In the smash-hit movie Titanic a few years ago, moviemakers combined fiction with history. As usual, the history wasn't exactly accurrate. Tellingly, though, was the way in which the actual history was tweaked.
Most viewers of the film will remember the scene when the first class passengers rushed aboard the lifeboats. Only through the efforts of tough men with clubs was it even possible to get the women and children aboard the boats first. Terrible. Unthinkable. Unfair.
Also: untrue.
We like it when our political misconceptions are reinforced. Popular media wouldn't be so popular if it didn't pander to our high opinion of ourselves and our society by feeding us what we want. That particular scene in the movie gratified viewers by showing them how unfair things were in the past compared to today's enlightened and egalitarian times. It also played right along with loathing 'the rich,' something common in political discourse today.
What actually happened was that the men aboard nearly unanimously adhered to the chivalric notion of 'women and children first,' and they did so in an orderly, heroic fashion. According to author Fareed Zakaria:
"In first class, every child was saved, as were all but 5 (of 144) women, 3 of whom chose to die with their husbands. By contrast, 70 percent of the men in first class perished. In second class, which was also inhabited by rich professional types, 80 percent of the women were saved but 90 percent of the men drowned. The men on the first-class list of the Titanic virtually made up the Forbes 400 of the time. John Jacob Astor, reputedly the richest man in America at the time, is said to have fought his way to a boat, put his wife in it, and then, refusing to take a seat, stepped back and waved her goodbye. Benjamin Guggenheim similarly declined a seat, yielding his place to a woman, asking only that she convey a message home: 'Tell my wife . . . I played the game out straight and to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward.' In other words, some of the most powerful men in the world adhered to an unwritten code of honor – even though it meant certain death. The movie makers altered the story for good reason: no one would believe it today."
Sad, really, that 'no one would believe it today.' So go ahead Hollywood, change history to suit the assumptions of your audience. Reinforce their ignorance and biases for the sake of entertainment.
We live in cynical times when it is hard for many to believe that there were ages before ours that had honor, codes of conduct, and self-sacrificial service as standards of success every bit as important as material trappings and fame. We fall into the assumption that society progresses steadily upward simply because that is how technology appears to proceed. But just as nostalgia for bygone days is a bit naive and oversimplified, so too should we beware that when pushing forward with false assumptions bred of cynicism we leave something behind.
What if we could mix the honor of yesterday with the advances of today? What if chivalry grew as fast as computing power? These are things leaders need to think about, because with everything new comes the threat of leaving something good behind.
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