Flying (for me) used to be only moderately annoying … but the “war on terrorism” and the bankruptcy of United Airlines have conspired to make it nasty, brutish, and anything but short. Thomas Hobbes, the great English political philosopher, would have recognized the chaos at airports today as being a return to the state of nature he described in Leviathan (1651) as a war of every man against every man.
Leaving San Francisco
At the San Francisco International Airport in mid-July, I found myself waiting in a slow-moving line to check in for my United flight home to Chicago. The people at the head of the line couldn’t see all the ticketing stations, and so didn’t know some were available. Moreover, people with luggage to check were waiting for staffed ticketing stations to open, blocking the progress of people behind them who could use the automated ticket machines at unstaffed stations.
After waiting in line several minutes and then asking the woman at the front of the line to allow people without luggage to get by her, I made a fateful decision … and stepped under the fence and walked to an open ticketing station. Before I reached a station, I was intercepted by a fellow who had been ahead of me in line but behind the immovable woman. He was waving his finger at me, like a school teacher who had caught a student breaking the rules.
I said something like, “fine, you check in. Let’s at least get the line moving,” and headed back to my place in line, thinking the bottleneck had finally been broken. To my surprise, the fellow followed me back to the line and loudly berated me for trying to butt in line. I attempted to justify my actions, but he simply got louder and more abusive. Soon, the two of us were toe-to-toe and shouting at each other … a situation I hadn’t found myself in since, oh, maybe the 7th grade.
As we argued, the line moved ahead, and eventually we both checked in and went our separate ways. I was deeply agitated by the encounter, as well as puzzled by the other person’s conduct. Had Hobbes been traveling with me, he probably could have pointed out this guy’s motivation in an instant: So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory.
The bully was a vainglorious jerk, but I blame United, not him. Bullies are everywhere, but they don’t assault other people when the rules of conduct are clearly defined. The desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin, Hobbes wrote. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a Law that forbids them: which till Laws be made they cannot know.
Waiting in Washington
Memories of my little fight in San Francisco were still on my mind when, two weeks later at Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan Airport, I once again was in line to check in for a United flight home. The flight was twice delayed and then cancelled. Fifty of us stood in line at the gate to get our tickets changed for a later flight.
The people in line were pleasant at first, but things quickly got ugly. Some people started approaching the ticketing stations from the “first class” line, asserting the right to go to the next available station without waiting. We fought back by homesteading the two stations closest to our line, dashing toward them whenever they were about to become available.
The ticketing stations shared by the two lines were a war zone, pitting businessmen against little old ladies, parents with kids in tow against single women, and every other combination imaginable. And pity the poor noncombatant who strayed into the field of combat: Anyone caught bypassing the line to ask a question of a United staffer was verbally assaulted and even physically threatened.
Those of us trapped in line developed a mob mentality, urging the people at the head of “our” line to aggressively pursue the first open station. A low and threatening growl filled the air when a hapless individual wandered into the battlefield that separated the Economy Tribe from the First Class Tribe and both from the sacred ticket counters.
So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.
Rumors flew that all United flights to Chicago were cancelled until tomorrow (true), but no announcement was ever made. Hours later I finally got rebooked for a flight the next morning, and wearily headed for a nearby hotel.
Manipulating the Mob
I arrived at the airport at 5:45 a.m. to check in for my 7:00 a.m. flight, but it was United Hell all over again. Some 50 of us waited in a slow-moving line. The departure time came and went without any announcement. An elderly lady, visibly exhausted from waiting in line, asked for a wheelchair (and never got it). Rumor had it the 7:00 a.m. flight was cancelled (true).
A United employee finally came out–but not to give us any useful information or advice. Instead, he announced that people with tickets for the 8:00 a.m. flight could form a new line for faster check-in. Pandemonium broke out as our once-united mob split again into two warring tribes. It wasn’t clear what kind of priority treatment the 8:00 a.m. ticket holders were entitled to receive, so we battled them for access to the ticketing station between our two lines. Angry words flew.
We fought as if civility were a foreign concept, as if honor and respect for others were only for idiots. Hobbes knew why: It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every mans that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it. Once again, it was no one’s fault but United’s.
I will spare the reader an account of the long train of insults and injuries that ensued. I finally did manage to board a flight home … some 12 hours later. Even then, had I followed the “rules” as United seemed to present them, I might still be waiting in line at Ronald Reagan Airport.
Leviathan Airlines?
Hobbes thought people were generally rational and principally motivated by self-interest. In the absence of publicly known and enforced laws, those two elements of human nature would lead to conflict and war.
Flying on United shows Hobbes was right. Our politeness and civility are only skin deep, and when competition, diffidence, and the possibility of glory present themselves, politeness and civility are shed as easily as a snake sheds its skin. It’s in the hearts of all of us: I saw gentle old women, executives, blue-collar types, and even a Canadian couple transformed from kindness to madness merely by the sight of a person “butting in line.” I faced that anger directly once, and directed it at others several times.
Thank God United Airlines is bankrupt! It failed utterly to assume the responsibilities that come with managing a public space. With luck, it will be replaced by a business that posts rules of public conduct, shares information with its customers, and enforces rules when necessary.
Perhaps we could name this new company Leviathan Airlines.
