Airplanes represent both the height of capitalist individualism and the last refuge of collectivity, an awesome embodiment of impersonal market coordination and the forced undergoing of a collective experience. This is what makes them glorious, at least until technology creeps into the metal cocoon.

The progress of technology is the progress of impersonality. The quicker one travels, the less contact one has with the environs as the traveler becomes more removed from the actual experience of traveling. A runner still must hear, see, and smell, and touch his surroundings while jogging, and the slow speed of a carriage forces the rider to acknowledge his surroundings in spite of his seclusion. Trains, faster still, lower the contact with the passing area but forces its occupants together, creating a community inside the car to replace the anonymity of the outside. An automobile-with its complementary highways, air conditioner, and radio-symbolizes the apex of anonymity, of self-sequestering from society by blurring through it. The driver enforces his own narrowness-less people, less awareness of the surroundings, less contact with the environment: less of what makes society congeal.

Raising its occupants above the ground, above weather systems, and above society itself, airplanes further increase the divide between traveler and environment. By the inescapable acceleration of technology, they further atomize the traveler from his surroundings, another inexorable step towards isolation. But, unlike the car, riding in an airplane is a collective experience from which one cannot escape. Removed from the physical environment, the airplane smashes the passengers together in a hyper-social environment, bringing individuals into unavoidable contact.

This unavoidable contact forces socialization, creating more contact than most people receive in today’s bubbled world. The banalities of life require newfound consideration: getting out to use the bathroom, using an elbow rest, sleeping, reclining the seat, or turning on the overhead light all require that the individual considers the diffuse impact of his actions. In the car, the driver can belt Kevin Federline lyrics forever; in an airplane, the same person risks getting slapped. To travel requires that the individual situate himself, even if only for a short time, within a larger context. Almost nowhere else in modern life does this happen-from breakfast to bed, the car to the cubicle, the iPod to the cell phone, society fosters atomistic separatism and increasingly drives a wedge between individuals. The airplane, though removing the individual from life below, forces each passenger into a conjunctive state, temporarily combining student and retiree, lawyer and mechanic, sports fan and scientist into one interacting mass.

Yet the airplane only works as a cohesive force because of its internal hindrance of technology. Of course, laptops and iPods are increasingly compartmentalizing the airplane, but the proximate nature of airplane travel mitigates this: seat companions will, without fail, be listening along to the neighbor’s music or glancing over at his screen, transforming an individual experience into a collective one. Once the FAA allows phone calls during flight, however, that last bastion of sociability, the airplane, will slowly disappear. Then, everyone will have the Internet at their fingertips and their Rolodex a speed-dial away. The silent nature of laptops and music devices also facilitates communication, whereas the cacophony that is the cell phone erects a verbal and technological barrier between the caller and everyone else. No longer as impelled to share the flight experience with a neighbor, each passenger will become further withdrawn into their overly personal world. “I met the most interesting person on the plane” or “You will not believe how long we circled the airport” will transform into “I barely noticed anyone else” or “I’m circling the airport and have no idea when we’ll land.”

Airplanes, meticulously assembled from millions of parts provided by thousands of suppliers, represent a monumental achievement of industrial society. Just as the physical plane symbolizes the congealing of disparate material elements into a functional whole, so each flight assembles disparate peoples into a bonding mass. Not able to stare past anyone, fake a cell phone conversation, or rush to a “meeting,” the airplane collects the shards of humanity into a whole for a fleeting moment. Until disembarkment, the airplane remains a holy bulwark against modern society – at least until the F.A.A. caves to telecoms and allows cell phones on flights.

Zachary is a junior in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at zsteiner@artsci.wustl.edu.

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