Like many of you I followed closely the story of the five passengers on the submersible Titan who lost their lives in a catastrophic implosion near the Titanic last week.
I can't comment with any authority on the Oceangate Titan, except to point out that I'm too claustrophobic to ever try anything like that myself, that one of the five apparently was dragged there against his will, and that the reveling I see elsewhere on the net about his death and the death of his billionaire father with words and memes says something very disturbing if perhaps too understandable and familiar about our society. And that we ought to just as interested in that fishing boat filled with migrants that sank off Greece.
But I get the lure of stories. I come from a long line of storytellers. But why these particular stories? Not all possible stories are equal. Why Titanic and not any number of alternatives? Why was Gettysburg crawling with tourists and buses when we were there, but Antietam was all but empty?
I don't think we can discount the hegemonic role of western popular culture, which teaches us that some events--"words" to paraphrase Dennett--are more important than others. Titanic is a good case in point. I remember watching "A Night to Remember" as a kid, and I think I had read the book before I went to high school. But there was a lot more than that. How many times did the Titanic disaster pop up as a punchline, as an analogy, as a reference on this game show or that sitcom? As an RV on "Trapper John MD?" As a bit of language? As something we needed to know about in order to communicate with our peers? As something in the air? We were *taught* that it was important, in the same way that the culture simultaneously *taught* me (a kid growing up during the later years of the Civil War Centennial) that the Civil War was of central and vital importance, in a way that say World War I supposedly was not. That war was everywhere in 1960s Virginia--in school, school trips, roadside markers, flags, battlefields, a "Forget Hell" sign in my dentist's office, the toy caps and guns in the gift shop at the zoo, Lincoln's Birthday sheet sales, the penny, in serious films, on the news, in westerns, and at the center of a particularly insightful arc on "the Beverly Hillbillies" (really). And Gettysburg supposedly was the most important part of that vital war. All those were our "spider webs." How can we not feel chills on that field? It's our Troy.
One summer I worked construction, with one other college kid and a group of ex-cons. Best co-workers I ever had actually. They could intelligently talk about the Civil War too. Probably they could discuss the Titanic.
Perhaps we are "hard-wired" to gravitate toward such stories, I'm not equipped to debate that, but in the nature vs. nurture debate we've also been taught in innumerable ways large and small that stories matter, and that these are the stories that really matter. I absolutely get why those people (four of them anyway) wanted to dive on the wreck. I went to the same school, for good or ill. It shapes and constrains.
Thanks for this, Ken. Your comment offers an important reminder that the stories we choose to remember and share are influenced by a wide range of factors that often have as much, if not more to do, with the individuals/organizations who pass them down as they do with the subject of the story itself.
I also can't speak to whether we are hard-wired in some way to gravitate toward certain stories, but it's an interesting question.
I would love to chat about the most recent trip. It was better than I could have hoped and although it revolved around the World Wars, it provided some cool insights into Civil War memory that I am excited to bring into the classroom. No problem on the email! I know you are busy and haven't moved much on the book writing topic since then other than continuing to sketch out themes and reflections on past adventures. I want to do a couple more of these student trips before I write a book. I am thinking about doing some type of a Civil War/Revolutionary War trip to New England next summer so I would love to bend your ear on ideas and hopefully meet up with you along the way.
I get what you're saying and agree wholeheartedly with the fact that for some number of us, there are unexplainable connections between a "place" or an event that keep bringing us back. I have to say that my interest in history has always been "immersive"—I'm not much for visiting a battlefield to hear something I could've read in a book. I don't know if I'm an empath or highly sensitive to "place" but I get sometimes unexplainable feelings—sometimes feelings that cannot be articulated— in certain places. When I was in Gettysburg (I've only been once), a friend and I drove around just before dusk through the park and as we were on Little Round Top, I got the heaviest, saddest feeling, like a weight I couldn't throw off—it stayed with me until we left Gettysburg and headed out for Fallingwater, which was our ultimate destination. Almost ten years later, I discovered that a great-great-uncle died on Little Round Top. Can I explain that? No.
There may have been a particular interest in the Titanic for one or two of the people in the Titan submersible, but I don't think the owner/CEO of Oceangate was one of them. He wanted to be the Elon Musk for ocean adventures. I think he was driven to sell trips for wealthy folks who perhaps have an historical interest in the Titanic and other shipwrecks, etc., and went for it, taking his son with him.
I don't understand that motivation. I don't understand those who participate in any Xtreme activity that could easily kill me if something goes wrong. Then again, I suspect that I would have been looking at the Wright brothers, going "Are you nuts?" At the same time, I appreciate that without them and countless others who died trying, there are a lot of things I've seen in person that would have remained in a history book.
Thanks for the comment, Vally. I can't say I understand the need to risk one's life to visit something like the Titanic either. I suspect we are all hard wired differently and that our tolerance for risk taking differs widely.
Kevin, I think this is a great post. I think there is a need for lots of reasons to connect to something greater than ourselves. I think it partly explains the myriad of NPS historic sites and their visitor numbers.
I have an experience similar to yours with several sites I regularly visit. Several years ago while walking the American line at Saratoga I stopped at the site of an American battery and surveyed the far tree line with a monocular. As I was standing there it occurred to me I probably wasn’t the first American officer to stand on or near that spot and ponder where the other guys would come out tree line and how they would try to cross the open ground to my front. Nothing mystical going on but connections to people who had gone before me? Yes. I think that’s why so many Americans of all political persuasions visit these places. And, I think the contribution of people like you with the battlefield tours, good battlefield tours, is to make the experience more meaningful.
