Plus, the person in front of you is most likely going to recline their seat into you. Think of the annoyance you feel when you see that headrest descend, all but crushing your tiny Coca-Cola can, sending your plastic cup filled with ice that somehow tastes bad rattling towards your lap. It’s a natural reaction to take that fury and pass it along, to send the wave of space invasion rocketing backwards towards the back of the plane, until it finally crushes the last row between bad upholstery and an airplane bathroom filled with digested McGriddle remains. The fat cats are up in first class, sitting in small airborne apartments, sipping orange juice and champagne, buying the overpriced Wi-Fi in order to finalize their company’s layoffs. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about first class except by stalwartly crop-dusting them every time we board and trying to shit in their fancy bathroom when the flight attendant isn’t watching. Meanwhile, all of coach is embroiled in a seat-based Stanford Prison Experiment that will only end in bruised knees and spilled pretzels.
Now, I’m also not trying to say the only acceptable level of reclination is the default, upright position. No doubt also due to attempts to save space, that now basically locks you into the posture of an ambulance spineboard. The solution here, the compromise that brings us all the greatest pleasure, is the partial recline. Sure, pop a click or two to give yourself a little breathing room. But we don’t all need to be slamming our seat back repeatedly like we’re trying to straighten steel rebar. The partial recline is the olive branch of aerial travel. A partial recline says to the person behind you, “we’re all in this together.” A perfect, balanced, combination of comfort for two parties, forming a both metaphorical and visual yin and yang.
This is a long war, and one I don’t expect to win, but one I will be proud to go down fighting. Scientists have long known about the phenomenon of “phantom traffic jams”. These are caused by drivers’ tendency for the binary of either stop or go over slow, continuous movement, creating seemingly standstill traffic out of nowhere. Our devotion to the full recline echoes this very same problem. And in the same seemingly contradictory way that everyone going a little slower would make us get everywhere faster, everyone making themselves a little less comfortable would make all of our travel more pleasant.
Related: Current Impolite Behaviors That Need To Go
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