the family plot in France where a parent was at rest. There was a feeling that I should go 'royal' here, while my half sibling was quick to produce his old New York family branch.
Personally the true royals I have met are grounded in the soil where they were born, and it is their innate behavior and good manners that have been a source of inspiration. The rest is a trip of dotterel, or on a merrier note for May, call it a chain of bobolinks, where one feels comfortable among both kings and paupers, the latter to be treated like royalty.
If I were to be invited to lunch at Park Avenue, I would have to drum something up. 'What do you do?' is one of the first questions that is asked and if you mention that your profession is a retired typist, the hostess is going to hear about it the next day.
In reluctantly having a verbal exchange with a famous Royal name, there was something farcical in searching for my roots that would ornate the family plot in France where a parent was at rest. There was a feeling that I should go 'royal' here, while my half sibling was quick to produce his old New York family branch.
Personally the true royals I have met are grounded in the soil where they were born, and it is their innate behavior and good manners that have been a source of inspiration. The rest is a trip of dotterel, or on a merrier note for May, call it a chain of bobolinks, where one feels comfortable among both kings and paupers, the latter to be treated like royalty.
This entire column pretty much went over my head. I'm sure this does not reflect well on me.
12
Mine too - but don't worry about it! There ae probably many others wondering what the heck is Cohen talking about?
Not a few of the Reader Comments too. Whew. I must be getting old.
You probably did not understand Seinfeld either, to say nothing of Kafka.
The unease is because this house of cards economy is being run for the few, and can come falling down at any second.
19
My airport I guess is nothing but bad poetry.
I have not flown in years but I remember things like just getting out of the taxi in front of the airport, checking in bags then wandering around a big building with quite nice acoustics, finding a place to sit--and there was always much room--and looking at people and there was no overwhelming television noise or anything like that...In fact I remember pleasant music people would probably call cheesy elevator music like the song "Do the hustle". Disco stuff or dreamy sixties, seventies stuff.
Then while you're sitting there looking out of big windows at airplanes a lady or two or a man shows up at a booth and it's time to board the plane. Everybody gets up and I just let the line form--everybody just sort of gets in line--and tickets are taken and we walk down a tube which connects to the plane. I get on the plane, find my seat and shove my bag overhead. I sit down, look at the food tray, check the barf bag and other plane literature and mess around with the seat.
I love airplane sounds, all those whirrings and airflow or whatever and of course rumbles. I liked it when planes would take off--I liked the flexibility of the wings and stuff like that. I liked eating and sleeping on planes too. Arriving late at night or early morning in strange heat or cold of new city. I felt born again--maybe this time it will be different. Like the beginning of a new love relationship. Beautiful girls, flying and love go together. Children.
I have not flown in years but I remember things like just getting out of the taxi in front of the airport, checking in bags then wandering around a big building with quite nice acoustics, finding a place to sit--and there was always much room--and looking at people and there was no overwhelming television noise or anything like that...In fact I remember pleasant music people would probably call cheesy elevator music like the song "Do the hustle". Disco stuff or dreamy sixties, seventies stuff.
Then while you're sitting there looking out of big windows at airplanes a lady or two or a man shows up at a booth and it's time to board the plane. Everybody gets up and I just let the line form--everybody just sort of gets in line--and tickets are taken and we walk down a tube which connects to the plane. I get on the plane, find my seat and shove my bag overhead. I sit down, look at the food tray, check the barf bag and other plane literature and mess around with the seat.
I love airplane sounds, all those whirrings and airflow or whatever and of course rumbles. I liked it when planes would take off--I liked the flexibility of the wings and stuff like that. I liked eating and sleeping on planes too. Arriving late at night or early morning in strange heat or cold of new city. I felt born again--maybe this time it will be different. Like the beginning of a new love relationship. Beautiful girls, flying and love go together. Children.
11
We used to get all dressed up as kids, too. The adults wore suits and other stylish clothes. But of course that was before the airports became the new bus terminals. We can get all nostalgic cause it was fun, even in the old (then new) prop planes. Thanks for the memories.
Thank corporate America's for its ability to segregate us. Where would we be without them? Have a Coke and relax.
17
Vin
Years ago I asked a worthy socialite if she had read a novel by Dominick Dunne and her response was there was no need to because it was about her circle of friends. Just as well, because it was not a flattering portrait by a stretch.
At the time I worked in a powerful corporate tower, and my colleague and mentor had a fit of some kind, when the spouse of our supervisor called the office to tell her of the exchange at a black tie informal dinner the prior evening.
'We had the most entertaining conversation of who was in possession of the most inane secretary and afterwards I told my husband to feel bright that things were not so bad after all'. This was meant as a back-handed compliment, one which backfired, and my own thoughts were that it was a dull dinner event addressing the endless topic of 'Good Help is Hard to Find'.
A small anecdote and memory that Roger Cohen revived, and to put a happy note on it, sometimes it is wonderful to be 'invisible', because one hears the most outrageous comments off the cuff, that would not be spoken in what is known as polite society.
Years ago I asked a worthy socialite if she had read a novel by Dominick Dunne and her response was there was no need to because it was about her circle of friends. Just as well, because it was not a flattering portrait by a stretch.
At the time I worked in a powerful corporate tower, and my colleague and mentor had a fit of some kind, when the spouse of our supervisor called the office to tell her of the exchange at a black tie informal dinner the prior evening.
'We had the most entertaining conversation of who was in possession of the most inane secretary and afterwards I told my husband to feel bright that things were not so bad after all'. This was meant as a back-handed compliment, one which backfired, and my own thoughts were that it was a dull dinner event addressing the endless topic of 'Good Help is Hard to Find'.
A small anecdote and memory that Roger Cohen revived, and to put a happy note on it, sometimes it is wonderful to be 'invisible', because one hears the most outrageous comments off the cuff, that would not be spoken in what is known as polite society.
I'd love to see a Gucci laden traveler frantically hop from line to line - hilarious! Seems like someone would eventually deck one of the lounge louts; might make for good entertainment. Thumbs up!
Thanks for the anthropological snapshot of humanity under pressure, and the wider view of what's really more important in the end.
Thanks for the anthropological snapshot of humanity under pressure, and the wider view of what's really more important in the end.
8
Where were the Chinese when capitalism was invented? We could have used their ideas.
Now we're stuck with only the momentary relief of nostalgic memory, along with world wide conservative rage over the loss of the fading, simplicity and tranquility of yesterday (a have your cake and eat it too version of nostalgia).
....but I wouldn't be too quick to give the Chinese full credit. I'm thinking that all of their moves since awakening from 2000 years of heavenly bliss are choreographed using the moves of modern capitalist pursuits.
It looks like the 'human without a garden' syndrome might become universal. The question is: can we evolve that fast...........and is it better?
Now we're stuck with only the momentary relief of nostalgic memory, along with world wide conservative rage over the loss of the fading, simplicity and tranquility of yesterday (a have your cake and eat it too version of nostalgia).
....but I wouldn't be too quick to give the Chinese full credit. I'm thinking that all of their moves since awakening from 2000 years of heavenly bliss are choreographed using the moves of modern capitalist pursuits.
It looks like the 'human without a garden' syndrome might become universal. The question is: can we evolve that fast...........and is it better?
1
Flew recently after not flying for many years. Was pretty amused to see the different colored carpets being rolled out for the different lines; business, first class, etc. For me and my budget-minded peeps; just the bare floor. But really, who cares? The plane was carrying us all to the same place in the same amount of time.
Do you suppose all those cards, status emblems, fancy luggage, lounge access, etc. are just human forms of peacock feathers?
Do you suppose all those cards, status emblems, fancy luggage, lounge access, etc. are just human forms of peacock feathers?
101
The lemming like pursuit of material things in the hope they will make us feel better or accomplished only betrays the sorry state of our souls. The more you acquire, the less you feel whole inside.
I was hoping to have spotted you in the airline's VIP lounge some day, may be not. Marketing is anything spontaneous nor an act of kindness. It's rather opposite. It is intentional. Many of the times it is designed to deceive, to isolate the few, the wannabes, the psychologically defunct who is incessantly and aimlessly flip-flopping in his own body-mind distortion when it comes to the real value of money. I have been on first class, in VIP or Member's Only Lounges, through back door passes and reserved lines. I have always been a shy person and being privileged in these circumstances has made me more anxious, as you'd noted. For me so much of a rewarding experience must include seeing other "people" being jovial and happy. It must include the opportunity to share it rather the exclusions of the act of sharing, to be a part and not apart of it, to be normal at the expense of being exceptional. It's not culture. It's marketing. It does not make all things better, but a few things better at the expense of the many, sometimes the 99%. It boost the consumerism for the few who would rather pay up than to have to play down. In reality, those who have the ability to pay lacks the capacity to play. Evolution is not fair.
7
Great article Roger. I try to relax at an airport and in flight by having a book that I've been eagerly looking forward to read. Not a Kindle Book or an IPAD book, but a real book with real pages.
33
Thank you, Roger,
My wife and I were riffraff fifty years ago and we are still the riffraff you describe. Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I weren't severely ADD and sometimes my wife wonders why she spent all those years earning a PhD. We have moved up in the world from living in a hamlet in Alberta, to West Park, in a small town in Quebec. We have learned to be gardeners.
Today is a day for planting tomatoes, squash, aubergine, black radish and lupines Last year was my best tomato and eggplant crop in sixty years and it is taking all I have to repeat the triumph this year, and meet the expectations of friends and neighbours that they will get a share.
We sleep well and hope we have left the world a better place.
My wife and I were riffraff fifty years ago and we are still the riffraff you describe. Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I weren't severely ADD and sometimes my wife wonders why she spent all those years earning a PhD. We have moved up in the world from living in a hamlet in Alberta, to West Park, in a small town in Quebec. We have learned to be gardeners.
Today is a day for planting tomatoes, squash, aubergine, black radish and lupines Last year was my best tomato and eggplant crop in sixty years and it is taking all I have to repeat the triumph this year, and meet the expectations of friends and neighbours that they will get a share.
We sleep well and hope we have left the world a better place.
71
For peace in today's world a retiree could retreat to the basement with an internet connection and a bottle of whiskey.
25
No, No, No. Why would you want to be connected? Peace is achieved through disconnection and self-contemplation. Retiring to the basement with a bottle of whiskey and an internet connection is what you do to view porn away from your wife.
3
"These damn kids with their cell phones and their twitter/facebook/hashtag/bad music! In my day we slowed down and neighbors knew each other. I don't like going through the airport."
Haven't enough people groused at these things already? At least it was well written.
Haven't enough people groused at these things already? At least it was well written.
4
An old - really old - jazz musician once told me: "There are a lotta nuts out there and , if you let'em, they will drive you nuts.
27
They already did.
Sometimes the sanest reaction to an insane situation...is Insanity.
The people with impossible numbers of Facebook "friends" or Twitter "followers" are strivers, as are those obsessed with overpriced clothes and accessories being someone else's name. Those with real confidence in their own worth usually avoid vulgar displays of wealth or connections and, in fact, often take pride in thrift.
31
I read that many of the millions of friends or likes or whatever are actually bots which one can purchase. So now I know why a do-do like Kim K has "millions" of followers- bots!
1
What good is status when you can't take it with you.
4
Articulately and beautifully observed Roger. Thanks.
jfm
jfm
34
You must have had a really bad flight. To and from Istanbul from Paris this week a breeze.
This sounds an awful lot like David Brooks...
3
Minus the moralizing.
9
Django,
Many of us are looking for meaning and affirmation in a world that offers little if any of either. On our holiest of days Roger no doubt acts as the intermediary in giving the blessing that David no doubt receives.
