Beitragsfoto: Lesezeichen | © kertlis von Getty Images
Joan Westenberg | Westenberg. Newsletter
Boarding Group One – Why Status Is Our Last Religion (zuletzt aufgerufen am 18.9.2025, 8.43 Uhr)
„Airports are temples of hierarchy, to the point that the pecking orders are broadcast over the intercom. Some people will never get out of Group Five, no matter how hard they work. Some seem permanently enshrined in Group One, gliding on a cloud of priority tags and lounge access. And the rest of us? We hover, hustling for upgrades, praying for a new promotion or a higher tier of credit card that will bump us forward a row or two. …
We claim to be egalitarians, believers in merit – champions of the ordinary person. But watch the faces at Gate 32 when Group One is called, and you’ll see how false those democratic ideals turn out to be. Status is the air we breathe. You can see it in the shoes we wear, the brands we flex, the followers we count, the schools our children attend. …
For all we tell ourselves about merit, mobility and movement, status is the central organizing principle of modern life. We don’t have religion in the same way anymore. We don’t have community bonds (and to hell with our neighbours). What we have instead is a finely tuned antenna for where we rank. …
If you’re in Group Two, you want to be in Group One. If you’re in Group One, you yearn for a private jet. There’s no end to it. …
And the rest of us sit there, clutching our boarding passes, hoping against hope that one day, somehow, our name will be called first.“
Lesenswerter Beitrag. Joan Westenberg schreibt einfach gut. Ob sie damit mehr bei ihren Mitbürgern erreicht als ich, weiß ich nicht, aber es ist zu hoffen.
