The Chronicle of The DC, 7May24: Reverse Envy Hatred

First, the recent, frequent mention of envy/covetousness and the last commandment in posts and comments suggests that readers of Liberty’s Torch would want to see this. Certainly the commandment lists only material things, but it also says “not anything that is thy neighbors.” Often overlooked but no less a possession, is love, ability, power, etc. And perhaps most important of all: happiness. MIdas Muffler may be the last remnant of the story of King Midas. The moral of which was wealth is worthless if it ruins your happiness. No matter how fleeting, someone who is currently happy may be envied by one who is not. Please keep that observation of happiness in mind as you read all that follows.

Second, let me thank long time reader and friend, Daniel Day, for alerting me to the study that provides evidence, not proof, for the key words in the title. The title is shorthand for my observation that the well-to-do can envy and hate those who are less well off for a most base human reason: witnessing those less well off being happier.

In the spotlight today, Study: Walking Through First Class on Planes Makes Passengers Angry, was published in 2016.

Here is Daniel’s fine truncated excerpts highlighting the provocative statistical findings.

Researchers studied 1,500-4,000 incidents of air rage that occurred on 1-5 million flights.

[snip] when passengers boarded through the front of the plane, through first class (as opposed to boarding from the middle of the plane), episodes of air rage in economy more than doubled

[snip] [and] incidents of air rage in the first-class cabin increased by a factor of nearly 12. — h/t CNTraveler

I searched for and found the site so as to decide how serious a study this was. It indeed was. Airlines were seeking to discover causes for air rage so that they might find ways to cope. It’s not mere liberalism to try to stem troublesome human behavior. But, as you will see, it seems those who were put to work on the study were themselves liberal if not full out leftists. The key give-away was that they concluded that among other factors, exposure to inequality was a major factor. (If written in 2024, they would no doubt blame exposure to inequity. That’s Progressive you know.)

They were so certain of their conclusion that they highlighted it in a separate window, thusly:

The increasing incidence of ‘air rage’ can be understood through the lens of inequality.

What caught my eye was the contradiction for which they simply let slide. No doubt because it does not fit the social justice narrative. I hope you noticed already.

While rage in the coach area rose between 2 to 4 times when those passengers passed through the premium sections, the rage of premium passengers increased 12 times when forced to endure the less privileged passing by them. “Ugh — how gross!”

It has long been customary in America to have the upper crust congregating amongst their own kind. Among other criteria of a country club, the high cost of membership shares ensured that only the right strata could afford to be a member. And to whom those shares might later be sold required approval of the board of directors.

And that is their right. Or it once was before the social justice warriors (even before that term had been coined) were encouraged to break down such barriers as private club membership restrictions. Yet, today, the very upper crust still have them. Not so much for the next lower level aristocrat wannabes.

Anyway, here my observation in a bit more detail.

That one part of the study the authors let slide indicates that some humans have less reason to be motivated by envy of wealth than having to endure their privileged space being violated by the low-stationed. “I’m troubled, but they seem happy. Why must I be reminded?”

I say it is hard to better demonstrate the existence of Death Cult inclinations in the powerful and well-off than that 12:2 ratio. And that was for the less than high well-off. That is not the group who is the worst of them. For our enemy, it is no longer sufficient for the bulk of humanity to be out of sight. Far better for them to be gone altogether.