We are living in very interesting times and no doubt both Roger and David consider that a blessing but for so much of mankind it seems so much a curse or to paraphrase Monty Python it is so much a part of growing up and being Jewish.
Now if we could only convince David that the road to democracy is fraught with peril but its rewards are so much greater.
Many of us are looking for meaning and affirmation in a world that offers little if any of either. On our holiest of days Roger no doubt acts as the intermediary in giving the blessing that David no doubt receives.
We are living in very interesting times and no doubt both Roger and David consider that a blessing but for so much of mankind it seems so much a curse or to paraphrase Monty Python it is so much a part of growing up and being Jewish.
Now if we could only convince David that the road to democracy is fraught with peril but its rewards are so much greater.
1
Yes! I was thinking the same thing as I read this column with a knowing smile. Just the other day Mr. Brooks wrote a similar column, on spiritual capital, a column I enjoyed reading. Predictably, readers took him to task for being a tool of the Republicans, an acolyte of unhinged capitalism, for participating in naive or misplaced moralism. The usual suspects. The comfortable slippers of many NYT readers. In contrast, many of the comments responding to this column, which I also enjoyed, are studied, approving, glowing. In response to my observations following my reading of Mr. Brook’s column, I suggested an editorial experiment to the NYT: have two opinion writers who generally represent opposing constituencies each write his or her normal column, but swap assigned authorship and see what the response is. My intuition is that many readers respond not to the content of what is written, but who writes it and what he or she represents. This, of course, is but an imitation of much of intellectual and political discourse in the States these days. Perhaps this experiment is at work here? For all I know, the Times may already do this on occasion. I can imagine all the opinion writers smiling – and sighing.
In any case, many thanks to Mr. Brooks and Mr. Cohen for two pieces well worth considering.
In any case, many thanks to Mr. Brooks and Mr. Cohen for two pieces well worth considering.
When I'm frustrated and in a hurry I remember this little story my Alaskan friend Poopdeck told me. A farmer walks his hog to market using a birch switch. His neighbor drives his hog to market and is returning before the first farmer gets to town. " Wouldn't it be faster if you loaded your hog in your truck and drove him like I do?" he asks. "Maybe" replies the first, "but what's time to a hog?" A lot I guess if you're a platinum hog! Thanks for a great column Roger.
16
Mr. Cohen I love the way you write. You are a true word smith. I'd never heard that Chinese saying but I sure do like it. I like the rest of the sentiment as well.
12
Nothing new here, Mr. Cohen, if you remember your Thorstein Veblen: "conspicuous consumption" and "pecuniary emulation".
5
Mr. Cohen:
very productive use of your delayed/layover times at:
??
La Guardia, perhaps...
Newark,
O'Hare??
or just about anywhere else that we find ourselves
surrounded by near-countless fellow-travelers
who ignore our own existence as much as we do theirs
thru the hamster-wheels of our unshared-congestions,
much---
CHEER !!
1
"Isn't it pretty to think so."
2
Who cares about "likes" -- go camping with cloth napkins!
10
Thank you, Roger... Truer words were never spoken...
6
What REALLY is annoying is when the hoi polloi put their luggage in the overhead at the front of the plane as they move their way to the back of the plane where their seats are! Exiting becomes a nightmare for everyone.
11
At least we've pretty much stopped eating each other (for food, that is). Isn't that progress?
Maybe luggage equality will be next!
Maybe luggage equality will be next!
4
It ain't my brother I'm carrying. Luggage is heavy. First slot gets it. Where's your case? Shipped ahead? Nuff stuff at each house? Wanna make class war? Hoi polloi's training for it, looking for overheads above your select seat. Relax. We're actually kind.
Shhhh. Airlines will read this and decide that they need to make it more difficult and punishing to those without the privileges instead of easier on the ones with them.
11
Have you been in the back of an airliner at any time during the last 15 years?
Yes where is that finish line anyway .
"The Virgin or The Dynamo" ?
"The Virgin or The Dynamo" ?
Isn't this from the final passages of Voltaire's "'Candide"? Ending up after a hectic life overlooking the Sea of Marmara as a market gardener: "Cultivate your garden. It keeps you from boredom, vice and need." Something of that idea, can't remember exactly, and too relaxed to worry about it and look it up.
2
Today's column? Definitely a "Like"!
42
The Chinese were on to something. The innocence of animals and simplicity of plants makes you easily forget that there is even a need for an airport. I mean, exactly WHERE are all these people flying to, especially since 80% of all business travel is totally unnecessary.
Gardens represent a throwback to analog days. You can't hurry plants, no matter how many "likes" you may have. There is no technology to make a garden hipper or more trendy. The plants are in charge and they set your pace because to them there is a season, whether you like it or not.
Gardens represent a throwback to analog days. You can't hurry plants, no matter how many "likes" you may have. There is no technology to make a garden hipper or more trendy. The plants are in charge and they set your pace because to them there is a season, whether you like it or not.
44
It troubles me that young people, whose attention span is already short, and whose focus on popularity and hormonal urges are powerful influences, are encouraged to divide their attention between reality and those fascinating small screens with all their toys.
It is hard enough to learn to think without minutely and secondly distractions besieging the senses. Teachers have a hard road already.
Learning reality is fascinating and useful. Too bad we're forgetting how. Instead we get things like climate change denial, fueled by our ability to exclude unwelcome information and seek popularity in our predetermined exclusionary groups. Even religion is now tooled to confirm bias.
It is hard enough to learn to think without minutely and secondly distractions besieging the senses. Teachers have a hard road already.
Learning reality is fascinating and useful. Too bad we're forgetting how. Instead we get things like climate change denial, fueled by our ability to exclude unwelcome information and seek popularity in our predetermined exclusionary groups. Even religion is now tooled to confirm bias.
21
When pre-toddler's and toddlers accept and intuitively learn to use technology, there's a pretty good indication that it's an archetypically sound human product.
Those lil screens aren't going away until they are replaced by something even more intuitive, easy, and self fulfilling.
The use of these devices and the accompanying communications technology introduces a whole new layer of abstraction and personal power into human existence. Hopefully, it's use for the better rather than for the worse prevails.
Those lil screens aren't going away until they are replaced by something even more intuitive, easy, and self fulfilling.
The use of these devices and the accompanying communications technology introduces a whole new layer of abstraction and personal power into human existence. Hopefully, it's use for the better rather than for the worse prevails.
That seemed like it was going somewhere, but in the end all we got was another aphorism. I would count aphorisms as part of the deluge described in the first paragraph.
2
Maryann: Does everything need to "go somewhere"? Is not insightful observation about everyday activities and why we do the things we do while engaged in them not productive enough?
Let me guess. . . you posses one of those gilded cards and/or have been known to cut in line?
Let me guess. . . you posses one of those gilded cards and/or have been known to cut in line?
Interesting that the solution often ends up in a garden where in the Western Faith everything started. At the end of Candide, Voltaire puts Candide in his garden, where he whiles away the days. Duddy Kravitz's grandfather tells Duddy that the only important thing in life is your backyard even if it is the size of a postage stamp. Running through airports to get on the plane first is a strange form of proof that you are getting ahead in life.
1
Marvellous column. Really says it all (in all colours of the rainbow)
3
Roger that, Roger.
Humble apologies if ever I've posted as if I give a hoot about the "Recommend" count.
Humble apologies if ever I've posted as if I give a hoot about the "Recommend" count.
4
Status is something we seek but as one approaches the illusionary "status" it shifts away.
2
My wife and I avail ourselves of air travel, oh, about once a year. We have a achieved a priority status somewhere between Gravel and Roadside Debris. Last on, last off. It is amusing that all those "jewels" arrive at the destination exactly the same moment I do, and they had to wait sitting on the plane, rather than in their comfortable lounge, for me before they could leave. So I don't mind waiting for them when we arrive. It's only fair. They probably spent more time in that tin can than I did.
The really illogical custom of boarding a plane is to fill it from front to back. If you think of a plane as a tube of toothpaste, you know that the first stuff out was the last stuff in. So that stuff had a chance to lounge around in more pleasant surroundings longer before being stuffed into its seat and the cap was screwed on. Then when the cap comes off, last stuff becomes first stuff to breath fresh air. Now that's privilege.
As for the preliminary flight activity of search and seizure, the rules seem to be changed every day at every airport. Take your computer out of its bag and put it in a separate bin. Leave your computer in the bag (I got chewed out once when I did not hear this and removed mine.). Take your shoes off, leave'em on. Take off the belt, leave the belt on. Take your hearing aid out. Move along. Move along, please. SIR, MOVE ALONG! Put your hearing aid back in.
Next!
The really illogical custom of boarding a plane is to fill it from front to back. If you think of a plane as a tube of toothpaste, you know that the first stuff out was the last stuff in. So that stuff had a chance to lounge around in more pleasant surroundings longer before being stuffed into its seat and the cap was screwed on. Then when the cap comes off, last stuff becomes first stuff to breath fresh air. Now that's privilege.
As for the preliminary flight activity of search and seizure, the rules seem to be changed every day at every airport. Take your computer out of its bag and put it in a separate bin. Leave your computer in the bag (I got chewed out once when I did not hear this and removed mine.). Take your shoes off, leave'em on. Take off the belt, leave the belt on. Take your hearing aid out. Move along. Move along, please. SIR, MOVE ALONG! Put your hearing aid back in.
Next!
59
Glen: You are a funny man. You should write a regular column too. I will refrain from using the obnoxious and ubiquitous shortcut for indicating that I laughed out loud. You're welcome.
Wow, Mr. Cohen you are so outside the box on describing the "elite" of trave!. I am now and have been an elite traveler for decades. I have "earned" that "privilege" by spending entirely too much time in airports, almost all for business reasons. It's not a privilege that I "enjoy" so much as endure. I also have fast track status at the TSA check in. People who are in that line "bought" that with either ridiculous amounts of travel miles or for $100. In both cases you have to make an appointment, get interviewed, fingerprinted, and in general turn over your life history to TSA in order to have the "privilege" of not taking off your shoes or light jacket, or removing your laptop and liquids (sometimes) at the TSA check point. Then you get stuck behind an enormous family with kids and grandmas, deemed safe by TSA because they are, well kids and grandmas traveling together and they don't have a clue what to do because they almost never travel. I honestly don't mind or have anything against these families but these are the people who slow down travel enormously. And so sorry, there is an advantage to getting on early. It's called overhead space. In the days of charging for bags, overhead space is very, very precious. Now, because I am elite I get a free checked bag so if I am not in a rush I check my bag to leave room for others, but in general no one wants to do that. Oh, and I travel in jeans and a swearshirt, carrying a duffel bag I picked up at a conference in 1999.
6
I guess, we should ban those cute kids and grandparents from the airplane, since they slow things down so much - although, last I checked, the plane still goes about .80 Mach, depending, with our without grandparents, cute kids, and the overhead bin.
Anyway I feel your pain.
Anyway I feel your pain.
.....swearshirt....perfect Freudian slip....well done!!
"...and of course before they boarded they had the heady status-bearing privilege of being “fast-tracked” through security, the “reward” for having endured the hell of air travel so often."
As a 35 year veteran airline pilot, all I can say is that this is brilliant. You have captured our industry's remarkable ability to bring out the worst in people, and thus characterized the contemporary American, who has traded citizenship, and nearly everything else, for consumerism.
176
Social media. One often sees couples out to dinner (as well as just about everywhere) and their real companion is their iphone. Communicating electronically but not communicating with the one who truly counts. Keeping up. But keeping up with what? The more social media invades our lives, the less we know about ourselves and the people that should matter the most. Beware of false gods: social media is one; status seeking another.
"Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."
Marcus Aurelius
"Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."
Marcus Aurelius
14
For people who have not seen it, Key and Peele (a very wonderful comedy duo) do a very funny skit on all the 'jewels' going first and the poor schlub who finds himself behind all of them, even the 'ordinary' folks because the counter person announcing the 'who's next' has all the power and really doesn't like this one poor schlub. There are many 'categories' for customers, it is such a good spoof on it all. I imagine it's on YouTube. It's hilarious.
3
Hah. They should make an official "schlub" class. Into which I would fit:)
Happiness: finding a peaceful place, observing it closely, perhaps embellishing it slightly, and sharing it with others. But it's a lot of hard work!
3
My plane was delayed. My column was due. The cocktails were flowing...
1
As George Harrison once sang, "The farther one travels the less one knows." Today's society is living proof.
7
I really resent that I didn't have the chance to contribute my comment before eight other people, since I pay $20 a month to read the New York Times. I'm sure that these other "commenters" (whose ideas are far inferior to my own) only bought their copies this morning. The Times should do something about this injustice to its loyal, high-paying readership like me. And for what it's worth, I pay even more to read the Wall Street Journal . . .
14
I don't know about privilege Mr. Cohen. All I ever get at airports around the world is lets board now. My spouse now has a real, honest handicap which is no privilege at all. She boards first. lots of abuse in that. Some passengers use this as a quick way to board. Once aboard they lose their handicap. Any ploy to get ahead of the masses. No matter how quickly you board it really doesn't matter. The plane sits there until it's time to go. All else is nonsense.
14
The Chinese have passed way beyond the " Be happy in your Garden" stage as their addiction to the western model of "buy me give me watch me" rapidly infects their culture.
Come out of your mawkish goody thoughts bubble and face it!
The rich are getting exponentially richer and their unfulfilling hedonism is spilling over onto all of us like a tsunami of greed and envy.
Come out of your mawkish goody thoughts bubble and face it!
The rich are getting exponentially richer and their unfulfilling hedonism is spilling over onto all of us like a tsunami of greed and envy.
20
There are one billion Chinese and many are more like me than the people I grew up with 60 years ago. Some are driven and some would just as soon watch their garden grow and plan for a better garden next year. When has lived in many different and varied places one soon realizes people adapt to the culture they are in. Its all about affirmation. Flying is not fun but being a frequent flyer takes away a bit of the sting.
Greed is a virtue when it is deemed to be a virtue and envy is a virtue when it is vice attributable to those that don't hold to your predatory society paradigms.
Greed is a virtue when it is deemed to be a virtue and envy is a virtue when it is vice attributable to those that don't hold to your predatory society paradigms.
I just don't get out much, it seems. Never knew there was such a microcosm of castes in airports. But I just hate to fly, not the flying part, the airport part.
Find the peace within and then even airports can become places of the sublime.
Thanks to Tim Kane for the thoughts on the Moody Blues.
Real nice piece today, Mr. Cohen.
thanks
Find the peace within and then even airports can become places of the sublime.
Thanks to Tim Kane for the thoughts on the Moody Blues.
Real nice piece today, Mr. Cohen.
thanks
8
I fly the cheapest fare that I can find, usually to San Salvador the capital of the newly denominated "world's most violent contry" (it's really quite lovely with nice people). Recently, I've been waived into the "pay line" where I don't have to remove my boots,, etc. Hilarious.
I'm never searchrd coming back for those Cuban "puros" buried in my pack - must be my "more than 50 " age and the good attitude emanating from one who has spent time with people who are courteous, not strangled by dumb rules, and take all the time you want to just talk.
I once made a real faux pas- I brought as gifts some Apple products which were met with a decided lack of enthusiasm. Everyone is too busy talking to be "plugged in." Plus you can buy a "chafa"- counterfeit- of just about anything; I guess it is too unimportant to enforce anti- pIracy- if you speak spanish and want a relaxing trip, visit El Salvador- ignore the US drive-by media, which like the US government, and its funny advisories, is clueless.
I'm never searchrd coming back for those Cuban "puros" buried in my pack - must be my "more than 50 " age and the good attitude emanating from one who has spent time with people who are courteous, not strangled by dumb rules, and take all the time you want to just talk.
I once made a real faux pas- I brought as gifts some Apple products which were met with a decided lack of enthusiasm. Everyone is too busy talking to be "plugged in." Plus you can buy a "chafa"- counterfeit- of just about anything; I guess it is too unimportant to enforce anti- pIracy- if you speak spanish and want a relaxing trip, visit El Salvador- ignore the US drive-by media, which like the US government, and its funny advisories, is clueless.
3
This stuff is simply not on my radar.
2
I think Roger Cohen regularly does some clever and clear-headed thinking about a lot of diverse topics; this piece is evidence of that. The first paragraph says it all, for so many of us.
25
You made me re-read it. Thanks!
Could it be the end of lies and obtusity? or just meaningful progress in the reshuffling of the deck?
One thing for sure is that it has allowed the creation of virtual groupings of 'like thinkers' that were previously limited by geography. Another is that it has allowed people collectors to more easily collect people (some to spread influence and collect favors more readily).
In that senses, it echo's the psychological threats inherent in modern marketing and the unregulated overreach that has undermined the idea of a customer rather than a 'sucker' based economy. We won't allow fecal matter to pollute our food, but we're perfectly willing to allow words to influence and pollute our thinking processes.
There is more, perhaps, beneath the surface than above.
Could it be the end of lies and obtusity? or just meaningful progress in the reshuffling of the deck?
One thing for sure is that it has allowed the creation of virtual groupings of 'like thinkers' that were previously limited by geography. Another is that it has allowed people collectors to more easily collect people (some to spread influence and collect favors more readily).
In that senses, it echo's the psychological threats inherent in modern marketing and the unregulated overreach that has undermined the idea of a customer rather than a 'sucker' based economy. We won't allow fecal matter to pollute our food, but we're perfectly willing to allow words to influence and pollute our thinking processes.
There is more, perhaps, beneath the surface than above.
1
Many years ago, I took up zen meditation to help me cope with anxiety over the meaning of life. Again and again, meditation has shown me that life is perfectly what it is. That is to say, life's many imperfections are perfectly imperfect. Meditation can take you to a place that is utterly beyond social status and social media, where everyone and everything is equally OK. Try it!
3
Wonderful article! Most of us struggle to keep up. The garden is a wonderful place to put that futility into perspective. Love your observation on air travel sociology. I often watched some of the scramble perched above it all in my 30 year career as an airline pilot--often amused--and grateful that I didn't have to be part of it.
3
The fundamental change at airports is that most of the people getting on a plane today were not there fifty years ago - they were waiting at the bus terminal. That's probably the source of a lot of "anxiety" among the status crowd that the author speaks about.
1
I assume numbers of comments to op-ed columns count on your list of status anxieties. Don't know why I seem to be the first to comment, but your article brought a smile of recognition to my lips.
Let me add to the list the embarrassment of riches in (still) free online university courses. I took two of those, enlisted in twenty more which I did not complete and some forty which I did not even start, to my constant shame.
Let me add to the list the embarrassment of riches in (still) free online university courses. I took two of those, enlisted in twenty more which I did not complete and some forty which I did not even start, to my constant shame.
I knew there was a reason that I have been planting a wide variety of flowers these past couple of weeks. And have no frequent flyer miles.
6
No frequent flyer miles, Mitchell? Pity. But I wish you much luck with your frequent flower miles this summer.
1
When you take away the outward, visible signs of status that once came, for example, with the class system in England, people seek it all the more eagerly. This is essentially the American problem, writ across our social landscape. All women and men are created equal, but we don't want that, we want to be better. We want to show it and for others to acknowledge it
The desire to be unequal, to show status, is the powerful impetus behind seeking "the best schools", regardless of their positive or negative impact on actual learning and intellectual development. You don't need those silly things if you have the lifelong prestige of having attended, of having been labeled better than others, who must struggle against the tide of having been marked "second class" (or worse)
It is also a major component of materialism, seeking gratification and status with the kind of car your drive, the house you live in (most important) and where you vacation. A house is not a house, it is a way to show your mother-in-law that your wife did not make a mistake in marrying you. We must have a big house to prove we are bigger people, more able to afford the lux that our status implies
As for status in airline travel, since everyone must do it (get on board), the airlines have worked reverse psychology on us: make something so bad that we would pay like crazy to make it "just a little" better. Believe it or not, a patent has actually been filed for a stand-up, half seat on airliners. The future.
8
Leona Helmsley, you were a prophetess and so were you, Ayn Rand.
Funny how in the land of equality it's still human nature that truly rules and inequality is potent reality. Loopholes are what really work when interpreting our Constitution, which is based on the theory that all men are created equal. The airport boarding lounge is a nice crucible of reality. Man (oh, and women too) are created equal, but put a group of them in a room and see what happens.
Funny how in the land of equality it's still human nature that truly rules and inequality is potent reality. Loopholes are what really work when interpreting our Constitution, which is based on the theory that all men are created equal. The airport boarding lounge is a nice crucible of reality. Man (oh, and women too) are created equal, but put a group of them in a room and see what happens.
3
Roger, congratulations! You have touched upon a nerve that has been aching to be touched upon. Capitalism is fine, but Pure Capitalism, as I prefer to call it, rather than the generally accepted and highly misunderstood "Neoliberal" brand name, is obviously ringing the death bell for humanity. Pure Capitalism is based on one simple, allegedly infallible aspect: Profit, which of course is not humanity's best quality. All things truly humane, some of which you mention, are secondary, incidental to the goal of Pure Capitalism. That system's sole goal is profiting from defeating an opponent, whether in a corporate takeover or a special airline class status. It is all part of the same, totally egregious paradigm that has taken over the world since the balance was lost in the fall of Socialism, which was the humane aspect of failed "Communism". Unfortunately, those two ideologies are now forever entwined. Socialistic, human-based, rather than profit-based, policies, have become a "dirty concept" next to the obviously shallow concept of continual profit, competition, planetary devastation, and war. This mind-set, along with its convenient companion of High Technology, more than anything else is leading us towards the edge. I expect many to be shocked by your clear observation of the "status" discrepancies that divide us. But in expressing that the "inner IS the outer" you have given us hope that a deeper, more mature and holistic discussion can begin. Thank you. Now, let's start.
8
Roger, To know all the ins and outs of the 'jewelry' store, you must fly a lot. A dreadful thought, but on the other hand you get to go to interesting places. I fly only about once a year. For security I just stand in line, sometimes on one foot to practice balance, and let my mind wander. Go through security and then sit with the great unwashed and wait to board, hopefully last to avoid the crush. Better to sit and wait where it's more comfortable than to spend a minute more than necessary squished into an economy seat. Obviously I'm not much interested in status and I really could care less if anyone likes my comment.
7
The manner in which people queue at airports tells you a lot about the place. In my experience, Indians and Russians aren't familiar with the concept of queuing; Americans and Germans so-so; Japanese and Brits generally pretty good.
And remember, the aircraft isn't going anywhere until the boarding process completes. The real competition is for overhead bin space, which is a no-brainer if your stuff is checked.
And remember, the aircraft isn't going anywhere until the boarding process completes. The real competition is for overhead bin space, which is a no-brainer if your stuff is checked.
1
God bless the Italians. I was flying from Palermo to Tunis in the 70s and had a ticket with an assigned seat stamped thereon. Yet when the plane was released for boarding, the mass of the passengers, Sicilians, fought to the death to get to their assigned seats.
