Four Lessons From the Sinking of the Titanic

On this day in 1912 the people on board the RMS Titanic were enjoying a speedy and trouble-free journey across the Atlantic Ocean.  They were on board a pristine ship well on its way to setting a speed record for a transatlantic crossing.  None anticipated their collision with an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. that night, and the sinking of the ship that would just 2 ½ hours later.  Our lives turn on a dime.

 The RMS Titanic, an “unsinkable” ship, went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking 1500 people to their deaths.   The ship was built to be the final word in luxury and modern opulence.  Yet she made her real money in transporting hundreds of immigrants in steerage class.  Catering to the wealthy, the Titanic sought to muscle through on style and hubris instead of substance and careful planning.  That never works. 

Four days into the crossing and 600 miles south of Newfoundland, the Titanic hit an iceberg, flooding five of its sixteen “watertight” compartments.  The supposedly unsinkable ship went down in two and a half hours.  Most of those who perished did not drown but died of hypothermia in the freezing water.  A few miles from the Titanic, and in a good position to save most, if not all, of the passengers, was the S. S. California.  This ship had sent the Titanic its first warning of icebergs and shut down its engines to wait for daylight.  The California had seen flares and lights from the Titanic but ignored them.   So instead of being saved, over 1500 people died a painful death.  Those who were placed in lifeboats were picked up nearly four hours later by the RMS Carpathia.  There were so many things that went wrong.  Those who saw problems coming marginalized their concerns.  Those who raised alarms were ignored.  The veracity of timely warnings was weighed against economic expediency and painful decisions were delayed until it was too late.

            The story of the sinking of the Titanic has been told in eighteen movies.  There have been over 200 books, fiction and nonfiction, written about the Titanic. The resting place of the ship, with no commercial value associated with it, has occupied the time, talent and treasure of any number of specialists.  I have heard Bob Ballard speak to a packed auditorium after he finally found and photographed the sunken Titanic.  The only sound you could hear from the audience was an occasional gasp. 

Where lies the fascination?  We all know the ship doesn’t make it.  Yet we want to hear the story again and again.  Is it the failure that intrigues us?  No.  It is the people.  We want to know how they show their humanity in monstrous times.  We want to see a triumph of spirit in the face of bitter defeat.  We want to know (as in the poem, Invictus by William Ernest Henley) that our heads may be, “…bloody, but unbowed.”  Perhaps we are all trying to learn how to be heroes. 

            These lessons from history can be distilled to a few common threads. 

1. People who ought to know better sometimes ignore reality.  Lesson: weigh economic reality, but use that knowledge as a tool, not a bottom line. 
2. People who know the truth can be ignored because the truth is hard to hear.  Lesson: the more difficult a truth is, the more imperative it becomes.
3. People who carry neither power nor prestige in their name often rise to behave heroically. Lesson: heroism is always dangerous, but it is easier when you have other advantages to lean on.  The hero who has the most to lose is the one to be most admired.
4. Intelligence trumps emotion and reason trumps rhetoric.  Lesson: listen with your brain and you won’t have to rationalize or excuse a course of action.

Cognito Ergo Sum, and I keep the faith.