There is this western obsession about the biggest boat ever
built at the time, the fastest boat, and the hand of God could not sink this
boat thing, that lingers now to a centennial mark on April 15.
I, as a youth, was fascinated with the Titanic myth of
Icarus and its failing and sinking going back fifty years. There was a big
layout in the Philadelphia Sunday Inquirer edition that spread and reiterated
all the myths about the great British super liner on the fiftieth anniversary of its sinking.
I saw that Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck movie Titanic http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046435/ on
TV that weekend I think to boost the propaganda myth of man’s invincibility and
technology. That flick also pointed out the form of an iceberg’s passive natural power to
crash the hearts of man and his invincible mythology. I also eventually saw the B&W British film
A Night to Remember http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051994/.
So when we as a family were walking
out of a movie and into a movie lobby in Arizona in 1997 and seeing the posters
of the new flick Titanic to be released at Christmas 1997, I yawned and said
aloud “Wow, another Titanic film. What a bomb that will be.” Of course I was
wrong on that one. Wasn’t I? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/
I understood the myth. Another generation had yet to introduce itself to the myth and its hidden lessons.
The incredible failure of common sense to wrap itself around
technology’s 1912 myth was one of the reasons for the failure. The engineers and designers of Titanic
thought it would float if damaged because of untested technological theories
about what watertight compartments could or could not do in a worst case
scenario. In such a case, no need for so many obsolete lifeboats to spoil the
traveler’s view.
Obviously, dumb
icebergs have their own agendas regarding man and his technologies of the
day. Of course we are talking 1912
technology. Think about how man and his myth and his modern day secular worship
of technology are in 2012. Holy Shit!
The younger generation, the tech generation, the Internet
generation, re-embraced the Titanic myth once again in 1997.
So why the fascination?
I think it is the valuable lesson that all our knowledge and all our
current technologies do not foresee the unforeseeable. Man is limited even in his madness about how
great he is among the creation of the universe, and in blind governance of the
things of this planet.
“Man is the measure of all things.” When man sets himself up in the secular role
of an all-powerful and perfect God role on the earth, it is important that
major failures be reported, told and retold again in myth to remind us all of
how limited in scope and purpose he is in the ultimate scheme of things in the
Universe.
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| White Star Line - New York Office - Titanic Inquiries - April 1912 9 (part of 11) Broadway NYC - Currently a Radio Shack |
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