Another wistfull flying story- I had travelled from Cairo to and through India, 5,000 land miles, in the summervof 1971, by bus and train. We had met a group of French students incongruously travelling from Europe to India overland as well.
As we had not plotted a way home (much like the rest of the eastbound route) the French offerred to "sneak" us on their charter plane at no cost - no security, no hyper- regulation,and this was during the period when airplane hi- jacking was virtually a weekly event. 11 hours we touched down in Zürich. I miss the days of minimal regulation and the fearlessness of the times. Consistent thrrewith, we were totally on our own and had no expectation of government help had something ill become of us.
Another wistfull flying story- I had travelled from Cairo to and through India, 5,000 land miles, in the summervof 1971, by bus and train. We had met a group of French students incongruously travelling from Europe to India overland as well.
As we had not plotted a way home (much like the rest of the eastbound route) the French offerred to "sneak" us on their charter plane at no cost - no security, no hyper- regulation,and this was during the period when airplane hi- jacking was virtually a weekly event. 11 hours we touched down in Zürich. I miss the days of minimal regulation and the fearlessness of the times. Consistent thrrewith, we were totally on our own and had no expectation of government help had something ill become of us.
1
Privilege, inverted or not - usually not - has always existed. It did, and still does, on the railways. In the 1800's, there were many classes of traveler, a vestige is still seen in India and elsewhere.
The Chinese garden is probably a metaphor for enjoying what lies around you. The U.S. in particular is an amazing storehouse of history, variegated cultures (including culinary), striking topography. I always smile to see the earnest articles in this valued newspaper about the absinthe trail of the Franco-Swiss frontier or how the wines or olive oil are changing (or not, etc.) in Tuscany. (Oh Tuscany what would we do without you?). Parts of Northern California are as interesting, Oregon too, or Louisiana. Square deal.
The Chinese garden is probably a metaphor for enjoying what lies around you. The U.S. in particular is an amazing storehouse of history, variegated cultures (including culinary), striking topography. I always smile to see the earnest articles in this valued newspaper about the absinthe trail of the Franco-Swiss frontier or how the wines or olive oil are changing (or not, etc.) in Tuscany. (Oh Tuscany what would we do without you?). Parts of Northern California are as interesting, Oregon too, or Louisiana. Square deal.
2
I too have been struck by the stratification of airport passingers into gems and precious metal labels. I laugh out loud every time I hear it. Ok "Emeralds" line up. I generally like airports as I find them the best for people watching.
Though i have no empirical research, it seems that every time I fly, the people in 1st class are always looking down at their feet when the rest of the plane is boarding. Perhaps they feel that to make eye contact with the hoi polli some how cheapens the status. Again, funny to me. 10 to 20 people, all looking at their feet for 30 minutes to an hour. I'm ok being in Coprolite class, and being free to look up and greet my fellow travelers.
Though i have no empirical research, it seems that every time I fly, the people in 1st class are always looking down at their feet when the rest of the plane is boarding. Perhaps they feel that to make eye contact with the hoi polli some how cheapens the status. Again, funny to me. 10 to 20 people, all looking at their feet for 30 minutes to an hour. I'm ok being in Coprolite class, and being free to look up and greet my fellow travelers.
11
"Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible."
--- H.L. Mencken
--- H.L. Mencken
9
Some say our problems began when Hamilton superimposed goals related to material progress over Jefferon's more benign, natural conception of the pursuit of happiness. So there it is, seemingly.
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/pursuit-of-happiness-pa...
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/pursuit-of-happiness-pa...
2
I remember back in the late Fifties and early Sixties when United Airlines had a Free VIP lounge at selected airports that one could enter only after proving that he or she(rarely, at the time) had reached 100,000 miles in the air. I still have my United Airline walnut plaque with brass inset stating that I was a member of the 100,000 mile club. I never did make the astounding, at the time, Million Mile Plaque. Flying was a pleasure at the time even without a VIP lounge in which to relax before the flight. I must admit though that it was a heady thing to be privileged to have a United Airline Lounge Card.
1
Mr. Cohen:
America is filled with exceptional people, an unfortunate by-product of American Exceptionalism. We obviously need bigger and better planes. Perhaps the credit card companies could help by using cards that make distinctions more readily discerned. Ordinary human beings could have cards classiified by wood. Then the blockheads would stand out. Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the precious metals class for having to suffer their own boorishness.
America is filled with exceptional people, an unfortunate by-product of American Exceptionalism. We obviously need bigger and better planes. Perhaps the credit card companies could help by using cards that make distinctions more readily discerned. Ordinary human beings could have cards classiified by wood. Then the blockheads would stand out. Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the precious metals class for having to suffer their own boorishness.
2
Thank you Mr. Cohen for pointing out our self- inflicted wounds and self-induced torture and anxiety. Ms. Dowd said the same things yesterday in her op-ed yesterday except that she also pointed out about how our crazy self indulgence has left us vulnerable and exposed us to repercussions way beyond our control. We are paying a heavy price for our narcissism. I'm a physician who has to (like it or not )conform to this digital age in the course of my professional duties. So when I found myself twiddling my thumbs at the airport waiting for my flight, to my surprise I realized I was the only one doing so. Every computer kiosk was occupied and everyone had their eyes glued on their smartphones or talking into their phones. And this was along the entire age spectrum - from a white -haired ( probably a grand-father ) to a little 5-yr. old thumbing away on her smart phone. What was so important and could not wait is beyond me. All this does not indicate a healthy trend, a symbol of our sophisticated advancement. Technically, yes. But personally a big NO. This is narcissism at it's worst. PERIOD. And, by the way - garnet has been kicked out of the 'precious' category.
28
How many smartphone users does it take to change a light bulb? They can't, because there's no APP.
I had a strange and encouraging experience just before last New Year when I was flying with my wife from Toronto to Venice, steerage class. We we waiting in the crowded small lounge at Frankfort airport when a woman walked in who looked a bit like Kate Blanchett. She had two tow headed boys with her and a bearded and decidedly unglamorous husband and a couple of blonde young men who looked like surfer dudes. As she was talking with her entourage, I realized it was indeed Ms Blanchett. It was obviously a family holiday and she lined up with everyone else and chided the kids for not behaving perfectly. She was invisible to most of the people in the lounge and the Lufthansa crew had no idea who they were serving. Maybe you have to be Australian to be that egalitarian, but what was interesting was that the few people who recognized her didn't point their IPhones or ask for autographs. It occurred to me,too, was that her sons have a fair chance of growing up normal . The bubble of the rich may be comforting, but it often comes with a price.
33
Flipping through pages of National Geographic magazine a lifetime ago, hoping to see a nude native or two, I would indeed see just that, some long-lost tribe, hanging by the riverbank, by their dugout canoe, or in a hut, or sitting in a circle playing with pebbles, and I'd think: what do these people want from their lives, expect from their lives? Years later of course I realized these people are from some Star Trekian universe, years advanced from the rest of us, they probably ditched their computers a hundred years ago.
2
We live in a society filled with too much leaving us no time to smell the roses. People have become egocentric, unable to talk and spend their time tapping out texts, posting on social media.
They have no time to help their neighbours: when was the last time they chatted with them?. For a society which has everything, we have nothing and along the way we have lost our moral compass. A sad testament to how we live our lives.
They have no time to help their neighbours: when was the last time they chatted with them?. For a society which has everything, we have nothing and along the way we have lost our moral compass. A sad testament to how we live our lives.
8
Yes, stop to smell the roses. Wonderful idea.
Thank you, Mr Cohen, for your delightful perception. I refuse to buy anything that has the maker's/designer's logo prominently displayed. I don't see why I should be doing their advertising for them. Their stuff costs plenty; they can afford to do their own advertising. The "lounge louts" can do/carry/wear/display what they want, if that's what turns them on. I don't happen to think carrying/wearing/whatever their items signals status, I think it signals insecurity. My only "luxury" was to sign up for Global Entry [now known as "trusted traveler"] status, which really does speed up re-entry into the States and also security on domestic flights.
2
Their have always been the people who feel intitled. Whether they should
be is a question I cannot answer. What I do see is a society focused on who has the things and the influence. The effect of this on the children, the next generation is what really worries me. Life is not a permission card. Life is not built for your alone. Life requires contributing and improving things in any way you can. Teaching your children values. Patience and humility. It can be done.
Today is Memorial Day and I think of my mother's brother a kid from Brooklyn who rose to Master Sergeant and fought all though WWII until his death at the Battle of the Bulge. Why he did this and kept up his charge it is hard to know.
I don't think he did this was for a permission card but because he thought
things would be better for everyone and we could start over. Rest his soul.
be is a question I cannot answer. What I do see is a society focused on who has the things and the influence. The effect of this on the children, the next generation is what really worries me. Life is not a permission card. Life is not built for your alone. Life requires contributing and improving things in any way you can. Teaching your children values. Patience and humility. It can be done.
Today is Memorial Day and I think of my mother's brother a kid from Brooklyn who rose to Master Sergeant and fought all though WWII until his death at the Battle of the Bulge. Why he did this and kept up his charge it is hard to know.
I don't think he did this was for a permission card but because he thought
things would be better for everyone and we could start over. Rest his soul.
4
Well said. I often wonder,while boarding a plane on which we all have numbered, assigned seats, why it makes a whit of difference in what order we board. Perhaps it's worth the extra money for the swells to be seen in their extra-roomy seats while we struggle to our own accommodations, which are - let's face it - like hiding under the sink for several hours. The uber wealthy have a certain level of exclusivity which everyone else at different strata tries to emulate in their own way. Pretty weird.
4
This is certainly one of Roger's best. The metaphor of airline status speaks so aptly of the greater disparity we all feel (well most of us), and the increasing concern that we are losing, or have lost, whatever control over aspects of life that seemed fairly certain. It is beyond sad that we must simply "dropout" in order to gain control, although recognizing the important things is a gain. Too bad we can't have them both.
4
Boarding and seating privileges are one more way to manipulate us into resenting each other, while ignoring the ever-worsening inconvenience of air travel. In effect the airlines are outsourcing time, cost and effort to their customers, paring routes, services and flights to the minimum necessary to induce anyone to fly at all. For the ostensible "speed" of a 2-hour flight, we commit a day or more to check-in, trudging, shuttling and just plain waiting around.
And all the while we criticize Amtrak, which has been hamstrung by nothing more than mingy investment and impaired vision.
"Burning the world, in fact, to rise much higher
Than we should go..."
Wendell Berry, "A Speech to the Garden Club of America"
And all the while we criticize Amtrak, which has been hamstrung by nothing more than mingy investment and impaired vision.
"Burning the world, in fact, to rise much higher
Than we should go..."
Wendell Berry, "A Speech to the Garden Club of America"
1
The fear of the fall from privilege only gets worse as the people on top continue to exploit and erode those below them.
As the middle class crumbles, jobs are globalized and the safety net for the poor is replaced by tax policies benefiting the wealthy and the corporate the doors of wealth become relentlessly harder to get through. If you fall from privilege, you are tainted with the odor of the Great Unwashed, and it is even harder to squeeze your soiled self back through those golden doors to get among those golden people.
The real fear is that the exploited will wake up to the predations of the elite. The taxpayer, after all, paid for the airport. The corporations and politicians then "secure" and decorate it to enable the jewel-encrusted to trample those not holding the cards. Football stadiums, built on the taxes of "ordinary people", are consciously designed to keep them out through the reduction of non-deductible, PSL-demanding seats in favor of exempt corporate skyboxes. Roads and sewers lead to tax-dodging companies like GE, which pays no taxes at all but expects instant service should fire or police be required.
