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Phenomenal Pilot? Sure, But is That All There is to It?

I was on the road while most of the events with the Bird-strike plane landing in the Hudson [1]were going on, and by the time I got home, there wasn’t much to write about.  So, I didn’t. Everyone else seemed to be doing a fair enough job with it.

It was amazing, though. I spent most of that commute, listening to the New York City stations some 400 miles away… the only stations mentioning it at all from the area; WABC WCBS, and WBBR the latter two of which went into wall to wall mode. Disney apparently isn’t investing much in news people anymore for WABC, because they kept Hannity going with as much detail as he could muster from his net syndicated show. I suspect that part of WABC’s issue involved not wnting to break their usual network feed; Hannity is on nationwide at that point. I can’t imagine there’s not going to be some discussion in boardrooms at WABC tommrow about that. The other two, though, had people on scene, and of the three, WCBS had the best coverage of the event, hands down.

Obviously, I’m happy that things worked out as well as they did. Obviously, there were a lot of great people helping, and helping quickly… the speed of the response was nothing short of amazing. And the pilot and crew, particularly deserve kudos from all of us. Obviously, we’re going to be hearing about,a nd talking about this for a long while… and  I don’t intend for this to be the only post here about all of this.

But, I had a passing though last night, on the topic I wanted to capture. To express the thought, I’m going to say something here that I don’t want taken the wrong way;

This seems to me a teachable moment. Not about heroics, but about motivated self interest and it’s benefits to the population in general. I’ve no doubt whatever about the first thoughts of the pilot, particularly the crew as well, being for the passengers of that flight. However, one cannot operate in such a situation without considering one’s own wellbeing at least to some degree. Self-interest is perhaps the most reliable motivation on the planet and one that tends to come up with some miraculous saves… as it did in this case. I submit tthat motivation as much as anything, served those passengers and crew well, as the pilot dealt with his crippled craft.

That’s by no means an insult. Indeed, I’m impressed, as are we all I think, with his skill and quick thinking, and his experienced touch at flying. But any of you who have been involved in traffic accidents that could have been much worse but for some quick thinking and swift action on your own part, will know, on a level you don’t tell people about at parties, that you were working in the interest of keeping your butt out of the hospital, or the grave. Sure, you’d have felt bad, if someone had gotten hurt, as would most of us…. but that’s not the level instinct works at, you see, as you fight with the wheel to avoid hitting the moron that just blew the red light, for example. You’re trying to avoid him ruining your whole day.

It is certainly praiseworthy you avoided disaster with your quick instinctive response. No question about that. But let’s be honest… That’s not altrusim. Altruism is something that requires a moment’s thought. Altruism is a considered process. When you’re in those situations, you don’t have the time for it; events are just happening too fast. You’re motivated by self-preservation as much as anything else.

And here’s the point… Given that self-interest factor, I’m wondering if this isn’t a teachable moment, in terms of what to do about our current economic situation. Could motivated self-interest be the answer to our economic situation? I’ll bet Adam Smith would have thought as much.