sociology presentation of cultural imitation (for lack of better description)

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Update (Dec. 21 2021): Karen asked me to "take this down" & I said no, but she helped immensely by appealing to me since it got me thinking more about the item the passenger had ... How many different artifacts are there that a flight attendant (or general public) needs to be aware of that cannot touch a floor? was what I figured would be a good retort even still, so I searched and found this "Judaism: Do and Don't" pdf from a city gov't website in England (the only link in the search was directly to the pdf, so...); the information is surely available elsewhere but that's what I found. (Click here to open image of the relevent section.)

I realized then that there was more than religious fervor or (a controllable) obsession on the passenger's part but the decree was instilled on him & others of the faith in childhood, hence Karen's comparison to the flag; which was the best she could come up with in an attempt to convey the intensity of their commitment to the adherence of the rule. Children don't usually handle flags in our country though, and my family would've considered the expectancy that a child could without error as abusive. (Military families can be stereotyped too, my paternal grandmother knew that.) In all of that there is a reinstated humanity, though. It may seem belittling of the people that aren't of the faith to take into consideration a person's ethic upbringing to grasp the behavior as inherently uncontrollable, but it is a way to comprehend the level of dedication without considering it as deliberately malicious. (⇐ That's not phrased very well but I think it's important to include.)

Incidentally; on my paternal side, my g'pa & late uncle were retired USAF, my father did eight years in the USAF (I had an older brother but he died as a baby in an USAF hospital in England from a treatable and not uncommon condition, & my older sister and I were born in USAF hospitals), and my step-g'pa was WWII Army Paratrooper. I actually was also formally educated in aircraft maintenance too (outside of my service in the USN) but I was traumatized by a prior unprovoked violent attack on me so I experienced difficulty with scrunity of my integrity. I ended up being informally, but professionally, educated in social science (specializing in the human services fields); & specifically in regards to the application of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in its guarantee of equal protection of law usually for marginalized, vulnerable people. (Of course that probably seems grandiose of me but I do my best to let my work speak for itself.) In the body of the text below I touch on how that equal protection can apply in regards to protection for the flight attendant in this case.

There was something that I immediately understood and attempted to convey but really didn't know how to explain it in correct context. The point that the passenger obviously had instilled on him to not allow his artifact to not touch the floor, in a similar way there are those of us in my culture that think of aircraft as having sanctity that is unparalleled in our world. The best that it can be explained is idol worship but it's all about the humanity, so it isn't idol worship ... the humanity transcends the material object(s) ... a piece of safety wire costing less than a dollar has more value than gold bullion onboard a plane. The entire concept behind all of that is what was instilled on me. Attempting to convey our perspective concerning that in writing will always fall short ... oh yeah, I did try to express that but was rebuffed by Mark Weinberger! Anyway ...

Original text body ...

Notice: No ... I am not Karen Otero, and I don't know anything about her, ~~nor do I want to know anything about her~~. She trolled me in the comments section on a publicly posted article on social media so this is how I'm responding.

This is a sociology presentation (work in progress) about a woman's insistence on replying to a comment I made on a news article on the Facebook social media platform. (Screen captures included here in conformance with fair use in this criticism.)

I have titled this as "cultural imitation" which takes a bit of explaining. I actually just re-used another page that I had put together but it was a similar circumstance. The "imitation" is that these people harassing me are under the impression that they are engaging in debate & advocating for racial equality (or ethnic or religious sensitivity, I suppose) but are detached from the main point; in this instance it is the fact that it's an international commercial airline and there is immense tension so an average flight attendant is in a position of responsibility (and authority, actually) that is incomparable. (There are popular discount retail stores in my city that have trouble keeping help.) These people are insisting that a flight attendant be fully aware of all the cultural nuances & tradition, etc., and maintain a perfect adherence to everybodys' individual sensitivities in regards to the inanimate objects in their possession. It's always an opportunity to test, you see; and always an opportunity to teach - even on an airplane full of people that just want to get to where they're trying to go. If the material object is so precious then fly first class or charter.

I will add to this text but I wanted to get the page online. This was a classic troll on me - it's what happens - & of course there were a couple other people who couldn't pass up the opportunity to torment a traumatized & disabled man. (Yeah - by U.S. federal law I am disabled & there's also been numorous violent crimes committed against me in my life.) The two women commenting began to discuss me in the third person in my presence. That is something that I despise and I won't do it to people since I consider it objectifying & dehumanizing.

The news article was regarding an airplane passenger who had a problem with a flight attendant. Apparently the airline employee took an object out of the overhead compartment that belonged to the passenger and put it under the passenger's seat. It's insisted that the object was defiled in the process since it wasn't supposed to touch the floor. I was given the comparison to the "American flag" but I wasn't aware that this crazy broad meant it literally. I honestly thought she was being facetious. To answer the question here that she posed: "even an American flag?", in all seriousness, yes! The overall safety of an airplane takes priorty over an U.S. flag. (Note here: I actually do not usually refer to the U.S. as America, or myself as an American, etc. America is a continent.) This was obviously one of those situations where a person just wanted to nitpick to get me to respond with something that could be considered violent, or racist, or maybe just anything to justify her harassing me. What a mean bitch!