Non-elite children, burdened by enormous and growing education debt, must scramble and work hard to advance, or serve their country. The elites worry quietly - can my children, soft from privilege, really compete? Can we buy more politicians and influence to protect generations of elitism?
The anxiety will only get worse, indeed.
As the middle class crumbles, jobs are globalized and the safety net for the poor is replaced by tax policies benefiting the wealthy and the corporate the doors of wealth become relentlessly harder to get through. If you fall from privilege, you are tainted with the odor of the Great Unwashed, and it is even harder to squeeze your soiled self back through those golden doors to get among those golden people.
The real fear is that the exploited will wake up to the predations of the elite. The taxpayer, after all, paid for the airport. The corporations and politicians then "secure" and decorate it to enable the jewel-encrusted to trample those not holding the cards. Football stadiums, built on the taxes of "ordinary people", are consciously designed to keep them out through the reduction of non-deductible, PSL-demanding seats in favor of exempt corporate skyboxes. Roads and sewers lead to tax-dodging companies like GE, which pays no taxes at all but expects instant service should fire or police be required.
Non-elite children, burdened by enormous and growing education debt, must scramble and work hard to advance, or serve their country. The elites worry quietly - can my children, soft from privilege, really compete? Can we buy more politicians and influence to protect generations of elitism?
The anxiety will only get worse, indeed.
7
Exceptionally spot on comment, Shar. The political revolution can't come fast enough. Cohen does a good job of jabbing his sharp literary fork into the plumped up egos of the privileged.
Getting beyond the "great unease" requires that we rescue our monkey mind (the decider part of us always seeking something better, faster, bigger and known to jump all over the place) from the so called rat race. To overcome this advertising generated drive requires that we each and every one personally discover that being number one, having the fastest computer, the latest gadget, owning the snazziest car, the biggest house, the ever changing fashion of the moment fails to provide what we're all seeking. Namely, lasting contentment and inner peace. That's an inside out job that requires wisdom and developing the skill known as mindfulness as well as a return to what Suzuki calls "the beginners mind." The mind before conditioning that leads us to believe we must have more. "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities but in the expert's mind there are few."
3
This article is funny and begs the question, "really?" Are these issues really that worrisome for so many people?
Then much other interesting stuff must be missing from their lives, such as being open to running into other people, for example. It isn't always like Sartre said, that "hell is other people." Only if you make it so, then it is.
These well-described strange little odysseys of daily competition for status at the airport are largely imaginary and self-imposed. They bespeak an overriding wish to remove oneself from a more communitarian way to live. And yes, also saving some time in the line.
But what's the rush anyway? Get to the airport early so you can relax and be more accepting, more forgiving.
People's willingness to buy exclusivity has made the fortunes of savvy marketeers who cater to men and women's egos and sense of entitlement.
But isn't this status thing right at the root of how we have come to lose sight of the social contract? Trivial as they may seem, these common human behaviors should not be underestimated, because meaningful social change for the better of all must start with the individual.
The article ends well with some illustrations of spontaneous generosity. As a society we desperately need more of that. And a lot less of the ego-enhancing consumerism.
oz.
Then much other interesting stuff must be missing from their lives, such as being open to running into other people, for example. It isn't always like Sartre said, that "hell is other people." Only if you make it so, then it is.
These well-described strange little odysseys of daily competition for status at the airport are largely imaginary and self-imposed. They bespeak an overriding wish to remove oneself from a more communitarian way to live. And yes, also saving some time in the line.
But what's the rush anyway? Get to the airport early so you can relax and be more accepting, more forgiving.
People's willingness to buy exclusivity has made the fortunes of savvy marketeers who cater to men and women's egos and sense of entitlement.
But isn't this status thing right at the root of how we have come to lose sight of the social contract? Trivial as they may seem, these common human behaviors should not be underestimated, because meaningful social change for the better of all must start with the individual.
The article ends well with some illustrations of spontaneous generosity. As a society we desperately need more of that. And a lot less of the ego-enhancing consumerism.
oz.
2
What I learned from being born black and poor on the South Side of Chicago ably and aptly prepared me for elite status in the airline angel human racetrack line.
Treat everyone with respect in word, gesture, tone and tenor because you never know who you are dealing with or what they are capable of or incapable of doing to or for you. Never threaten any one with anything ever. You must communicate with and contact other human beings in person with a smiling open humane hand and direct gentle humble friendly eye contact. The Golden Rule mostly reigns and rules on the street among the mighty and feared and the low and the demeaned.
I do not do social media. I flower garden. I watch birds and stars. I listen to all kinds of music. I sample all kinds of food. I try to limit my ignorance with new information, new people, new places and new things. I love my family and friends. I enjoy meaningless sports entertainment. I have survived chronic and life threatening illness. Life is good, beautiful and easy.
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage rage against the dying of the light" Dylan Thomas instead of "There's a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes" Emily Dickinson
Treat everyone with respect in word, gesture, tone and tenor because you never know who you are dealing with or what they are capable of or incapable of doing to or for you. Never threaten any one with anything ever. You must communicate with and contact other human beings in person with a smiling open humane hand and direct gentle humble friendly eye contact. The Golden Rule mostly reigns and rules on the street among the mighty and feared and the low and the demeaned.
I do not do social media. I flower garden. I watch birds and stars. I listen to all kinds of music. I sample all kinds of food. I try to limit my ignorance with new information, new people, new places and new things. I love my family and friends. I enjoy meaningless sports entertainment. I have survived chronic and life threatening illness. Life is good, beautiful and easy.
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage rage against the dying of the light" Dylan Thomas instead of "There's a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes" Emily Dickinson
3
I do not agree with a certain statement in Mr. Cohen's editorial. It DOES matter when you board a plane. Thanks to the airlines policies regarding checked luggage, passengers carry on a lot of "stuff". I've seen people carry on a huge backpack or duffel bag, a smaller laptop or messenger bag, and a shopping bag or other item, when you are supposed to be limited. The airline staff don't seem to do anything except help them use every ounce of strength to jam the stuff in the overhead. In contrast, both my wife and I have been required to cut down our carryon, even when the extra item was a 3"x36" poster tube that can fit unnoticed in the overhead and out of the way. Once, I almost got kicked off a BA flight even though I did not exceed the carryon limit. If an airline is going to allow a certain amount of carryon, the should enforce the limit equally. If they allow each person a certain amount, they should provide enough space for all the passengers - not just the ones with early boarding.
3
RIP: RHIP.
Rest in peace: Rank has its privileges.
The fact is that status is not dead, well, allegedly most dead in Scandanavia, while there is no such thing possible as political-economic perfection.
There is that food chain, luv it or leave it: fun is the witty phrase applied to humans/ourselves, not the reality.
Our nation's proud/bragging class mobility is at a low in comparison to several foreign cultures, supposedly.
Many people politically, accusingly, worryingly, truly, viscerally, left 'n right
believe.
Rest in peace: Rank has its privileges.
The fact is that status is not dead, well, allegedly most dead in Scandanavia, while there is no such thing possible as political-economic perfection.
There is that food chain, luv it or leave it: fun is the witty phrase applied to humans/ourselves, not the reality.
Our nation's proud/bragging class mobility is at a low in comparison to several foreign cultures, supposedly.
Many people politically, accusingly, worryingly, truly, viscerally, left 'n right
believe.
My spouse and I have not flown in years and do not intend to any time soon since I was "searched" for declining to walk through the radiation machine. It seems to me that for American citizens to be legally sexually assaulted in order to get on a plane represents another sign of the decline of what was once a civil society.
As for the indecorous louts Cohen describes, their acting out is more proof that the common good that built the nation is in the rear view mirror, and the "I,me,mine" culture has utterly replaced it.
As for the indecorous louts Cohen describes, their acting out is more proof that the common good that built the nation is in the rear view mirror, and the "I,me,mine" culture has utterly replaced it.
6
Much of what goes on in peoples' heads that you speak of, that causes people such states of confusion, self-doubt, indecisiveness, apathy, even depression or other mental woes, is really a result of what society (meaning various people), have done to them. People are born mainly free, and then learn from there. Parents can help or not, to varying degrees, but then anyone else tends to be problematic. People have various reasons to impinge upon and interact with relative strangers, and the results are not usually good. Then there are the storekeepers, barbers, dentists, and others, who often can scare children. And today more and more, there is the effect of the media, continually blasting a deluge of information upon the populace. It seems people really need institutions that can outweigh the possibly dire effects that impinge upon most of us so continually today.
1
Having more does not make it enough. But not desiring more may not make it enough either. The sands will always be shifting. Realizing and sustaining balance, equilibrium, a harmony of swinging in and swinging out have been difficult in any age. The metaphor of Buddha's middle way between the extremes has always been tough. Long before we stumbled into airport lounges and security lines or gimmicky loyalty programs, we humans were busily segmenting ourselves into demented hierarchies. So it has been, so it is likely to always be. Perhaps it is simply more obvious now. What this column does so wonderfully, perhaps obliquely, is describe the great divide of income inequality in the terms of social media mania -- the febrile delusions of the so called connected world which has the paradoxical affect of making many of us feel more disconnected. To paraphrase Aldoux Huxley, "Technology is the means whereby we move backwards faster." Or American poet Stanley Kunitz's take, "I come on stage walking off backwards." We all do.
The fast trackers are usually business people who regularly fly the same route and have applied to the government for pre check based on their flying history. Or people who paid the United States government to pre-screen them and do background checks. The government has determined these passengers are not a threat. Anyone who wants to cough up the fee can participate, just like for the fast track through passport control when a citizen re-enters the US. These people paid to have a background check. I don't resent them. It make the lines shorter for the rest of us.
3
Interesting and valuable editorial.
There is still a rich electronically unconnected social and personal world out there.
One can Opt-Out, junk the TV, live with an un-smart phone, exist without iThings; although I admit I have a laptop and that the internet can be an enriching space, as it is simultaneously a junk space.
On reflection, so can the TV, smart phone, and iThings—the potential to be life enriching or life depressing depending on use.
It’s how you use them, or let them use you.
We as a society are letting social media of all kinds use us.
The last time I checked the airplane leaves at the same time for all, and gets all to the same place at the same time. The other options are just levels of vainly servicing the human ego, human hubris.
The Opt-Out should really be for the servicing of human insecurity, ego, and hubris that the social media encourages and the iThings makes so available. Do that and the iThings would probably be OK, although I will continue to make due with less electronic interconnectedness…blessedly.
Michael Bain
Glorieta, New Mexico
There is still a rich electronically unconnected social and personal world out there.
One can Opt-Out, junk the TV, live with an un-smart phone, exist without iThings; although I admit I have a laptop and that the internet can be an enriching space, as it is simultaneously a junk space.
On reflection, so can the TV, smart phone, and iThings—the potential to be life enriching or life depressing depending on use.
It’s how you use them, or let them use you.
We as a society are letting social media of all kinds use us.
The last time I checked the airplane leaves at the same time for all, and gets all to the same place at the same time. The other options are just levels of vainly servicing the human ego, human hubris.
The Opt-Out should really be for the servicing of human insecurity, ego, and hubris that the social media encourages and the iThings makes so available. Do that and the iThings would probably be OK, although I will continue to make due with less electronic interconnectedness…blessedly.
