Simply Wait

Economist Steven Levitt went to Poland, and was upset about the rampant line-cutting. Waiting your turn is definitely one of those virtues of the Western world that has not quite translated anywhere else. Levitt looks for the reason by examining different incentives for line-cutting in the East. While that may be true at, for example, a crowded manqouche stand in the early morning, it seems to me that the habit has made a leap into the culture of the region. People have leap-frogged over me when we were the only two people in line, and they saved themselves no more than thirty seconds.

There might be a nationwide, socio-political answer to this phenomenon as well. After all, Lebanon is sort of a lawless, laissez-faire country. "If the government can't convene Parliament or establish control over its southern territories," our theoretical line-cutter may say to himself, "why should I be a stickler for the rules?" OK, probably not.