It wasn't lost on me that I took the most unpopular position, apparently. A separate comment thread about how crappy of service the particular airline is known to have was lively with over sixty Likes. I missed the point that it was about hating on hard working American people, but are also hopelessly racist people by everybody's perspective, to the point where any incident anywhere is some sort of racist attack; never mind the fact that young men of all races are dying prematurely ... three of my oldest friends are dead ... & I have a friend who recently lost his son and it's tragic. I advocate for marginalized & vulnerable & traumatized people and you wouldn't think people would have a problem with that but oh they do! In this incident there could've been a number of other passengers that got tensed up over it ... but oh that's the flight attendant's fault for not being able to read somebody's mind!

This woman, Karen, brought up the flag ... but in a similar situation the person transporting a flag would have it in a case of some sort. Sure, maybe I could've tried pointing that out but it is something that just about anyone else would know too. These people are out to bully, harass, intimidate, hurt and they'll go after whoever tries to mediate for the sake of harmony. They go after the peaceful people and that has always been the case because we are easy prey. These people's whole point was to be clear that the object the passenger had in his possession was/is more important than any human being there and if I don't agree then I am racist. That doesn't make one bit of sense but that is the actual point ... to get people always second-guessing themselves. It's about undermining the confidence of considerate and kind people so they become irritable and then can be taught a lesson that they shouldn't be so considerate.

The thing that has to be clear is that this is a secular world, that is for the sake of human rights, and anyone traveling has to be aware of that and do their very best to adhere to the ideal of that since it's for peace; so in that way it's congruent with religion. A person traveling has their own personal responsibilty to plan for possible contingencies that could arise which coincide with the social stratum with which they're traveling. In this case someone could point out that there have surely been other failures in the course of history regarding the defiling of a sacred artifact. The traveler lost control of his charge & that's on him. Period. There's also a point with the aircraft "floor"† in that it's the floor of the cabin and there is still at least ten feet to the bottom of the airplane's fuselage; so the cabin floor surface is more like that of an ottoman and "under the seat" is a dual-purpose area that's designed to be used for storage & safekeeping ... obviously. †"Decking" is actually the most accurate word to use for that part of an airplane (so "cabin decking"), and is how I think of it in my mind but unfortunately it's actually one of those terms that I'd rarely verbalize, out of sheer habit anymore, because in spoken conversations I'd open myself up to deliberate misinterpreted euphemism jokes to discombobulate me... it's an old gag & is boorish.

There's the point that I have to expand on is that there is an obvious level of possible discussion that is very dangerous and it seems as if the implicit goal of these people replying to me is to get me to bring it up in some form. That is a common, ubiquitous tactic & something that my grandmother warned me of when I was young. I will touch on it here but in only one word, that would seem benign & irrelevant (even naive) in the context of the topic, but could be used as a distracting ruse as well as being a basic crime motive: grifting. When there is anything out of ordinary (and chaotic) that can fluster or confound a person in responsibility it is a security risk, obviously, but the possibility that the issue is a ruse that is intended to distract has to be considered to maintain security; in that lies a complexity that average people shouldn't be expected to have to deal with. A commenter mentioned Constitutional rights and it's important to also remember the 14th Amendment which guarantees equal protection of law and so also applies to the employee where they are to have protection from harassment, etc.

I used the phrase: "anything out of ordinary" and the obvious retort from the activist cult here is that their rules for handling their sacred religious articles should be known & adhered to by people in the service industry, and so being labeled "out of the ordinary" is therefor offensive. ... - "by people in the service industry" is how I put that and the statement makes sense but again, a flight attendant's responsibility is incomparable to other workers in the travel industry and to dispute that fact infringes on other travelers' Constitutional (or Human) right to that equal protection. Making similar issues be considered "ordinary" would obviously open the door to unfathomable scenerios & escalation. My assertion here is that their posit is oppressing others.

I think the posit could be described as "coerced anthropomorphism" and there's an entrapment goal to force concession; once that's given by relaxing rules and/or policies the usual only way to re-establish the prior security is after an event or catastrophe that exposes the vulnerability. It all sets a dangerous precedent. I'm not suggesting that I think airlines will relax security but the issue presented here is the possibilty of copy-cat activists will deliberately cause disruption while tying the behavior to a marginalized group or demographic to be used as evidence of their suffering oppression. It's all transparent as hell to the average adult human being and that's why this particular vendetta get's downright emotionally torturous for anyone who'd have a little above average inherent understanding of the entire situation. I made a simple comment to point out the humanity involved and subsequently (consequently?) opened myself up to ridicule. One of the reasons I often do comment some point that's completely obvious to most people is so they will be reassured that everybody isn't so ignorant & insensitive. This woman, Karen Otero, will now have to accept the consequence of her actions by having this website exist.

One other point I'd like to make here is that someone commented that "in Judaism there is always an exception even with a ridiculous situation of something out of anyone’s control", but "out of anyone's control" could be debatable too. Neglect of proper mechanical maintenance that leads to equipment failure (& there's a point here that many people wouldn't accept ...) ... actually, any equipment failure on aircraft would be the result of neglect of maintenance. The manufacturers are required to have completed the necessary testing and compiled the maintenance schedule. The schedule is then supposed to be strictly adhered to so equipment failures won't happen, but they still do. An average traveler has that possibility to contend with and can be on edge so for everyone's peace of mind it's better to comply with the flight crew's requests & not aggravate them so they can stay focused on their work. The only way the situation could be diffused is by having the disgruntled passenger leave the plane since it's going to be in flight ... obviously. It takes a special level of sadism to go on discussing an event related to airline flight while being dismissive of the inherent danger, hence my use of the word hate with these people arguing with me here.

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	(Susie's all "to what are you referring?"! uh, ok - I reference a current event & they play dumb!)

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Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.
~ Paulo Freire

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