Michael Bain
Glorieta, New Mexico
3
ALONE IN A CROWD Electronic media have changed our emotional and social boundaries radically. A group of people these days tend not to engage in spontaneous conversation, but to be removed from the here-and-now. They're off in cyberspace, chatting with friends, surfing the net or watching a movie. Anything except acknowledging the humanity of the people around them. With the advent of virtual reality glasses, today's social isolation and cultural balkanization will be increased by several orders of magnitude, because those wearing the 3 D virtual reality glasses will be in parallel universes that will become, for at least some period of time, their reality. Left unchecked, this trend will further remove us from normal, healthy contact with our fellow human beings. And it will place even more pressure on people to compete for artificial status, since the most basic status of all--being human--will be eroded. I think that the burgeoning alienation resulting from substituting social contact with electronic media has the potential to place more emphasis on following leaders whose Machiavellian machinations forebodes no good for anyone. How will we assess the humanity of our leaders if we ourselves become less humane? For right now, we're at the point of thinking Just line up and wait your turn. Nobody and nothing else matters. We'd do very well to move off of this spot.
3
An example of the contrary: I was waiting at the departure gate at Heathrow airport to board a plane to the U.S. when I met an acquaintance and we chatted. When boarding began, and "business class" was invited to board, he started to get up and then immediately sat down again, ignoring the announcement, until I boarded as well. Rather than flaunt his status he hid it. As far as I was concerned, he proved that it is manners and modesty, not 'status' that deserve our admiration.
13
Foucault's thesis was that every gain in rationalization of a social process creates a distinction that stigmatizes and disfavors someone. There is, theoretically, no bottom to this . . . . as we are about to find out in the suddenly looming reality of a completely digitized society. Within 20 years, vast numbers of decisions that are now made by human beings, however constrained, will be made by software about which we know nothing and can say nothing, because it will be proprietary.
2
Thank you Mr. Cohen - it explains quite a bit of our contemporary cultural atmosphere to me. That faint sense of unease I wake with in the morning, the feeling of dread that overcomes me on occasion during the day, and the madness that appears to be so common in places like our highways, checkout lines, and, yes - airports, and airplanes. I cannot shake the perception that others feel it also. As if this particular moment in time is unique; is portentous.
For all the horrors of WWII, it left us with a world that had been through a process of winnowing of leadership, ultimately resulting in a sense of right vs wrong, of workable vs hopeless; and a group of leaders who understood this - at the corporate level if nowhere else.
In society, much as in the garden you describe at the conclusion of your piece, some strategies and some cultivars work, and some do not. Not just WORK in the garden, but work in the environment, giving sustenance as much as they give pleasure. Butterflies return, morphing from those caterpillars you saw gnawing on the plants you chose for the garden. These things happen because a mix of plants and animals with genes and habits suited to, and adapted for, the climate and region thrive.
Shakespeare used the image of a garden and weeds often in his plays; Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are the 2 best-known examples.
The multiple, color-badged, airport lines you describe remind me of the garden filled with exotic species, providing nothing but vanity.
For all the horrors of WWII, it left us with a world that had been through a process of winnowing of leadership, ultimately resulting in a sense of right vs wrong, of workable vs hopeless; and a group of leaders who understood this - at the corporate level if nowhere else.
In society, much as in the garden you describe at the conclusion of your piece, some strategies and some cultivars work, and some do not. Not just WORK in the garden, but work in the environment, giving sustenance as much as they give pleasure. Butterflies return, morphing from those caterpillars you saw gnawing on the plants you chose for the garden. These things happen because a mix of plants and animals with genes and habits suited to, and adapted for, the climate and region thrive.
Shakespeare used the image of a garden and weeds often in his plays; Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are the 2 best-known examples.
The multiple, color-badged, airport lines you describe remind me of the garden filled with exotic species, providing nothing but vanity.
2
Dante's updated " Inferno" would surely include airports and all those overly entitled cardholders in one of it's inner circles. The rest of the "regular flyers " suffering from unexplained delays, interminable lines, security and baggage related problems etc. would be found wandering in "Limbo."
3
Much of what goes on in peoples' heads that Mr. Cohen speaks of so regretfully, that causes people such states of confusion, self-doubt, indecisiveness, apathy, even depression or other mental woes, is really a result of what society (meaning various people), have done to them.
People are born mainly free, and then learn from there. Parents can help or not, to varying degrees, but then anyone else tends to be problematic. Nothing else can replace parents so well, as modernists tend to imagine.
Then there are people have various reasons to impinge upon and interact with relative strangers, and the results are not usually good. These people are acting simply as busybodies. Then there are the storekeepers, barbers, dentists, and others, who often can scare children. It gets much worse.
Today, more and more, there is the effect of the media, continually blasting a deluge of information upon the populace. It seems people really need institutions that can outweigh the possibly dire effects that impinge upon most of us so continually today. Are churches doing what they need even more than ever to do anymore? At the very time we need institutions that can foster more emphasis on spiritual being, the very religions that could help are being relegated to oblivion, to the detriment of everyone's very life.
People are born mainly free, and then learn from there. Parents can help or not, to varying degrees, but then anyone else tends to be problematic. Nothing else can replace parents so well, as modernists tend to imagine.
Then there are people have various reasons to impinge upon and interact with relative strangers, and the results are not usually good. These people are acting simply as busybodies. Then there are the storekeepers, barbers, dentists, and others, who often can scare children. It gets much worse.
Today, more and more, there is the effect of the media, continually blasting a deluge of information upon the populace. It seems people really need institutions that can outweigh the possibly dire effects that impinge upon most of us so continually today. Are churches doing what they need even more than ever to do anymore? At the very time we need institutions that can foster more emphasis on spiritual being, the very religions that could help are being relegated to oblivion, to the detriment of everyone's very life.
1
It was an excellent column by Cohen.
I believe these very group in society was exist since the Human started the civilization. What is little different then is with the new millennia this group will become way more perceptible in daily life of average people life.
Is it irritating , yes I believe mutually irritating, Those who past that side also irritated our pestilent existence, we are also irritated their existence. Once in a while these things boils down such as French revolution and Guillotines but very rarely, the rest of the time passes with unease and occasional confrontations.
This is the very nature of Human in civilized world and our struggle.
The person who fulfill this life with ever maturating wisdom will be more happy than the all others rich or poor. Rest will be eternally lost in this ever lasting struggle.
I believe these very group in society was exist since the Human started the civilization. What is little different then is with the new millennia this group will become way more perceptible in daily life of average people life.
Is it irritating , yes I believe mutually irritating, Those who past that side also irritated our pestilent existence, we are also irritated their existence. Once in a while these things boils down such as French revolution and Guillotines but very rarely, the rest of the time passes with unease and occasional confrontations.
This is the very nature of Human in civilized world and our struggle.
The person who fulfill this life with ever maturating wisdom will be more happy than the all others rich or poor. Rest will be eternally lost in this ever lasting struggle.
1
Wonderful piece Roger. "Airports became strange places. They came to sound like jewelry stores." Indeed. All those precious Sapphire, Ruby and Diamond folk suffering status anxiety and the everyday hells of the modern airport could take heart from another relevant old Chinese saying, one I would advise all these airline counter staff cum gemologists to memorise -- "A gem cannot be polished without friction nor a man perfected without trials." Delivered with the appropriate zen like customer service smile that should about do it. (What I mean by "it" I leave to your imagination.)
7
>
"There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable and that is to stop running around after happiness."
Edith Wharton
"There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable and that is to stop running around after happiness."
Edith Wharton
6
I vote for gardening with my spouse, followed by a cold beer or two, then a meal made from the day's harvest.
3
Thanks, Mr. Cohen, this one is a keeper, and a sharer.
Three years ago we sold our house on Cape Cod and moved back "over the rainbow" - back to the ordinary side, that is. (Fish and chips at a restaurant is fine - once in a while, but not every time you go out.)
We had designed the house ourselves - architect and landscape architect - and my wife had labored over the large garden, favoring tne native plants that provide habitat for local insects and animals. We sold the house to a doctor and his family, we guess they liked the spot - with its nearby pond and 2 and a half actes of privacy.
Their choice has bern to abandon the garden, but to install high tech security so that any intruder - one of those cardless, no-gem types you descibe - will be identifiable. (Identifiable to the police, we suppose, but for what reason? We knew that the property had long been a shortcut for the locals heading to town; now will they be hauled in for questioning when their mugs appear on camera?)
So the new owners sit, we suppose, inside the house following their sojourns on the beach and watch television, secure from the rabble.
And the garden turns to weeds.
Three years ago we sold our house on Cape Cod and moved back "over the rainbow" - back to the ordinary side, that is. (Fish and chips at a restaurant is fine - once in a while, but not every time you go out.)
We had designed the house ourselves - architect and landscape architect - and my wife had labored over the large garden, favoring tne native plants that provide habitat for local insects and animals. We sold the house to a doctor and his family, we guess they liked the spot - with its nearby pond and 2 and a half actes of privacy.
Their choice has bern to abandon the garden, but to install high tech security so that any intruder - one of those cardless, no-gem types you descibe - will be identifiable. (Identifiable to the police, we suppose, but for what reason? We knew that the property had long been a shortcut for the locals heading to town; now will they be hauled in for questioning when their mugs appear on camera?)
So the new owners sit, we suppose, inside the house following their sojourns on the beach and watch television, secure from the rabble.
And the garden turns to weeds.
9
As a business owner I don't have status anxiety. My only concern, anxiety is to keep my business afloat. I feel secure instead of my life being decided by other individuals. I am not looking to be liked because I don't have to keep my job. I am not jealous because I feel in charge of my destiny. The divide in the society is to work for yourself or work for someone else and feel unsecure the rest of your life. I think your comments are bourgeois comments of people living on a paycheck, big or small that are inherently unsecure, live in a fantasy world and always compare their paycheck to other people paycheck instead of being preoccupied of building something for themselves.
Bravo, Roger Cohen - yes! The Great Unease! Yes, status anxiety in our technologically advanced but morally backward judgmental society. Life and living are still messy endeavors but some of us believe that less is more. In America's iWatch society (eye-watch, I watch) people are careering through life without heeding what it's all about. It's not about cleanses, busy-ness, keeping up with the Joneses, on grading others and dissing ourselves. We, the people, are tattooed by un-ease, dis-ease, all the hallmarks of our skewed technologically advanced, but inhumane heartless society. The hellish airports guarded by the three-headed Cerberuses of today (TSA and power-mad) are a great example of the thundering herds of Americans trying to effect geographical cures by flying hither and yon. Riffraff, hoi polloi - please remember this Memorial Day that they will be the ones voting for our next President. A frightening reminder of our income and class inequalities that the Republicans will try to harvest so they can spin gold of straw. Material success, status, judging others doesn't mean diddly in the long run of life. Generosity in caring for people is meaningful but unrecognized by the ultra-rich First Class of our society. Even relatively poor folk can use the restroom up in the front of the plane. Prof. Pangloss, Candide's mentor said "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Voltaire's Candide knew in 1759 that "we must cultivate our garden".
4
Between Cohen and Krugman it is definitely a holiday from thinking. God bless America and my Dad who wa a World War II veteran. They were doers.
1
The special people have to prove their specialness.Otherwise what is the point in spending so much energy in being special. The best car, the best house,the most money yet the plane does not leave till all have boarded. How sad for the special people.
6
Getting married confers one month's worth of happiness? No wonder the divorce rate is flying through the roof.
Oh come on Roger, social distinctions and their perquisites based upon wealth have existed since the evolution of complex, stratified societies thousands of years ago. Ever since the development of sailing ships there have been “upper deckers” and “steerage.” In a sense however, you have created a straw man inasmuch as the truly “rich and powerful” do not need to bother with the rigors of commercial air travel because they use private planes. It is very easy to fall into “Mad Men-based fallacies” that disguise the fact that EVERYONE in sitting in those commercial waiting lounges, irrespective of their “boarding colors,” have much more in common with each other than with the “blessed few” who we never see nor interact with.
