The 2013 Thanksgiving delayed flight
to Phoenix war between Elan Gayle and Diane in Seat 7A went viral because Gayle
live tweeted his aggressive disapproval of Diane’s self-centered attitude. According to Gayle, “She's telling the
flight attendants that it is Thanksgiving. She wants them to know she wants to
have dinner with her family. The male flight attendant said 'I understand
ma'am. I'm looking forward to seeing my family too.' She responded 'this isn't
about you.”
Our
flight is delayed. A woman on here is very upset because she has Thanksgiving
plans. She is the only one obviously. Praying for her
When the
plane landed, Gayle waited for Diane to get off the plane so he could make sure
she knew he had broadcast their feud on twitter. Diane slapped him in the face. For a description of the lengthy and unfortunate encounter
during the flight including Gayle sending Diane unwanted vodka and wine and
vulgar notes, a representative news article can be found at the following
link: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/bachelor-producer-ugly-note-battle-delayed-plane-article-1.1532660
After Thanksgiving,
Gayle published a blog explaining that it was important for him to make the
point that one should not mistreat service workers.
“I
don’t care what’s going on with you:
Don’t be rude to people who are doing their job…Don’t act like they are
less than you. Don’t abuse them
just because you’re the customer and ‘The Customer Is Always Right.”
Gayle ends his blog
with: “And it’s OUR job to tell
every Diane to shut up.” (http://theyearofelan.tumblr.com)
Another blog post
claiming to be written by Diane’s cousin surfaced with the revelation that
Diane has Stage IV small cell carcinoma of the lung:
“Diane hasn’t been handling
her imminent death very well, but she really was looking forward to being with
us and the rest of her family – all of whom were flying in for one last
Thanksgiving with her.” (http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/11/bullying-at-35-thousand-feet/)
Response to the whole affair includes many applauding Gayle and others
bemoaning his shaming of Diane via social media tools. Some have even speculated that the
entire encounter is likely a hoax and never happened.
A column in Salon made what I think is the key observation:
“Real or no, the
“Diane” story is designed to play on the very worst of human nature: the part
that knows that one’s own behavior is sacrosanct and it’s everyone else that’s the problem.”
The Elan/Diane feud
would have been avoided if they had taken David Foster Wallace’s Kenyon College
commencement address advice:
“Here’s
one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure
of: Everything in my own immediate
experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the
universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.”
The commencement address
provides many stories and examples to bolster Wallace’s argument against all of
our self-centered “default-settings” that lead to behavior like that
experienced on the airplane flight to Phoenix. Wallace advises the graduates to embrace a special kind of
freedom to consciously choose to empathize with the people we encounter every
day.
“The
really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness, and
discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to
sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every
day.”
Wallace’s suggestions
parallel the findings of social scientists who study meaning in human
lives. Investigators find that a
defining feature of meaning “is connection to something bigger than the self.”
“People
who lead meaningful lives feel connected to others, to work, to a life purpose,
and to the world itself. Those who
reported having a meaningful life saw themselves as more other-oriented.”
Elan and Diane could
also have benefited from
John Dewey’s thoughts
about moral imagination, which includes “the capacity to concretely perceive
what is before us in light of what could be.”
Barry Schwartz and
Kenneth Sharpe’s book Practical Wisdom describes how Luke, a janitor in a midwestern
hospital, approached a tense situation with the father of a man who was in a
coma. Upon meeting the father in
the hallway after cleaning the patient’s room, the father angrily accused Luke
of not doing his job. Luke had to
choose between supporting several different positive ideals, which in this
specific situation clashed.
Be
honest: I cleaned the room already
Be
courageous: Stand up for one’s own
dignity
Be
fair: Room has already been clean
Be
kind: Clean the room again so
father could observe the activity
Luke choose how to frame
the issue taking into account the job he had created for himself to support the
hospital as a place to be compassionate and kind and help healing. He did not frame his action in terms of
honesty, courage, justice or his personal rights. Luke decided to defuse the
situation and clean the hospital room for a second time so the father could
observe for himself that his comatose son’s room was clean.
All of us encounter
situations like the Elan/Diane feud where we get on each other’s nerves. David Foster Wallace, John Dewey, Barry
Schwartz, and Kenneth Sharpe provide us with tools to make better choices than
our two now famous Thanksgiving travelers.
