I gave up my car a couple of months ago, and now I commute via bus for work. After 60 days of cramming myself everyday onto a packed King County Metro Bus #358 full of groggy people, I have come to the realization that an early morning commuter bus is the perfect microcosm for the society at large. Bear with me on this one.
People Tend to Ignore Each Other
Just like in society at large, people on the bus will ignore each other up to a certain point. I often don't notice people I know on the bus because I have my commute blinders on. You can pick your nose, talk on your phone loudly and have bad body odor. Up to a certain point, most people will just put up with it instead of making a scene. This creates incentive for some people to act obnoxiously, since there is no apparent consequence.
Proximity Leads to Sense of Community
People that are physically close to you, for that single reason alone, will feel more like you than people elsewhere on the bus/in society. Tribalism will quickly emerge. I have seen people in the aisle mid-bus collectively stand their grounds to push back on more passengers in the front. Just like in society at large, location plays a large role in how much you feel like you have in common with others. If a person's suffering on the other end of the bus/planet, it's much easier to ignore.
People Are Left to Deal with Their Own Problems
I have seen people cry on the bus, and even people sitting next to them will pretend they don't hear it. People will also sleep right through their stops and go all the way to the end of the line, and only the bus drivers will wake them up. We all live in our own little bubble on the bus, and we try not to interject ourselves into other people's bubbles.
People Without Means Are Segregated
Get on a bus and check out who are the people sitting in the back. Enough said. You should see all the nicely dressed white-collar professionals who would rather stand in the aisle than sit in open seats in the back.
People All Have Different Destinations in Mind
Everybody is trying to get to a different place, in life and on the bus. The destination seems more important than the trip itself, even though sharing the journey with your fellow human beings is a unique experience all by itself, especially when it comes to a morning commute route, where the passengers will most likely be taking the same bus for weeks, months or years to come. Looking back, would you remember the destination more or the trip itself?
People Come Together When Facing a Common Obstacle
There is one thing that will unite everybody on a bus/in society: a common obstacle. A clear and present danger to the common goal will cut through the general sense of apathy. I was on the bus once when two guys started a fist fight, and one of the guys started to spray the other person with pepper spray. The entire bus sprang into action. Some people rushed the guy. Some people dialed 911. Some people scrambled to open all the windows. Some people instinctively covered kids with jackets. It is the same with society in general. The immediate and clear the common threat is, the more united people are.
Next time when you are on a morning commute bus, take a look around. Is it the type of society you want to live in? Do you want to do something to change it for the better?
Interesting observations and insights!
ReplyDeleteYour observations at the end remind me of Stanley Milgram's classic study on Familiar Strangers, in which commuters tend to practice civil inattention. Essentially, due to the number of people and frequency of contact (or proximity), commuters enter into an implicit social contract. If I break the barrier and start talking with you, and discover the name of your spouse or child, then I feel compelled to remember and ask how they are doing during future encounters. It's far easier just to not pay attention to you.
The two situations he described in which the contract is broken is when a literally remarkable - or actionable - event occurs (such as the pepper spray incident you describe) or when familiar strangers encounter each other far from their typical context (e.g., in a distant city or foreign country).
One of my friends, Jason Simon, is experimenting with a new mechanism to promote ad-hoc, serendipitous conversations: wearing a t-shirt that says "tap me on the shoulder if you want to chat". I'm encouraged by the experiences he has shared thus far in the "start with hello" category of his Caffeinated Conversations blog.
I know Jason was at one point commuting regularly on a bus, and I would not be surprised if he carries this experiment into commuting contexts.
I commute to work and back every day. Nobody on the bus speaks to each other, and people are definitely reluctant to speak to each other. Most sleep/zone out/listen to music, and don't even acknowledge each other, even as a person seats down next to them. To make it even more interesting, people don't even get up when somebody from the window seat wants to get out, though, there is usually enough room/space for people to slide by in the space between one's knees and the seat in the front.
ReplyDeleteNone of this is necessarily bad. Do people need to speak to each other all the times? Do people need to acknowledge each other, even in close proximities? I don't think so. It would drive me CRAZY if most of the people on the bus talked and started up conversations with each other.
More often than not, when people DO communicate with each other, they do so in a very friendly manner. Though, living in Korea for 2.5 years, I have realized that my idea, and definition of the world "friendly" differs between Seoul and Seattle. That's another topic though.