2
The problem appears likely to have a lot to do with relativity. If everything in the world is relative, with no absolute fence posts to guide you to serenity even if they rob you of free will and the self-sufficiency of facing meaninglessness with equanimity (if that’s even possible), then we shouldn’t be too surprised to see the “lounge louts” (I doubt that this expression was coined by an American) vault rope-lines to impress their status upon the unwashed.
This isn’t the first Memorial Day on which we’ve cogitated over the sense of keeping up with the Jones’s, or the very temporary sufficiency that comes of killing a pig.
This isn’t the first Memorial Day on which we’ve cogitated over the sense of keeping up with the Jones’s, or the very temporary sufficiency that comes of killing a pig.
1
You have quite a gift, my friend.
1
Buddha sat in silence as the birds tweeted from the pristine air. This was sine qua non for enlightenment and the end of suffering. Who could imagine that the immense strivings of the ant colony to self sustain their livihood was lost in the wind of the highest mountain top? The big easy of a New Orleans jazz musician could be the epicenter of truth just as the mining towns of the gold rush were the magnets for the miners.
3
Or go fishing. Not quite as many varieties as flowers, not quite as many colors, but they "bloom" all year long. Always fun, always interesting, and, unlike flowers, you can eat them for dinner.
2
Writing as a homebody who hasn't flown in years, and who therefore has no skin in the specific example of Mr. Cohen's larger point. all I can say is - thanks for the laugh!
2
What a column! I actually got exhausted reading middle paragraphs of Mr. Cohen's satire and scenario of the airline boarding lines, that began with the sentence:
"They have access to everything and certainty about nothing. "
My partner is a minimalist. When it comes to clothing, he has just what he needs for two weeks of wear. When he shops, he completes his purchase in 15 minutes--knowing what he wants, and stopping when he finds it. His life is organized, his to-do list short and "accomplishable" in minutes. When he gets ready for downsizing it will be easy.
I on the other hand, complicate everything: I have a stuffed closet yet nothing to wear. I roam from outlet to outlet, trying to find the perfect pants, ending up with a slew of imperfect pants I invariably have to return. My office is jumble of papers and files I always intend to organize, but don't.
So this parting shot about cultivating my inner garden was a breath of fresh air. I'll add it to my to-do list, as soon as I can get around to planting my herbs. I think the man or woman who lives a complicated life, does so by choice, getting some rare payoff from the sense of empowerment. Little do I know, however, that empowerment comes from keeping things simple.
"They have access to everything and certainty about nothing. "
My partner is a minimalist. When it comes to clothing, he has just what he needs for two weeks of wear. When he shops, he completes his purchase in 15 minutes--knowing what he wants, and stopping when he finds it. His life is organized, his to-do list short and "accomplishable" in minutes. When he gets ready for downsizing it will be easy.
I on the other hand, complicate everything: I have a stuffed closet yet nothing to wear. I roam from outlet to outlet, trying to find the perfect pants, ending up with a slew of imperfect pants I invariably have to return. My office is jumble of papers and files I always intend to organize, but don't.
So this parting shot about cultivating my inner garden was a breath of fresh air. I'll add it to my to-do list, as soon as I can get around to planting my herbs. I think the man or woman who lives a complicated life, does so by choice, getting some rare payoff from the sense of empowerment. Little do I know, however, that empowerment comes from keeping things simple.
3
Deep in their souls the Sapphire people know they're really just steerage class too. Everybody who's anybody flies on a private jet. I have to go they're warming up.the engines on my Gulfstream G 650 right now.
4
Surely you have come across one of our family members and spouse as basis for your commentary! They are in an endless quest for recognition of their superior status.
On the other hand, we have another child and spouse who eschew such amenities and behavior. Though both professionals, they travel with backpacks and enjoy mixing with the masses and traveling off the beaten tourist path.
Is it difficult to guess which couple seems to have gained more pleasure and knowledge from their travels?
On the other hand, we have another child and spouse who eschew such amenities and behavior. Though both professionals, they travel with backpacks and enjoy mixing with the masses and traveling off the beaten tourist path.
Is it difficult to guess which couple seems to have gained more pleasure and knowledge from their travels?
1
Memorial Day. The interconnected world is spinning momentous events too numerous to contemplate. And this is what passes for a column from one who specializes in international affairs and diplomacy?
Mr. Cohen,
Voltaire beat you to it.
“Cela est bien, repondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
Voltaire beat you to it.
“Cela est bien, repondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
1
I loved this piece, since the Great Unease extends in every avenue of life now, whether it's the aggressive driving, line shifting, restaurant seating gizmos and police hostesses, or at the airport, as Cohen describes. Strategies for fending all this off are needed in order to keep sane when in the presence of those whose addictive frenzy can only be satiated by achieving a "misery loves company" approach by drawing others in.
It may surprise some that even on a golf course, a supposedly relaxing, bucolic atmosphere of finely mown grass, one can have a problem with the grim eyed zeal of those who want to join your group in order to compete with you and disturb your ability to enjoy it. Almost as soon as they see that my son plays from the pro tees, the angling begins. Sometimes they even want to compete with me (and I'm OLD in golf speak) as they assess my practice swings.
It's been years of honing "louting" strategies, from declining to join guys who have offered every possible suggestion, from a hypothetical speeding up of play when they already know it's going to be a 5 hour round, to a "what, you're too good for us" sarcasm when I politely decline. Then comes the second layer of fending them off, which involves politely responding to veiled threats such as "well, we won't hit into you" or "if it gets jammed up out here, we'll have to join you."
I'm proud to say that my son and I played a nice round yesterday (on a Sunday). That's our garden.
It may surprise some that even on a golf course, a supposedly relaxing, bucolic atmosphere of finely mown grass, one can have a problem with the grim eyed zeal of those who want to join your group in order to compete with you and disturb your ability to enjoy it. Almost as soon as they see that my son plays from the pro tees, the angling begins. Sometimes they even want to compete with me (and I'm OLD in golf speak) as they assess my practice swings.
It's been years of honing "louting" strategies, from declining to join guys who have offered every possible suggestion, from a hypothetical speeding up of play when they already know it's going to be a 5 hour round, to a "what, you're too good for us" sarcasm when I politely decline. Then comes the second layer of fending them off, which involves politely responding to veiled threats such as "well, we won't hit into you" or "if it gets jammed up out here, we'll have to join you."
I'm proud to say that my son and I played a nice round yesterday (on a Sunday). That's our garden.
1
One way to avoid the social pressures of being 'liked', is to stick your head in the sand and not play in the 'social media' sandbox. I have found little usable information from twitter and facebook posts, unless of course one needs to look at photos of Fluffy or Rags or someone's nieces or nephews in their graduation or prom gowns. The elimination of a response coupled with the time wasted just viewing this drivel could be construed as better time management.
3
I've never responded to requests to join the assorted social-media offerings and have disabled the texting (receiving and sending) feature on my primitive cell phone. Keeps things a bit simpler and less anxiety provoking for me.
'Cultivate your garden, the inner as the outer.' We need to help people feel comfortable and cared about enough for this to happen. It will not happen in a void.
The airlines' variety of statuses is amazing. I'm surprised they don't see how silly it sounds. But, that is today's America: divided into a supremely wealthy few, a relatively wealthy group and the others, struggling to hold on to either their homes, their apartments or their humanity.
We're beyond unease, and must fight back towards a semblance of unity and love. Then the gardens bloom.
The airlines' variety of statuses is amazing. I'm surprised they don't see how silly it sounds. But, that is today's America: divided into a supremely wealthy few, a relatively wealthy group and the others, struggling to hold on to either their homes, their apartments or their humanity.
We're beyond unease, and must fight back towards a semblance of unity and love. Then the gardens bloom.
2
This is a great and thoughtful piece of writing. I thank you for it. I'm not sure you knew that today is the birthday of that great feeling and thinking writer and humanistic man, Ralph Waldo Emerson! He wrote this:
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
And this: The earth laughs in flowers.
I'm a NYC born transplant here to "The Hills Are Alive" Austria and live under a mountain in which my home sits at the mouth of a mysterious and wondrous forest with mountain springs. 25 years ago I stopped watching TV. I don't do social media. I tune out all kinds of unwanted human noise (keep the loving human wonders near and dear to me!), and noise pollution that come between me and the laughing flowers and smiling cows and have raised a beautiful family
doing creative work that I love and am passionate about.
I spend hours in my garden cultivating my blooms--inner and outer! WOW! Is it ever blooming. We do have a CHOICE in how to arrange and cultivate our personal gardens but it takes courage to become an individual and live as one. A lot of guts and solitude are the rich soil that one toils in to get there. This is what I've chosen to do with my life because its enriching and rich for me personally. No money is involved. It's a currency which can never be taken away from me since its solid GOLD in my soul and at the roots of everything which I cherish about living and being alive!
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
And this: The earth laughs in flowers.
I'm a NYC born transplant here to "The Hills Are Alive" Austria and live under a mountain in which my home sits at the mouth of a mysterious and wondrous forest with mountain springs. 25 years ago I stopped watching TV. I don't do social media. I tune out all kinds of unwanted human noise (keep the loving human wonders near and dear to me!), and noise pollution that come between me and the laughing flowers and smiling cows and have raised a beautiful family
doing creative work that I love and am passionate about.
I spend hours in my garden cultivating my blooms--inner and outer! WOW! Is it ever blooming. We do have a CHOICE in how to arrange and cultivate our personal gardens but it takes courage to become an individual and live as one. A lot of guts and solitude are the rich soil that one toils in to get there. This is what I've chosen to do with my life because its enriching and rich for me personally. No money is involved. It's a currency which can never be taken away from me since its solid GOLD in my soul and at the roots of everything which I cherish about living and being alive!
12
i spent last weekend alone on a mountain river with an old friend. We served in Vietnam together. 12 guys died the 14 months we were there, 60 were wounded, 20 were lost to disease and snake bites. We weren't even scratched.
Every year for decades we get together. We see each other often, too, but these weekends are special. We cook, and we're good at it. Paella, Boeuf Bourguignon, Bolognese... you name, we've made it. Then breakfast.
And we talk. We drink, too, but not much. Mostly we talk and are quiet together. There's this scene toward the end of "Blade Runner." Deckard is saved by the Batty, an android. What Batty says sums up a lot of what my friend and I have in common, and those we know can't share.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate.
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
"Time to die."
My friend and I share this central truth about life; there's only the moment. The past is moments lived, but gone. The future is a quantum smear of possibility that may not even precipitate into being. You plan. Maybe that happens. Maybe not. If you're lucky, you go on.
Batty learns what we all have to learn: death is unavoidable. He teaches life to Deckard.
My favorite line in Psalms is, "...be still, and know that I am God..." (46, 10).
Most people I know can't, won't, or don't.
My friend and I do and will til we're gone.
.
Every year for decades we get together. We see each other often, too, but these weekends are special. We cook, and we're good at it. Paella, Boeuf Bourguignon, Bolognese... you name, we've made it. Then breakfast.
And we talk. We drink, too, but not much. Mostly we talk and are quiet together. There's this scene toward the end of "Blade Runner." Deckard is saved by the Batty, an android. What Batty says sums up a lot of what my friend and I have in common, and those we know can't share.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate.
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
"Time to die."
My friend and I share this central truth about life; there's only the moment. The past is moments lived, but gone. The future is a quantum smear of possibility that may not even precipitate into being. You plan. Maybe that happens. Maybe not. If you're lucky, you go on.
Batty learns what we all have to learn: death is unavoidable. He teaches life to Deckard.
