Thoughts from Traveling
A Shared Task, Mutual Trust, and the Virtuous Life
On Bright Monday (the day after Pascha in the Byzantine liturgical calendar), I got on an airplane and flew to St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Theological Seminary in New Jersey. The seminary is applying for a Lily Grant, and I was there to help write our application.
This past week, I took a train from Madison, WI, to Seattle, WA. After a night in the Emerald City, I hopped on another train to get home. Currently, I’m writing this while sitting in my compartment and looking at the Montana scenery.
What has all this to do, you might ask, with OST? Just this. In both the airport and now on the train, travelers all demonstrate a surprisingly high degree of trust in each other to respect each other’s personal property.
While not carelessly so, luggage is often left out of sight in the airport men’s room, for example. Likewise, on the baggage carousel, no one tried to take my ba,g and I didn’t reach for anyone else.
Now on the train, we go to the dining car and leave the door to our compartments unlocked. The same when we go for little walks, step off at a station for fresh air breaks, or go to the observation car. Personal property is left unattended and remains unmolested.
Of course, in both the airport and on the train, I’m not sure how likely it is that a theft would be successful. Especially once you're in the terminal, where would a thief go? He might be tempted to steal on his way out of the airport, but not likely on his way to catch a flight. Besides, space in the overhead bins is already in short supply,y so why would I want to try and add my misbegotten loot?
As for the train, again, where would a thief go? This isn’t the Wild West. And even if it were, I suspect jumping off even a slow-moving train is riskier than any potential gain from stealing.
All of these practical considerations aside, I think the mutual respect I’ve noticed for personal property (and space) reflects more than a merely consequentialist calculation. To travel by plane or train is only possible because the person purchases a ticket. Moreover, I know--in fact, we all already know that--fellow passengers are here because they, too, have paid to travel.
It is, I think, this shared task and shared sacrifice of money (as well as time and comfort) that fosters the general attitude of trust and respect for property and bodily autonomy. By our presence, we signal to each other not only a shared sacrifice but also a shared commitment to travel on a public conveyance.
We also share a general idea of what each of us has paid to be on the plane or train. We know, if only implicitly, that we roughly place to same value on our time together. This is more than money. It also extends to a certain lack of privacy and possibly extends to shared inconveniences or even privations.
But, it also includes a shared desire for a hopeful outcome to our shared investment in time and treasure. Like any shared task, travel creates a certain kind of friendship (what Aristotle called a friendship of utility).
This shared task, however, is not like being co-workers. Rather, we are here by our own volition and have paid (or if you prefer, sacrificed) for the opportunity to share in a task.
Our mutual trust reflects two shared experiences.
A shared goal: Getting to our respective destinations safely, efficiently, and with little or no inconvenience or hardship. This holds even if I’m going to Madison and my fellow passenger is getting off before me in Montana or after me in Chicago.
A shared investment: We have all paid to be on the plane or train. Moreover, since ticket prices are both public and relatively fixed, we can reasonably assume that we all value our time together equally.
This leads, I think, to a third element, we have a shared commitment to overall success and the pleasure of the trip. If for no other reason, we treat each other with mutual respect out of self-interest.
And, again, as with ticket prices, this self-interest is mutual self-interest is roughly equivalent and at least implicitly knows each of us about all of us.
The amazing thing about modern air travel is not simply how efficient and comfortable it generally is. No, the amazing thing is how it not only depends on mutual virtue but fosters virtue.
Tempting though it is to think otherwise, the absence of trust among strangers is not likely caused by maliciousness but by the very practical considerations that inform travel. The fact that we get so frustrated and angry by disruptions when we travel is itself an indication of how much we take for granted travel as an event of shared virtue.
The power of OST is not, as I’ve said before, primarily in prudent public policy (which has its place to be sure) but in the shared life of the Church. This life brings together not only dogma but the sacraments, liturgical prayer, asceticism, and shared action that transcends (but does not leave behind much less violate) the boundaries of the Church. As we read in the Preface to For the Life of the World:
The Orthodox Church has long nurtured within herself a strong and distinctive social instinct, one that has often risen to the surface when historical circumstances have been propitious, and that even now constitutes her principal contribution to modern discussions of social ethics. Metropolitan Kallistos draws a clear connection between this social conscience and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: “Our belief in a Trinitarian God, in a God of social inter-relationship and shared love, commits us to opposing all forms of exploitation, injustice, and discrimination. In our struggle for human rights, we are acting in the name of the Trinity.” And Mother Maria Skobtsova (St. Maria of Paris) sees the Church’s social vision as emanating from the sacrament of the Eucharist: “If at the center the Church’s life there is this sacrificial, self-giving Eucharistic love, then where are the Church’s boundaries, where is the periphery of this center? Here it is possible to speak of the whole of Christianity as an eternal offering of the divine liturgy beyond church walls . . . and the whole world becomes the one altar of a single temple.”
For now, though, let me just commend your attention to the observation that even in our fallen world and amidst the sometimes frustrating events associated with air travel, virtue can be seen. We can even in trying circumstances become a bit more of our better selves.