Titanic
disasters - or stories of successful, sustainable life?
11th April: A hundred years ago, the pride
of the White Star Line, RMS Titanic, was steaming westward on its maiden voyage
to the New World. What happened around midnight between the 14th and
the 15th of April has become part of our collective archetypal
memory: a titanic disaster, caused by a blend of arrogance and ignorance, and a
false feeling of safety.
Why has this tragic accident achieved such an epic
status? The 20th century has seen so many human tragedies and
disasters – why this one? It happened even before the First World War that
showed how effective and efficient industrialized nations were in killing enemy
soldiers, and how ineffective and inefficient they were in solving political
problems.
It happened before the Second World War that not only
brought an unprecedented amount, but also unprecedented qualities of distress
and suffering to humans.
How could the sinking of RMS Titanic create or keep
its fame as an archetypal disaster of the 20th century?
Many people have speculated about this question. Let me
try it anyway: First of all, it was not a 100% man-made disaster. Travelling by
ship was almost as safe back then as it is today. What if the Iceberg had been drifting
by the ship at safe distance? To a certain extent, it was just bad luck. It was
a risk most of us would have taken. It was an accumulation of unfortunate
circumstances that (hopefully doesn’t, but) could happen to any of us.
Second – and even more important – I think it was the
moment when the 20th century lost its innocence. The RMS Titanic was
a symbol of the achievements of a new area: High tech, top luxury, giant size, top
speed; it seemed that man-made technology could break the chains of the old
ages, reach new horizons and open the doors to a new quality of life.
The big cities of the early century offered a modern,
urban lifestyle that brought an end to old fashioned traditions and gave freedom
to the individual. The Titanic was a symbol of a new lifestyle. It offered fast
and comfortable travelling to business people, back and forth across the Atlantic
Ocean. And it offered affordable transfer to people on the third class decks:
emigrants of Old Europe on their way to the pursuit of happiness in the New
World.
Literally “out of the blue”, within less than a few
hours, all these visions, dreams, lifestyles and hopes that had shown a way
into the new century, were destroyed. The unthinkable had happened, the unbreakable
was broken, and the unsinkable had sunken to the ocean floor: a titanic
disaster disenchanted the young century. The reasons – Ambition?
Unthoughtfulness? We will never really now. What we do know: It was the absence
of true leadership - the ability to responsibly use the possibilities of a new
technology, to adapt to changing external conditions, to take responsibility
for human lives.
Many ships have crossed the sea since then. And a new
century is about to leave its childhood behind. Has it lost its innocence yet?
The archetypal incident must have been 9-11 2001.
While the Titanic disaster was the moment of truth
with respect to the limits of new industrial technologies, 9-11 was the moment
of truth with respect to the limits of new communication technologies in a
global village. Hate and fanaticism keeps mankind from becoming global sisters
and brothers through internet, mail and social media.
New technologies, new opportunities, new ages and
centuries don’t automatically lead us into a bright future. It takes
leadership: responsibility, respect and regardfulness, to make this world a
better place, and to create collective archetypal memories which tell us
stories of successful, sustainable life.
Christoph Weber-Berg
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