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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3063 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 23, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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On some level, nearly every modern person who appreciates Titanic does so because the world it depicts - no matter how much the nihilistic Hollywood shitlib James Cameron tries to paint it as stuffy and doomed - is glamorous, confident, impeccably classy, and features exclusively high-quality white people.

The Titanic sank in 1912, two years before Europe destroyed itself spiritually and emotionally in WWI (from which it has yet to recover). I suppose one could make the argument that the Titanic represents the height of human civilization, a world where officers would lower partially empty lifeboats into the ocean because letting men get on would just be improper wouldn't it? All without a hint of irony.

Right, when I watch Titanic now, I weep not for charismatic hobo Jack Dawson, but for the quickly-impending self-inflicted implosion of European society - in which the vast majority of the people involved were hapless victims cast into destruction by the hubristic and unnecessary decisions of a sclerotic and insulated privileged class which had outlived its usefulness - that the film implicitly depicts. It’s grotesque what happened to those unsuspecting families on the Titanic, just as it’s grotesque what happened to the countless men who were slaughtered in the World Wars. At least on the Titanic, most of the men responsible for the disaster - Captain Edward Smith, Thomas Andrews - suffered the consequences themselves (although not the man arguably most directly responsible, J. Bruce Ismay, who escaped on a lifeboat and lived another twenty-five years). Most of the men responsible for the World Wars did just fine for themselves afterward.

I used to love WWI/WWII movies when I was younger, it scratched that Star-Wars-esque heroism itch. Now I avoid them unless I'm willing to end up demoralized watching Hollywood dance on the grave of Europe. Some are really good and worth watching like Dunkirk, but it's a genre where my interpretation of the films has radically changed from adventure-heroism to tragedy.

Men weren’t banned from getting on the first few empty lifeboats at all, as far as I know. The few wealthier young men who survived were often those who got out early like this.

Depends on who was doing the evacuation. On the starboard side, First Officer William Murdoch certainly favoured women and children in the evacuation, but when he could find no more women and children, he allowed men on. On the port side, Second Officer Charles Lightoller interpreted it as women and children only and prevented men beyond crew from boarding them, even when there were spaces available.

"During the evacuation, Lightoller took charge of lowering the lifeboats on the port side of the boat deck.[10] He helped to fill several lifeboats with passengers and launched them. Lightoller interpreted Smith's order for "the evacuation of women and children" as essentially "women and children only". As a result, Lightoller lowered lifeboats with empty seats if there were no women and children waiting to board, meaning to fill them to capacity once they had reached the water. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Godfrey Peuchen has the distinction of being the only adult male passenger Lightoller allowed into the boats on the port side evacuation, due to his previous nautical experience and offer of assistance when there were no seamen available from the Titanic's own complement to help command one of the lowering lifeboats."

What Quantumfreakonomics is describing did happen. And the relatively small proportion of men who did survive the Titanic came under public scrutiny and were often reflexively judged as cowards.

EDIT: As an aside, it should also be noted that there were instances of boys (at least by today's standards) being deterred from entering lifeboats on the Titanic. For example, there's George Frederick Sweet: "On the night of the sinking young George, alongside Samuel Herman, saw Mrs Herman and her daughters off in one of the lifeboats. George, although not quite 15-years-old, was probably deterred from entering a lifeboat despite his young age and he and Samuel Herman died together, George being just one day short of his 15th birthday. Their bodies, if recovered, were never identified." In a similar instance, Rhoda Abbott refused her place in a lifeboat because she realised her sons (aged 13 and 16) would not be able to enter.

Then there's this affidavit by Emily Ryerson: "We saw people getting into boats, but waited our turn. There was a rough sort of steps constructed to get up to the window. My boy, Jack, was with me. An officer at the window said, "That boy can't go." My husband stepped forward and said, "Of course, that boy goes with his mother; he is only 13." So they let him pass. They also said, "No more boys." I turned and kissed my husband, and as we left he and the other men I knew - Mr. Thayer, Mr. Widener, and others - were all standing there together very quietly."

Adult first class men on the titanic had a 33% survival rate. The lifeboats overall (if full) could have accommodated perhaps half the ship. I suppose Lightoller was ultimately a villain for turning men away (especially as he survived himself), but extrapolating his ‘chivalry’ into the rest of the men of the ship seems a stretch.

While it is true that Lightoller's behaviour was not necessarily replicated among other officers (something which I acknowledged), you seem to be trying to equate "They allowed men onto the boats sometimes" with "there was no chivalry involved" which doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Other officers did in fact prioritise women and children.

Furthermore, your isolation of that "33% survival rate" statistic and selective presentation of it is also misleading. First class men on the Titanic survived at rates lower than third class women.

They also survived at 400% the rate of second class men, if we’re cherry picking statistics to demonstrate supposed chivalry.

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...Yes? Nobody is disputing that class mattered and that second class men fared worse than first class men. None of that invalidates the fact that men in every class were less likely to survive than women.

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