In this chapter, I will talk about how a mix of Neolithic Village and Agriculture Age thinking can explain a strange but very relevant phenomenon, a series of actions that have deeply intruded on my lifestyle.
We humans of America have without thinking much about it developed and embraced a new high tech religion—one that I choose not to participate in except at extreme need.
That new religion is worshipping at the Altar of the Holy Metal Detector and we do it to make our planes fly better.
People’s tolerance for the cumbersome airline security procedures that are in place now is a symptom of a deeper need—not for more airline security but to allay an instinctual generalized fear of flying that many people have.
Instinctual fear is something that religion deals with better than science and in this case an informal religion has already sprung up to address the need.
Religion is built on faith, ritual, and sacrifice. The post–9/11 airport security crisis developed a more robust and convenient faith system (religion) for fearful fliers. We needed a way for fearful flyers to engage in ritual and sacrifice that they have faith in, not more security systems as such.
So we began worshipping at the Altar of the Holy Metal Detector.
I propose a replacement, a Robust Faith System for Flying (RFSfF) that decouples the linkage between on-ground airport security and the feeling of safe flying.
Many people think of religion as something that happens in a church on a holy day. The religious leaders who speak from the pulpits constantly remind those worshippers that God will be with them outside the church, too, but “listening to a holy person at a religious place and performing the rituals he or she prescribes” is pretty much the conventional understanding of religion.
But religion, like most other aspects of human existence, is profoundly affected by technology and one of those effects has been to spontaneously create new, informal religions. This is an essay on one of those new religions.
That new religion is worshipping at the Altar of the Holy Metal Detector before we fly on an airplane. More formally known as Airport Security.
First let me define religion as I see it. Religion is the engaging in ritual to affect the forces of nature to be more favorable to humanity in general and to the worshipper and those he or she cares about in particular. (Most serious theologians consider this to be a definition of magic or superstition, and define religion in various ways different from this. But they would also concede that the distinction is lost on many laymen, now and historically.)
This behavior springs from an effort to exploit some of the “false positives” that we observe in the patterns of nature that are around us all the time—seeing correlations where there are in fact none.
For instance, there is actually no face of a Man in the Moon. But our vision system produces it as part of its hard-wiring for recognizing faces quickly. This is an example of a false-positive effect that is valuable but not right.
Religion has three essentials: Faith, ritual, and sacrifice.
First, a person must have faith that what they do or think can make a difference in the course of world events. The difference may be small, even as small as personally existing for another day, but there must be a personal feeling that “my existence does make a difference.”
Second, a religious believer must feel that performing rituals produces a benefit. Rituals are acts that a person undertakes in order to do two things: Demonstrate faith and produce a better future. Consider a prayer before a meal: “Dear God, please bless this food and us who will eat it …” What does this do? It takes up some time and it asks for supernatural intervention to make the world a better place.
Third, generally for a prayer to “work” there must be some sacrifice. The sacrifice can be as small as taking the time to make the prayer but it is often much, much larger.
The goal of science is almost identical to the goal of religion: To make the world a better place for humanity by observing patterns and using those patterns to predict and influence the future. The difference is that science actively tries to exclude false positives from the body of knowledge it uses to make predictions. It is more rigorous in what it will try to predict and more rigorous in expecting a predictable result.
Science did not come into its own as a better predictor of reality than religion until the Industrial Age. As the Age of Steam evolved science worked much better at predicting the outcome of machine design than religion did.
Before that time science and religion were comparable in leading to good productivity. As steam-powered machinery began to out-produce human- and animal-powered designs science came into its own.
I remember reading an anecdotal story that in my mind highlights the difference between science and religion. As the British were in the process of establishing control over India they often cooperated with the local rulers by giving them military hardware. One time they gave a local ruler a cannon. The ruler’s soldiers started practicing with it. The British military advisor who came with the cannon noticed that before every shot the soldiers would say a prayer. His comment was, “They would better spend their time cleaning the cannon than praying over it.”
