“What ship plays with icebergs
and plays soft music as it sinks into the ocean?
… yes, a ship of fools
but there are fools and
those who only appear to be.”
— Simon Jenkins, Ship of Fools
On that clear, cold, starlit night in April 1912, the mighty behemoth steamed proudly onward at 22 knots through the darkness, its captain confident that he could win at a game of chicken with an armada of floating icebergs.
In the first-class decks, the pampered nobility slipped their pedicured feet between starched and ironed sheets, and pulled their downy quilts under their chins, slipping into peaceful slumber, secure in the belief that they were in the best of hands.
Hours later, a strange, barely detectable shudder reverberated through the ship’s massive structure, awakening a few of the lighter sleepers, who sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.
As they peered sleepily out of their portholes, a surreal vista assaulted their rapidly awakening senses. Instead of the expected inky-black night sky, a brightly moonlit wall of white and blue ice towered over their ship, like an angry leviathan.
The elite captain’s luck had just run out, as the colossal iceberg slashed a fatal gash in the hull below the waterline, yet most passengers aboard remained oblivious to the rapidly unfolding reality that they were doomed.
The designer of the fabled RMS Titanic happened to be on board for this maiden voyage and, to his dismay, calculated that the ship had but a few hours to stay afloat.
Filled to the limit with the rich and famous, including American and European royalty, along with industrial tycoons, plus a host of ill-fated peasants in steerage, the resulting horrific loss of life stunned the world.
How could this “unsinkable” ship, the pinnacle of modern marine technology, fail to avoid such a fate, and, after having failed, how could it be unable to save only a handful of passengers? How could the highly trained crew, utilizing state-of-the-art navigation, plow straight into an ice field, despite a steady stream of wireless warnings of danger ahead?
Lifeboat, Anyone?
Compounding the tragedy, the Titanic carried just 20 lifeboats, only enough to accommodate 33 percent of its passengers and crew. Even then, as the great ship sank to the bottom of the sea, most of the lifeboats were only partially full, leaving 472 unused spaces.
There was plenty of time for more to abandon ship, but most stayed aboard despite quickly mounting evidence that she was going down. As one observer said, “It is believed that this low number was due to passengers being reluctant to leave the ship, as initially they did not consider themselves to be in imminent danger.”
And the Band Played On
Remarkably, even as the great ship listed severely and was taking on water, the band played on. Here is how Senan Molony, in his book Titanic: Victims & Villains, described it:
“The strains of classical music early in proceedings conveyed the message that everything was as near normal as could be. Every wafting note spoke sweetly that the emergency was not what is was — an emergency — but instead a temporary inconvenience.
“The playing of the band ran directly counter to the entreaties of officers and crew that women and children should enter the boats.
“Classical music in particular has a comforting, relaxing effect — which is why it is increasingly to be heard in dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms. But it also creates a mood of conviviality, of unity, of optimism. Conviviality meant staying with the crowd; optimism meant safety in numbers; unity meant preferring the majority.
“Those brave souls who opted to enter tiny lifeboats were defying the prevailing mood, a mood encouraged by the fact that music was playing at all. They were swimming against the tide, but their conscious and independent choices would save their swimming later.
“How foolish it was to play music! How sad that it helped to encourage jibes at those who did enter the boats — ‘You’ll miss breakfast!’ ‘You’ll need a pass to get back in the morning!’ ‘We’ll see you in New York’ — such that those who risked entering them also risked being ridiculed later.
“‘How innocent you were, my dear. Danger, indeed! Why, we had a lovely time here all night, listening to the orchestra.’”
Ultimately, the popular bet isn’t always the safest bet:
“The risk was in staying, not in going, yet it was made psychologically more difficult for passengers to enter an early lifeboat by a shipping line that compounded reckless navigation with grotesquely misplaced complacency and pride — even after their surpassing vanity had been devastatingly punctured.”2
So, what’s all this got to do with you and me? Turns out, a lot.
We’ve All Been Born On a Sinking Ship
Throughout his ministry, Jesus Christ reminded his followers that life consists of more than meets the eye and that our time on earth is very brief. He warned that the world we know is fatally flawed and is scheduled for demolition. He cautioned us not to be taken by surprise by this but to look forward to a time when he will return to establish his kingdom, which will never end.
But this calls for a paradigm shift in your thinking — big time. This world, including your precious individual life, isn’t nearly as secure as the supposed “authorities” would have you believe. Next week we talk about why.
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
1. The ship of fools is an allegory that has long been a fixture in Western literature and art. The allegory depicts a vessel populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous or oblivious passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, seemingly ignorant of their own direction. This concept makes up the framework of the 15th-century book Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant, which served as the inspiration for Hieronymus Bosch’s famous painting, Ship of Fools (c. 1490-1500), in which a ship — an entire fleet at first — sets off from Basel to the paradise of fools.
2. Titanic’s Band: Killing Them Softly by Senan Molony, http://www.encyclopedia–titanica.org/