My favorite line in Psalms is, "...be still, and know that I am God..." (46, 10).
Most people I know can't, won't, or don't.
My friend and I do and will til we're gone.
.
112
Can do, will do, won't do...
Great, Roger.
1
This is profound. I'm tempted to post it on Facebook and see how many likes I get from my old high school ('67) friends who are upset at findig out that I'm a liberal. By the way, Mr. McBride, a sincere thank you for you, your buddies, and all the guys we know who served in Vietnam, including all those who gave their lives there.
2
(I'm double submitting this in another column)
In 1969 in reflection of humans landing on the Moon, the Moody Blues released a concept album "To Our Children's, Children's, Children's" and one could say that the concept of the album was the wondering of what it might mean to be human in a more advanced age, of more advanced technology and more advanced material. In 1969 the men that landed on the moon were the Children's, Children's, Children of the generation that first learned to fly. So the speculation of where technology might go was focused on the heavens. Part warm, part tongue-in-cheek, part haunting, ...
A gypsy of a strange and distant time
Travelling in panic all direction blind
Aching for the warmth of a burning sun
Freezing in the emptiness of where he'd come from
oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home
Speeding through a shadow of a million years
Darkness is the only sound to reach his ears
Frightening him with the visions of eternity
Screaming for a future that can never be
Oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home
I guess they just got lucky in describing what it might be like in the future.
Given the album was written by 20 year old hippies it is amazingly deep and poignant, then yes, but even more now - trying to figure out what it means to be human in an advanced age of advancing technology where there is much communication and yet much isolation. But unfortunately we are not yet in an age of advanced material well being.
In 1969 in reflection of humans landing on the Moon, the Moody Blues released a concept album "To Our Children's, Children's, Children's" and one could say that the concept of the album was the wondering of what it might mean to be human in a more advanced age, of more advanced technology and more advanced material. In 1969 the men that landed on the moon were the Children's, Children's, Children of the generation that first learned to fly. So the speculation of where technology might go was focused on the heavens. Part warm, part tongue-in-cheek, part haunting, ...
A gypsy of a strange and distant time
Travelling in panic all direction blind
Aching for the warmth of a burning sun
Freezing in the emptiness of where he'd come from
oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home
Speeding through a shadow of a million years
Darkness is the only sound to reach his ears
Frightening him with the visions of eternity
Screaming for a future that can never be
Oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home
I guess they just got lucky in describing what it might be like in the future.
Given the album was written by 20 year old hippies it is amazingly deep and poignant, then yes, but even more now - trying to figure out what it means to be human in an advanced age of advancing technology where there is much communication and yet much isolation. But unfortunately we are not yet in an age of advanced material well being.
40
Tim Kane: Wow, what a coincidence. I was just listening to that Moody Blues album yesterday and had similar thoughts... Then I listened to my other Moody Blues albums (Question of Balance and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour) and remembered so many other feelings of my youth.... Amazing to look back on it now with perspective. I would never have guessed all that has occurred in my lifetime.
Though I am glad that the worst of what I used to fear did NOT happen: e.g. nuclear war, my own early death, insanity, etc. I somehow made it this far and can now know how to help myself stay calm when new major fears are triggered...
Though I am glad that the worst of what I used to fear did NOT happen: e.g. nuclear war, my own early death, insanity, etc. I somehow made it this far and can now know how to help myself stay calm when new major fears are triggered...
3
I need to take the time to do the same.
You gotta make the journey out and in. (Perhaps my favorite).
You gotta make the journey out and in. (Perhaps my favorite).
And today the Moody Blues perform in an Indian casino in a dusty, denuded, cow-bombed river valley just west of Albuquerque. For whom?
The great unease felt when one has access to almost everything today but no certainty about anything, or having material richness in abundance but no sense of contentment could be overcome only through developing a sense of equanimity for the things material and events around, for there's nothing lasting and permanent about the phenomenal world. So indulge with a sense of detachment and equipoise. Nor, scarcity of resources could essentially be viewed as a right condition of happiness if one is always preoccupied with one's poor predicament. So, it's a balanced view of life and the world inspired by a sense of detachment that ultimately provides solace.
56
Are unrealistic expectations encouraged among the privilege-card holders by the rewards programs? A mismatch between expectations and reality is a fertile source for frustration.
Where does walking in nature fit in this Chinese description of a continuum for finding happiness?
Where does walking in nature fit in this Chinese description of a continuum for finding happiness?
16
Walking in nature falls under the being a gardener.
1
Loved your comment on the privileged "before they boarded they had the heady status-bearing privilege of being “fast-tracked” through security.
I never understood how the TSA, a federal government agency , turned into the hand maiden of the airlines, establishing privileges for the rich, adverse to carry the burden of 9/11, that should equally be born by all, rich or poor.
Perhaps campaign contributions could have something to do with it ??
I never understood how the TSA, a federal government agency , turned into the hand maiden of the airlines, establishing privileges for the rich, adverse to carry the burden of 9/11, that should equally be born by all, rich or poor.
Perhaps campaign contributions could have something to do with it ??
114
There are still way-too-many "fast trackers", "go to the head of the line" people in our society. However, they are there because we permit them to be there and even encourage such special treatment. I suppose we all, way -deep-down, expect to be one of them someday. Shame on us for permitting it! Shame on those who go "to the head of the line." From our very early life on, we preach that we are all equal. Sooooome Equal! We have met the enemy, and he has gone ahead of us to the head of the line.......
Or maybe the TSA just realized that by segregating experienced travelers, who know how to prepare for airport screening, from inexperienced travelers, who each seem to invent new ways to cause screening delays, everyone, rich and poor, might get through security faster.
3
All it will take is for one or two deranged individuals with "special" status to create some kind of havoc, and the glass tower will come tumbling down.
Peace comes from within. Reject materialism.
Besides, the truly well-off aren't in the lounge at all. They're in private jets...
Besides, the truly well-off aren't in the lounge at all. They're in private jets...
163
To pjd:
There is more than lounges to the privileges of the truly rich.
The truly rich, in their private jets, are exempt from the TSA and not screened.
There is no TSA in Teterboro, a private airport, facing Manhattan across the Hudson River.
Anyone with a private jet, fueled up for an intercontinental flight ,can take off and fly it across the Hudson into the New World Trade Center, should he or she wish to do so.
Even more interesting:
The TSA, tried to limit the TSA exemption of privately owned jets to 12 500 Lbs.
It never made it into legislation.
Could it have to do with campaign contributions of the 0.1% ???
.
There is more than lounges to the privileges of the truly rich.
The truly rich, in their private jets, are exempt from the TSA and not screened.
There is no TSA in Teterboro, a private airport, facing Manhattan across the Hudson River.
Anyone with a private jet, fueled up for an intercontinental flight ,can take off and fly it across the Hudson into the New World Trade Center, should he or she wish to do so.
Even more interesting:
The TSA, tried to limit the TSA exemption of privately owned jets to 12 500 Lbs.
It never made it into legislation.
Could it have to do with campaign contributions of the 0.1% ???
.
150
To answer to realist.
I hope you really are not assuming that 17 hijacker of 9/11 was plotted and executed a terrorist act were in fact just an average people and achieved this impressive terrorist plot.
They were the foot soldiers of 1%.
I cannot name it exactly who was the 9/11 planners and supporters, I can say 100% sure that they were belong to 1% rich group. I have no doubt about that.
Si If they wish to do same thing from the teterboro, they are absle to do it and it is nothing new in that.
That day 3000 average people died and even not 1 of them belong to 1%.
Yes we can blame squarely who was behind it 1%, cover with layers of layers other labels, Arabs, Muslim, ISI Pakistan clandestine operation supporters, International people from all nations who live with Terrorism but very rich (1%).
I hope you really are not assuming that 17 hijacker of 9/11 was plotted and executed a terrorist act were in fact just an average people and achieved this impressive terrorist plot.
They were the foot soldiers of 1%.
I cannot name it exactly who was the 9/11 planners and supporters, I can say 100% sure that they were belong to 1% rich group. I have no doubt about that.
Si If they wish to do same thing from the teterboro, they are absle to do it and it is nothing new in that.
That day 3000 average people died and even not 1 of them belong to 1%.
Yes we can blame squarely who was behind it 1%, cover with layers of layers other labels, Arabs, Muslim, ISI Pakistan clandestine operation supporters, International people from all nations who live with Terrorism but very rich (1%).
pjd,
If what you say is true, any union whose members are already earning a living wage can go out of business (with respect to demands over pay). Why demand higher pay if you already have the necessities?
Are you sure you want to reject materialism? Remember, even Henry David Thoreau could go back to town (from Walden) for a good meal whenever he wanted - and did avail himself of that option.
If what you say is true, any union whose members are already earning a living wage can go out of business (with respect to demands over pay). Why demand higher pay if you already have the necessities?
Are you sure you want to reject materialism? Remember, even Henry David Thoreau could go back to town (from Walden) for a good meal whenever he wanted - and did avail himself of that option.
2
These 'little people' may not be what they seem.
Outside of the mainstream quest for status and power, there are many small byways where people compete and gain status among a small group of people.
For example, I have some experience in the tiny world of classical record collecting. Within a very small group of affluent, but probably not wealthy people, there is intense competition to obtain the finest copies of rare early UK stereo and mono LPs made by Decca and EMI. Substantial sums of money are paid as records are bought and sold, and certain people are known as important collectors. But outside the club, nobody knows and nobody cares. I have right in front of me the Mahler Second with Klemperer on UK EMI SAX, first pressing blue-and-silver label, perfect condition, the same as some guy in Taiwan paid $765 for on eBay. I can guarantee you, 99.99% of the population would laugh at this ridiculous hobby.
There are thousands of these little worlds, and many of the ordinary people who seem to be nothing special concentrate their efforts there. They can't compete with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, but they have their niche and they stick to it.
Outside of the mainstream quest for status and power, there are many small byways where people compete and gain status among a small group of people.
For example, I have some experience in the tiny world of classical record collecting. Within a very small group of affluent, but probably not wealthy people, there is intense competition to obtain the finest copies of rare early UK stereo and mono LPs made by Decca and EMI. Substantial sums of money are paid as records are bought and sold, and certain people are known as important collectors. But outside the club, nobody knows and nobody cares. I have right in front of me the Mahler Second with Klemperer on UK EMI SAX, first pressing blue-and-silver label, perfect condition, the same as some guy in Taiwan paid $765 for on eBay. I can guarantee you, 99.99% of the population would laugh at this ridiculous hobby.
There are thousands of these little worlds, and many of the ordinary people who seem to be nothing special concentrate their efforts there. They can't compete with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, but they have their niche and they stick to it.
83
Bird watching comes to mind.
BTW, I have in front of me Hogan's, second season, with Klemperer on youtube (for free). Couldn't be more eclectic nor exquisite.
BTW, I have in front of me Hogan's, second season, with Klemperer on youtube (for free). Couldn't be more eclectic nor exquisite.
7
Perhaps there is some wisdom in the Bhudist philosophy of freedom from desire.
"The third truth is that suffering can be overcome and happiness can be attained; that true happiness and contentment are possible. lf we give up useless craving and learn to live each day at a time (not dwelling in the past or the imagined future) then we can become happy and free. We then have more time and energy to help others. This is Nirvana."
"The third truth is that suffering can be overcome and happiness can be attained; that true happiness and contentment are possible. lf we give up useless craving and learn to live each day at a time (not dwelling in the past or the imagined future) then we can become happy and free. We then have more time and energy to help others. This is Nirvana."
2
One word. Philately. Cut throat. Only the very old survive.