Originally Posted by
FLgrr
What is the deal with what the seat does? You buy a ticket, you know what can happen. Don't want someone recline on you? Get a row, like behind the emergency rows or a bulkhead, that won't recline OR walk to your destination. Yes, I have had people recline and crowd me, but IT'S THEIR RIGHT.
For those that complain about seats reclining, do you move over on the highway for faster traffic or just feel you have the right to declare rules/practices are different for you?
So my guess is that people have explained this to you before, but I will try as well: lots of things are "THEIR RIGHT" that are quite rude. In the bad old days, actually, smoking was in that category [in a lot of public places]. Stinky noisy messy lunches brought onto an airplane would be in that category. Smelling horrible (from products, not showering, eating various foods) would be in that category. Turning on Fox News in the gym just because you arrive first is in that category.
Interesting discussions come when figuring out how to solve the problem that someone's "RIGHT" ends up infringing on the health/comfort/safety/preference of another human being, particularly when this infringement isn't really anyone's individual fault in the interaction.
In the context of crowded airplanes, which none of us plebians is in a position to adjust, we have to figure out reasonable compromises and etiquette to have peaceful interactions.
Many, many people think that reclining is rude - not just if it's done to us, but we would never do it to someone else. I don't really see the freeway analogy. But actually, if there are several lanes, so fast people can be with other fast people, and slow people with other slow people, that's a lot like my suggestion in the first place.
Again - I don't see any rational objection to having separate seating sections, since the differences do seem to be pretty irreconcilable. Yelling, "but I'm right" isn't all that convincing.