The local soldiers were employing the religious approach to making the cannon work better and the British advisor was advocating the scientific approach to making it work better. The locals were looking for supernatural help and the advisor was looking for natural help.
The difference between science and religion is that science calls upon natural forces to influence the world around us while religion calls upon supernatural forces.
The line between science and religion has never been razor-sharp—when there is an unknown to be faced both science and religion can be called upon. These days, when a human distrusts science he or she turns to religion for answers. When a human distrusts both science and religion, he or she will turn to the root of both: Fortune-telling.
Religion and science mix where humans can’t put full faith in science. Science is very good at predicting the future in what are now called the “hard sciences” such as physics and chemistry. Science is not so good at predicting the future in what are now called the “soft sciences” such as psychology. So while priests are rarely invited by engineers to invoke divine intervention into the developing of new software or a new engine, priests are more often invited in to help the psychologist with solving problems such as curing a mentally ill person.
One of the odd places science and religion mix is in flying airplanes.
Aviation is, in theory, one of the “hardest” of design professions. The components of air flight—electricity and electronics, metals and plastics, air and fuel—are all well described by scientific theory. The “softest” part of aircraft design and operation is keeping the cargo (partly or primarily humans) comfortable while the airplane does its thing.
But in spite of this hardness there’s a lot of religion in aircraft operation because much of humanity has an instinctual fear of flying.
Historic and prehistoric mankind has always experienced walking, so almost all humans are comfortable with the concept of moving across the ground by foot or on some device that is solidly in contact with the ground. Evolution weeded out those who were not.
Historic and prehistoric mankind has usually had the opportunity to play around in rivers or on beaches, so many humans are comfortable with the concept of being in or on the water. Many, but this comfort is not as ubiquitous as traveling on the ground; there are many others who fear being in or on water.
But very few historic or prehistoric humans have had the opportunity to fly. Before balloons and airplanes the nearest a human could come to flying was jumping off a rock. The result: There are many humans who are very uncomfortable with the concept of floating above the ground. Evolution has had no reason to weed out this fear.
The result of this instinctual fear is that the whole process of flying people is a lot “softer” than the airplane design and operation part is. The result is that there is a lot more religion in the act of being a passenger than most aviation designers and airplane operators have given thought to.
As stated earlier, religion requires faith, ritual, and sacrifice. Those flyers with an instinctual fear of flying need to perform some ritual that they have faith in and they need to make some sacrifice. One early way this need for faith was shown was in the travel insurance vending machines that were in airports as early as the 1950s. These were a start at providing ritual and sacrifice—fill out the form and pay money—but they were not enough. They were in retrospect a symptom of a powerful need, and that need would blindside the aviation industry seriously in the 2000s.
The early adopters of aviation were not afraid to fly. Clear into the 1960s the number of fliers compared to the total population of traveling people was small. So people who were afraid of flying always had viable alternatives such as trains, buses, and cars.
So what the early suppliers of air transport saw were people who were a little afraid to get on their planes but would lose that fear after one or two flights. This made them feel that they had successfully met the challenge to the whole problem of people being scared of flying. What they did not notice were the people who flew only once and never returned or those who never got on in the first place.
But as the sixties rolled by the percentage of fliers in the traveling population increased and the viable alternatives to flying decreased. Businesspeople who were reluctant to fly found they had to fly or lose business. Vacationers found that their friends who flew gained a couple days of vacation on them and they would miss out on socializing if they didn’t fly.
The result was a lot more people who still had instinctual fears of flying and who would keep those fears were nevertheless getting on airplanes and “gritting their teeth” as the plane took off. The first adopters, many of whom now ran and worked for the airline companies, didn’t notice that this fear was still there in their customers and in more and more of them.
These fearful customers, now a substantial minority, needed a religion to make them comfortable with flying. They needed faith, ritual, and sacrifice.
