Society

Titanic Metaphors

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It’s been 110 years since the RMS Titanic sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.   The event has been a prolific source of books, movies–and metaphors.   Titanic has often been viewed as a metaphor for the complacency and arrogance of Western civilization before 1914, a symbol of technological overreach and hubris.   (The Onion had some fun with the Titanic-as-metaphor theme)

I think that there are a couple of other Titanic-related metaphors which are worth considering in our present era:

‘Working Cape Race’…around noon on April 14, Titanic received wireless messages warning of icebergs. The captain altered course to the south, a path believe to be free of ice, but maintained a speed of 22 knots.   That evening, senior wireless operator Jack Phillips,   was dealing with a flood of messages from passengers to friends ashore, when the SS California attempted to broadcast another ice warning to ships in the area.   The message was broken off by Phillips with “Stop Sending! I am working Cape Race.”   (‘working’ means ‘communicating with’, Cape Race was a Marconi Company shore station)

Not long afterwards, Titanic hit the iceberg.

Apparently the term ‘Working Cape Race’ has been adopted by some people to refer to those who are too preoccupied with the task at hand to perceive very important obstacles and hazards.

The phrase often seems apt these days–for example, when tv networks focus on the Johnny Depp defamation case when there are plenty of truly critical national and world issues to talk about.   I’m sure you can think of many more examples.

Progressive Flooding.   The compartmentalization which made the Titanic supposedly unsinkable obviously did not work.   One reason was that the iceberg was hit at an angle such that multiple compartments were torn open; the other reason was the phenomenon of progressive flooding.   This is a nautical architecture & operations term referring to the phenomenon where one compartment gets flooded…leading not only to the ship settling somewhat in the water, but also to a change in trim, namely, bow down…which can lead to other compartments overtopping their watertight bulkheads and spilling water into previously-safe compartments.

Again, I think the concept is sadly applicable to some of our political and social problems.   Failures in one aspect of society can lead to failures in another aspect…which can feed back to that first aspect, making it still worse…and so one.   Malign positive feedback, that is, a network of interconnected vicious circles.

For example, long-term unemployment can lead to an increase in drug addiction…both of which can lead to dysfunctional families…which drives reduced educational achievement for kids.   That reduced educational achievement drives further unemployment.

Discuss, if so inclined.

 

Book Review: Tunnel in the Sky, Robert Heinlein

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In William Golding’s 1955 novel ‘Lord of the Flies’, a group of students is stranded on an island–and they revert quickly to barbarism.   The book sold millions of copies and has become common assigned reading for high school classes.   Another book, published at about the same time, projects a very different view of human nature and society.

Heinlein’s future world in Tunnel in the Sky has been faced with a crisis of massive overpopulation…a common projected future in books of this period:

…the population of Terra had climbed well beyond that which its farm lands could support.   The hydrogen, germ, and nerve gas horrors that followed were not truly political.   The true meaning was more that of beggars fighting over a crust of bread…Life, all life, has the twin drives to survive and to reproduce.    

Release from the Malthusian Trap was ultimately gained through an invention that opened up new worlds for settlement:   a hyperfold device called a Gate allows people to transition instantly from earth to their new homes light-years away…and, unlike rockets, the Gate technology allows very large numbers of people to be transferred.   There’s a catch, though:   keeping a gate open requires huge amounts of energy, so when the migrants move to a new planet, the gate is relaxed and they are left on their own until such time as they can offer enough trade goods to be worth the energy of reconnecting them…which may be a long, long time.   Hence, old skills have again become relevant…the situation of the settlers:

…made horses more practical than helicopters, picks and shovels more useful than bulldozers.   Machinery gets out of order and requires a complex technology to keep it going–but good old “hayburners” keep right on breeding, cropping grass, and pulling loads.

The book’s protagonist, Rod Walker, is a high school senior who plans on a future as a pioneer and a colonist and hence is taking a course in Outlands Survival.   Final exam time has arrived: the students will be sent to a planet of which they know nothing–the test rules are ANY planet–ANY climate–ANY terrain and NO rules–ANY weapons–ALL equipment.   They will be left on their own for 1-2 weeks, then returned to earth.

The class (which includes girls as well as boys) has a final session with their instructor…Rod is asked to stay after the others and is advised that he would be wise drop the course and skip the test:

Rod, you’re a good boy…but sometimes that isn’t enough.   I think you are a romantic.   Now this is a very romantic age; it calls for practical men…You are way too emotional, too sentimental to be a real survivor type…I’m not sure that you can beware of the Truce of the Bear.

But Rod decides to go, despite the advice and despite the fact that the boy he had intended to team with decides at the last moment to drop the class.   After passing through the Gate and finding himself alone, he discovers one of his classmates–who has been killed.   By a predator?   Yes…but:

Yo’s proud Thunderbolt gun was no longer in sight…The only animal who would bother to steal a gun ran around on two legs.   Rod reminded himself that a Thunderbolt could kill at almost any line-of-sight range–and now somebody had it who obviously took advantage of the absence of law and order in a survival test area.

After surviving for several days, beginning to get oriented, and encountering various local animal species, Rod meets up with Jack, a member of a different class sent to the same survival area.   Over time, they encounter others, and a group begins to develop with Rod as the de facto leader.   Their recall at the end of the test period is delayed–at first, they think it is just a minor technical problem of some sort, but the feeling grows that something has gone very badly wrong, and they may be stuck on this planet for an indeterminate time–maybe forever.

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Privileges

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Well, I see from the linked story, that the educational geniuses in Fairfax County have trodden heavily on their essential nether parts, yet again, in their demented crusade to shove critical race theory, or whatever it is called this week to disguise the whole rotten concept, down the throats of hapless students of all colors on the Pantone scale. This time around, they tried to foist off the concept of military dependents being somehow uniquely privileged.

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Apparently, We Have Been Naughty

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We have all been naughty, disobedient, ungrateful serfs or so say the self-nominated Covidiocy experts, especially including those of nationwide media fame and of a political stripe known for their fanatical allegiance to the current ruling class. We’re supposed to get another tongue-lashing from the White House tonight, which has already promised a winter of severe illnesses and death for those holding out against getting vaccinated against the latest Covid variant. Are they going to cancel Christmas for those who won’t cooperate? Are we now all enrolled in the variant-of-the-month club, and expected to maintain a constant intravenous drip of boosters for the endless variants?

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Comprachicos

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The word literally translates from Spanish as “child-buyers” as defined by Wikipedia in one of their less politically unstained entries: “a concept coined by Victor Hugo in his novel The Man Who Laughs. It refers to various groups in folklore who were said to change the physical appearance of human beings by manipulating growing children, in a similar way to the horticultural method of bonsai that is, deliberate mutilation … stunting children’s growth by physical restraint, muzzling their faces to deform them, slitting their eyes, dislocating their joints, and malforming their bones.” The mutilated or stunted children were then provided as dwarves to amuse a noble court, or as performers in traveling circus sideshows. A historical truth, folklore repeated to frighten children into good behavior, or just a melodramatic literary creation? Who knows for certain?

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