If you haven't heard the latest outburst of privilege from one of the rulers of our world, it's a doozy.
The daughter of the Korean Airlines chairman ordered a plane back to the gate at JFK airport in order to punish and deplane a flight attendant who gave her macadamia nuts in a bag rather than on a plate.
The Guardian reports
Spare a thought for the flight attendant who fails to observe snack-serving etiquette in first class – particularly when the passenger in question happens to be the daughter of the airline’s chief executive.
South Korea’s government is investigating an air-rage incident on board a Korean Air flight from New York to Seoul last Friday that culminated in a senior member of crew being ordered to leave the plane by the passenger moments before it was scheduled to take off.
Cho Hyun-ah reportedly screamed at the flight attendant, who has not been named, for not asking her if she would like a preflight snack of macadamia nuts, and then for committing the egregious act of serving them in a paper bag rather than on a plate.
Let's unwrap this and get right to the nut of the matter below the first class deliciously salty orange curly snack.
First, you've got your standard issue privileged royal. When someone ruins their finer things, life just isn't worth living. Macadamia nuts in a bag? How could that peasant be so thoughtless?
Then there's the disregard for any other humans. The 200+ other passengers can just wait until her highness is satisfied, because they don't matter. Also par for the course. Having to wait until a superior is satisfied with the state of affairs - that just one of the invisible taxes levied upon millions of people every day in one form or another.
But what's particularly striking about this episode is the way in which it reflects hierarchical power, and the impulse to punish those who even hint at anything other than complete obedience to it. Because it wasn't enough to just ask the airline steward to replace the unfortunately bagged nuts with properly plated ones - it was important to humiliate and punish the transgressor.
Remarkably, the pilot of the plane went along with Cho Hyun-ah's demands, choosing to obey a powerful corporate family member rather than following reasonable professional judgment.
This NPR article makes an important connection:
As aviation buffs will recall, Korean Air served as one of writer Malcolm Gladwell's examples of the dangers of hierarchical traditions in his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success.
Gladwell describes how Korean Air flight 801 crashed into a mountain, likely because the captain made a serious mistake, and lower ranking members of the flight crew would not challenge him. Why? Because you don't challenge your superiors.
As flight 801 headed toward its fate, the flight engineer said, "Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot." By which he meant - "We've got a serious f%#*ing problem!" But the hint was not enough for the captain, who stayed on the tragically misdirected heading.
In the rest of the chapter, Gladwell extolls the virtues of American directness by comparison - saying that our flight crews are much better at calling it like they see it and raising concerns about emergencies.
But there is reason to believe that the new hierarchy, and clear expectation of obedience, is quickly arriving - everywhere and certainly in the U.S.A.
Most visibly in recent news is the culture of extreme militarization of law enforcement. It's not just the deadly gear - it's the imperative to obey instantly or die, and the lack of consequence for police who kill. For certain populations an essential survival skill in this day is to develop obedience into a reflex.
In the middle layer of our discourse, there's the measurement of someone's message based on their power and funding. For example, an excellent candidate who is behind in the polls will find their message simply cast aside. If they can't win, they don't matter. Witness the experience of a seriously thoughtful leader like Zephyr Teachout.
In the very largest picture, the pilots of all of our economies seem incapable of getting the message about the stormy weather ahead. They make their decisions based on who has power, and nobody else is worth listening to. The mountain is getting closer and closer.
My question to readers - where do you most viscerally see the kyriarchy arriving, entrenching, and asserting its dominance?