The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life by Robert Trivers

Author:Robert Trivers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0465027555
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE US APPROACH TO SAFETY HELPS CAUSE 9/11

The tragedy of 9/11 had many fathers. But few have been as consistent in this role as the airlines themselves, at least in preventing the actual aircraft takeovers on which the disaster was based. This is typical of US industrial policy: any proposed safety change comes with an immediate threat of bankruptcy. Thus, the automobile industry claimed that seat belts would bankrupt them, followed by airbags, then child-safety door latches, and whatnot. The airline’s lobbying organization, the Air Transport Association, has a long and distinguished record of opposing almost all improvements in security, especially if the airlines have to pay for them. From 1996 to 2000 alone, the association spent $70 million opposing a variety of sensible (and inexpensive) measures, such as matching passengers with bags (routine in Europe at the time) or improving security checks of airline workers. They opposed reinforced cabin doors and even the presence of occasional marshals (since the marshals would occupy nonpaying seats). It was common knowledge that the vital role of airport screening was performed poorly by people paid at McDonald’s wages—but without their training—yet airlines spent millions fighting any change in the security status quo. Of course, a calamity such as 9/11 could have severe economic effects as people en masse avoided a manifestly dangerous mode of travel, but the airlines merely turned around and beseeched the government for emergency aid, which they got.

It seems likely that much of this is done “in good conscience,” that is, the lobbyists and airline executives easily convince themselves that safety is not being compromised to any measurable degree, because otherwise they would have to live with the knowledge that they were willing to kill other people in the pursuit of profit. From an outsider’s viewpoint this is, of course, exactly what they are doing. The key fact is that there is an economic incentive to obscure the truth from others—and simultaneously from self.

Only four years after 9/11, the airlines were loudly protesting legislation that would increase a federal security fee from $2.50 to $5.50, despite numerous surveys showing that people would happily pay $3 more per flight to enhance security. Here the airlines did not pay directly but feared only the indirect adverse effects of this trivial price increase. Note that corporate titans appear to slightly increase their own chances of death to hoard money, but with the increasing use of corporate jets, even this is not certain.

We see again patterns of deceit and self-deception at the institutional and group levels that presumably also entrain individual self-deception within the groups. Powerful economic interests—the airlines—prevent safety improvements of vital importance to a larger economic unit, the “flying public,” but this unit is not acting as a unit. The pilots have their own organization and so of course do the (individually) powerful airlines, but the flying public exerts its effects one by one, in choice of airline, class of travel, destination, and so on—not in the relative safety of the flight, about which the public typically knows nothing.

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