The Titanic, Heroes and COVID-19
A little over one
hundred years ago, on April 15th, 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. It didn’t
work.
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
were weighed against economic expediency 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.
Now, amid pandemic, we see the
essence of history distilled to a few common threads. People who ought to know better ignore
reality. People who know the truth are
ignored because the truth is hard to hear.
People who carry neither power nor prestige in their name rise to behave
heroically. When the story of COVID-19
is told, the heroes are going to be the healthcare workers, the grocery store
employees, the truckers, the quilt guild members who stitched together thousands
of masks, and the all the other people who powered through for the greater
good. The villain in this tale is not going
to be the virus (it is simply being a virus, there is no evil intent, just
genetic programing). No, the fault and
blame are going to rest with the leaders who failed to lead. The story we will want to hear is how “We,
the people…” overcame. And woe to those
who try to institutionalize weakness, ignorance and prejudice at this time of
need.
Here’s to the heroes who show us how
to keep the faith.
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