The Sinking of the West

National Review ^ | January 21, 2012 | Mark Steyn

[Shery]

Abe Greenwald of Commentary magazine tweets:

Is there any chance that Mark Steyn won’t use the Italian captain fleeing the sinking ship as the lead metaphor in a column on EU collapse?

Oh, dear. You’ve got to get up early in the morning to beat me to civilizational-collapse metaphors. Been there, done that. See page 185 of my most recent book, where I contrast the orderly, dignified, and moving behavior of those on the Titanic (the ship, not the mendacious Hollywood blockbuster) with that manifested in more recent disasters. There was no orderly evacuation from the Costa Concordia, just chaos punctuated by individual acts of courage from, for example, an Hungarian violinist in the orchestra and a ship’s entertainer in a Spiderman costume, both of whom helped children to safety, the former paying with his life.

The miserable Captain Schettino, by contrast, is presently under house arrest, charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship. His explanation is that, when the vessel listed suddenly, he fell into a lifeboat and was unable to climb out. Seriously. Could happen to anyone, slippery decks and all that. Next thing you know, he was safe on shore, leaving his passengers all at sea. On the other hand, the audio of him being ordered by Coast Guard officers to return to his ship and refusing to do so is not helpful to this version of events.

In the centenary year of the most famous of all maritime disasters, we would do well to consider honestly the tale of the Titanic. When James Cameron made his movie, he was interested in everything except what the story was actually about. I confess I have very little memory of the film...

[junta]

Ditch the pathology of white guilt the ship will right itself.

[kingu]

Teaches me to sometimes pay attention to mainstream news.. I had heard that a ship had run aground, and they were debating what to do with it, but seeing the picture for the first time, wow...

Anyway, love Mark Steyn’s topic. When you try to divorce chivalry from civility, you end up finding out you don’t have any civilization left.

[Stepan12]

I think that letter writer to Steyn made a good point. The feminists have sought to obliterate the differences between the sexes, have derided politeness by men; etc., and now they complain at the horrific result of the passengers of that cruise ship?

Give me a break and I won't let him lay a guilt trip on me!