“To Serve. To Fly.”
“I don’t intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build.” – Howard Roark, The Fountainhead
This is an exceptionally beautiful commerical. It dramatizes a much-neglected, often denied, connection between the romanticized heroism of the past and the equally-heroic heroism of today (ie: it points out that our modern, technologically-advanced culture is not automatically going to remain simply because it exists). Perhaps it was British Airways’ intention to produce a commercial that was so abnormally romantic in nature – so “old-fashioned” – that it would grab greater attention by that fact alone, and thus it’s implicit message would be more widely disemmenated. In other words, the company was hoping to strengthen and regenerate pro-Western, pro-science, pro-business sentiment in the general public (and, in lifting up the public in this way, serve itself by making it that much more insulated from anti-business persecution). Wonderful. Given today’s culture, heroic, even.
Perhaps that was the intention, but if so, whatever proper thought it provoked was crushed by capping it off with the company’s motto. Even if “To Fly. To Serve” has always been British Airways’ motto, it never has been, is not, and never will be (if BA is to remain in existence) it’s essence. None of the men featured in this commercial – or in the longer version produced fifty years from now in some luminous future – fly in order to serve. They serve in order to fly – because they fly in order to live. “To live” does not merely mean to produce enough value to support one’s existence, it also means fully, completely embracing and loving the means by which one does so. Contrary to popular sentiment – the sentiment pandered to in the motto “To Fly. To Serve.” – there is no choice to be made between being materially competent and emotionally fulfilled. To enjoy working is proof that one enjoys living. It is only those who do not enjoy working – those who work in order to, for example, serve – that do not enjoy living; and in fact the reason why they come to regard the primary purpose of their their work as service to others is because they seek an emotional fulfillment that they are unable to otherwise have.
None of this is to say that serving (ie: trading with) others is impossible to the person who works for no other reason than his own personal enjoyment of the experience. In fact, in virtually all contexts, it is not only possible but preferable. In some contexts – such as aviation – it is even necessary. Obviously, without any customers, aviation of the sort featured here would be impossible no matter how much the men in the cockpits wanted to do it. This, however, is not a testament to the value of service to others as a moral ideal. Rather, it is a testament to the fact that self-interest – because in virtually every circumstance it is in harmony with, and serves, the self-interest of others – is what allows men to soar; both figuratively and literally.