These growing numbers of uncomfortable flyers did not stand up to the airline companies and demand their rights to a religion because they didn’t know they wanted one. They just knew that they were not happy in the air and were very happy when they were done with the flying. They were brave people who did not show their fear, at least not very much. But who wants to be brave every week or every month? Brave is nice once in a while but relief from having to be brave on a regular basis is even nicer.
Hijackers and terrorists have inadvertently provided a means to solve fearful flyers’ problem. In the ’40s and ’50s media turned airline crashes into media circuses and the call went up for the government to do something. The government people were as clueless as the early adopters as to what was motivating this grassroots call for action but they followed their first instinct, which was to concentrate on airline safety. At first they concentrated on behind the scenes efforts such as licensing and inspection rules. It wasn’t until hijackers and terrorists entered the picture that the religious needs of the fearful flying public were inadvertently serviced.
Faith, ritual, sacrifice. … The government began mandating that the airlines and airports increase security. As much as the airlines and airports protested, the high-profile way to do this was to implement secure corridors in airports. As these were put in place the government, airlines, and airports told people, “Now you don’t have to worry. Have faith, you are secure.” These measures were in time supplemented with lots of hardware to help out, such as metal detectors and X-ray machines.
But with each new spectacular crash or hijacking, the public outcry for more security rose. What the airlines and airports discovered was that a substantial minority of people really felt better about flying if they had to stand in line and be searched, and the majority of fliers grumbled but went along with the ritual.
Faith, ritual, sacrifice. … Now the worriers have a ritual: Worshipping at the Altar of the Holy Metal Detector. The process of completing the ritual takes hours and it can be very uncertain. This is sacrifice. Now people can worry while they are still on the ground: “Will I get through security OK? Will the plane actually take off?” With modern security procedures in place people can feel relief when they get on the plane instead of worry!
With Ritual and Sacrifice, you have laid the foundation for Faith, my children. Now you can have Faith that worshipping at the Altar of the Holy Metal Detector will make your plane fly better.
As a first example that faith is still very much involved, try badmouthing the security process while at an airport. The fact that Airport Security can’t take a joke is very much a symptom that it is still built mostly on faith. Most faith-based systems are hypersensitive to criticism, and faith that the Holy Metal Detector will make your plane fly better is no exception.
As an example of a non-faith-based system, try badmouthing your car, even in front of an auto mechanic. See if it stops running or the mechanic drives you to a police station for questioning.
A second example of the faith-based foundation: At as I left for Korea in March 2004, I got selected for special treatment from the Transportation Security Administration. Along with other things, I was asked to take off my shoes and the TSA officer then proceeded to wand very carefully around my sock-covered foot. I had watched him do this to other travelers so I didn’t feel singled out, but try as I might I couldn’t imagine what kind of hazardous device I could hide between my foot and a thin sock, so I asked him, “What, specifically, are you looking for on my foot?”
The answer I got back was, “On you? I don’t expect to find anything, sir. But, you know, there are bad people out there.…”
In other words, he did not answer my question. He evaded it with priestly mumbo-jumbo. If the system was built on fact, not faith, he would have been able to give me a straightforward answer.
Faith-based systems can be dismantled but it’s often a long and difficult process. In the case of the airline industry the first step has to be recognition that the industry is dealing with the problem of an instinctual fear of flying, a faith problem not a problem of terrorism or hijacking.
What the industry needs to do is design a faith system so that those with fears are comforted and allowed to perform ritual and sacrifice while not inconveniencing those without fears. The other challenge is that the believers cannot see themselves as fools for engaging in their ritual and sacrifice while others around them watch contemptuously. This is not as impossible as it sounds; it is the heart of all religious tolerance.
Because a robust faith system was not in place before 9/11 the industry was blind-sided by the screams for more security following 9/11 and the airline industry is now well on its way to marginalization, compared to what it would be if the security/faith issue could be solved.
