Vintage footage of air travel opens a new informational video from the US Department of Transportation. “Flying was a bastion of civility,” a narrator says over Sixties-style images of pleasant, well-dressed travellers and airline workers. “But today…” The film cuts to clips of shameful flyers, operating seat screens with their bare feet, fighting to pull each other’s hair out, and biting the sleeve off a flight attendant. More chaos, then Secretary Sean Duffy appears to remind Americans of basic courtesy: help a pregnant passenger with luggage, say please and thank you, keep children under control, and dress “with respect”.
The idea of wearing a suit to catch a flight might seem excessive, but Duffy’s call for dressing up is more than a gripe against athleisure. The campaign to make air travel civil again has a simple but profound message: social norms matter. Stating and enforcing norms has become unfashionable, but it’s a reliable way to keep public spaces safe.
Continue reading the entire piece here at UnHerd
______________________
Carolyn D. Gorman is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by Weiquan Lin/Getty Images