It was the worst disaster of its kind ever. It was accompanied by horrific photographs of the aftermath. Photographs in newspapers were still a bit of a novelty in 1912.
The loss of life affected even our language. More than a century later, we still occasionally talk of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, inhibited only by excessive familiarity: the phrase has become trite because we all know it.
The tragedy is iconic in another sense. It has become an archetype of class division: lifeboat passengers who complained about having to submit to the instructions of a crew member who looked Asian, navigators of those lifeboats who were offered bribes to ignore the cries of those still in the icy water, immigrants who were caged by iron bars in steerage until upper class passengers could be safely sent off.
A recurring theme remains the disgust of the wealthy British about those iron gates confining lower class passengers. The indignation was said to have come, not because the access to lifeboats was blocked, but because access had to be blocked. Simple morality ought to have been enough to hold back third class passengers until their betters were evacuated.
Of course, we now wonder at such values. People of means considered the lives of the lower classes to be of little value. Their reactions went from bemusement, as they discovered that those lower class people did not agree, to outrage as those same lower class people could not be relied upon to obey simple rules of class order as rising waters engulfed them and their children. Amazing.
The existence of shipboard rules, the obedience of staff to those rules, may have imposed a degree of order in a chaotic situation. Forcing everyone into line, enforcing limits on the number allowed into lifeboats, may have made possible the rescue of additional survivors.
Today, we do not find it hard to defend those lower class passengers. Even if rules are a necessary part of orderly life, humans are under no moral obligation to respect rules that they had no part in creating, rules that put their lives at risk.
Unless, of course, those rules apply to immigrants.
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