A Robust Faith System for Flying (RFSfF) must have the following goals.
First, flyers who fear flying will feel relief when they get on the plane, not anxiety. They will lose their anxiety by performing a pre-flight ritual, with a sacrifice, that they have faith will make the plane fly better.
Current airport security does this by building anxiety before the traveler leaves so the traveler feels relief when getting on the plane. RFSfF must either make this anxiety-building ritual voluntary so non-fearful flyers don’t have to bother with it, or even better find a substitute not based on anxiety.
Second, flyers who do not fear flying will not have to engage in the ritual and will not be inconvenienced by it.
Third, when an airplane crashes or gets terrorized, the public at large will say, “Oh dear! That’s too bad” and go on about their business. It should not produce a media circus. This means the public will feel the accident is as significant as a car crash but no more significant. RFSfF will reduce the media circus phenomenon that currently surrounds airline crashes. This in turn will reduce the attractiveness of airplanes as targets for terrorism. As a goal for RFSfF consider: When was the last time you saw a media circus being performed over a hijacked bus? When a hijacked airplane gets only as much attention as a hijacked bus, RFSfF has reached its goal.
One big step an RFSfF needs to take is decoupling the linkage between massive, intrusive on-ground airport security and the feeling of safe flying. But if the ostensible reason for all that security is to deal with terrorists, how should terrorists be dealt with?
Addressing the anti-terrorist part of the problem when there is no religion involved is amazingly simple and cheap. A cost-effective way to deal with terrorists is to empower passengers to deal with them. The terrorists who took over the 9/11 planes did it with harsh language and an intimidating manner, not their box cutters.
The disaster happened because the passengers did not act against the terrorists. Had the passengers acted as they did in the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, the terrorists would not have succeeded in producing a disaster-of-the-century and in changing the course of world history. Why didn’t the passengers act? It wasn’t cowardice. It was because they’ve been told repeatedly not to act. Up until now the airlines and the government have felt that hijacking was something trained airline personnel should handle, not amateur passengers.
This worked reasonably well as long as the terrorists were never suicidal. Now that some are the system has broken down seriously, and the cost of flying, in terms of comfort, cost, certainty, and time, has skyrocketed.
Terrorism and hijackings are one-in-a-million events. Anti-terrorist measures should take this into account. Instead of thoroughly searching every passenger and every piece of luggage for every flight, we should be empowering passengers to do deal with those one-in-a-million hijackings that do occur. How? In the pre-takeoff training session, the same one where all fliers are told how to deal with a one-in-a-million cabin depressurization and a one-in-a-million crash in the water. Simply add, “In the unlikely event of a hijacking attempt, passengers should… [fill in with whatever the government and airlines want passengers to do to foil hijackings]”. This will work as long as the government sanctioned action is not “Sit back and do nothing, your trained airline personnel will take care of this delicate situation.”
This is an appropriate fix for a one-in-a-million problem. For the aspiring terrorist who is planning cold blooded mayhem, the uncertainty of passenger compliance with their threats will be a deterrent. And just a paragraph or two of training should allow passengers to handle any spontaneous amateurish attempts very neatly.
The biggest downside to this solution is that the flying community and the media must become tolerant of false positives happening on airplanes, because there will be some. Headlines of “Innocent Muslim / Argentinian / nerd injured by fellow passengers” cannot be allowed to provoke over-reaction in the style of “I’m outraged by what Janet Jackson did at the Superbowl and at all costs we need to see that it never happens again.” If such reactions happen, this solution won’t work.
Nor will this solution work in a vacuum. The root of the security crisis problem is that many fliers need a ritual and sacrifice to ease their discomfort with flying, and listening to another couple of paragraphs in the already tedious pre-takeoff training session is not adding enough ritual or sacrifice.
There must be more to this new informal religion, and it must be believable.
Oh, L. Ron Hubbard, Oh, most clever founder of Scientology, where are you now when we really need you!