Hi Kevin, “It’s about the stories of the past that I have the opportunity to revisit as well as the promise of new stories that continues to spark my fascination and keeps me coming back.” This line really resonates with me. It is this pull that pushes me to bring students to historic sites so they can come face to face with stories learned in the classroom and maybe forge lifelong connections like we feel at Gettysburg and other places. And as you said, Personally, it’s the excitement of the new story that seems to steer the car back on autopilot. The quest for new stories is why I enjoy hiring battlefield guides and historians, those who continue to research the sites, to introduce new stories/Learning.
Immersion is a hot word now in history tourism as some folks look for more of a connection to these stories than a mere visit. Historic immersion can be a powerful way to people personally connect with the past - smell, taste, sleep in or walk the same ground of those historic people.
As technology advances increase and those with money can access it, the pull of stories, this desire to immerse in a place will likely increase these visits to remote and dangerous sites like Titantic.
Thanks for the comment, Chris. I just remembered that I owe you an email response. My apologies. Let's touch base soon. In fact, I would love to interview for this site about your recent class trip.
Great post. Gonna need to read that Dennett piece in great detail. Someone whose opinion I value commented to me that one sentence in my book about having an identity rooted in something explained everything.
Your post reminded me of my time reenacting. I never particularly cared for where it happened and certainly doing it wasn't learning anything. What did (and still does) appeal to me is that it--for a brief weekend--gave us the opportunity to get outside of our daily lives and experience just a little bit of discomfort. My favorite memories are of things like snuggling so close to a campfire to keep warm that our blankets got burned; sheltering from a violent rainstorm under a bush and looking at my friend Mark across the way sheltering under his own bush and just busting out laughing at the situation; drinking the worlds worst coffee and eating the grossest bacon all with great satisfaction because we're hungry and anything will do; lighting a pipe with a cinder from the campfire... all in idyllic landscapes and awesome sunsets.
That little edge of discomfort that loosens things a bit enough to experience something vital. I think that's what makes Joseph McGill's operation special in that it invites folks into similar situations. This displacement gives you tacit permission to think and experience history and life differently. I wonder if that's not what drove these Titanic adventurers--maybe not caring about the history or about learning anything, but about doing it (far, far) outside a comfort zone in order to experience something unique and special.
Don't reenact anymore, but I do crank up the firepit in my back yard as much as possible, and light a pipe with a cinder and enjoy the sunset. It's part of my identity now, jean cloth or not.
I read a good deal of Dennett in graduate school. I highly recommend his book, *Consciousness Explained.* I am not surprised to see that the post brought up personal memories of reenacting for you. Thanks for sharing.
I don't much of anything about how Oceangate prepared its customers for their dives to Titanic, but unfortunately I don't see much of anything that counts as storytelling in your comment. It assumes that the wreck itself contains the narrative and that simply being in proximity to it will expose you to all that it *could* offer. Thanks for the comment, Taylor.
I can't comment with any authority on the Oceangate Titan, except to point out that I'm too claustrophobic to ever try anything like that myself, that one of the five apparently was dragged there against his will, and that the reveling I see elsewhere on the net about his death and the death of his billionaire father with words and memes says something very disturbing if perhaps too understandable and familiar about our society. And that we ought to just as interested in that fishing boat filled with migrants that sank off Greece.
But I get the lure of stories. I come from a long line of storytellers. But why these particular stories? Not all possible stories are equal. Why Titanic and not any number of alternatives? Why was Gettysburg crawling with tourists and buses when we were there, but Antietam was all but empty?
I don't think we can discount the hegemonic role of western popular culture, which teaches us that some events--"words" to paraphrase Dennett--are more important than others. Titanic is a good case in point. I remember watching "A Night to Remember" as a kid, and I think I had read the book before I went to high school. But there was a lot more than that. How many times did the Titanic disaster pop up as a punchline, as an analogy, as a reference on this game show or that sitcom? As an RV on "Trapper John MD?" As a bit of language? As something we needed to know about in order to communicate with our peers? As something in the air? We were *taught* that it was important, in the same way that the culture simultaneously *taught* me (a kid growing up during the later years of the Civil War Centennial) that the Civil War was of central and vital importance, in a way that say World War I supposedly was not. That war was everywhere in 1960s Virginia--in school, school trips, roadside markers, flags, battlefields, a "Forget Hell" sign in my dentist's office, the toy caps and guns in the gift shop at the zoo, Lincoln's Birthday sheet sales, the penny, in serious films, on the news, in westerns, and at the center of a particularly insightful arc on "the Beverly Hillbillies" (really). And Gettysburg supposedly was the most important part of that vital war. All those were our "spider webs." How can we not feel chills on that field? It's our Troy.
One summer I worked construction, with one other college kid and a group of ex-cons. Best co-workers I ever had actually. They could intelligently talk about the Civil War too. Probably they could discuss the Titanic.
Perhaps we are "hard-wired" to gravitate toward such stories, I'm not equipped to debate that, but in the nature vs. nurture debate we've also been taught in innumerable ways large and small that stories matter, and that these are the stories that really matter. I absolutely get why those people (four of them anyway) wanted to dive on the wreck. I went to the same school, for good or ill. It shapes and constrains.
Thanks for letting me ramble.
Thanks for this, Ken. Your comment offers an important reminder that the stories we choose to remember and share are influenced by a wide range of factors that often have as much, if not more to do, with the individuals/organizations who pass them down as they do with the subject of the story itself.
I also can't speak to whether we are hard-wired in some way to gravitate toward certain stories, but it's an interesting question.
I would love to chat about the most recent trip. It was better than I could have hoped and although it revolved around the World Wars, it provided some cool insights into Civil War memory that I am excited to bring into the classroom. No problem on the email! I know you are busy and haven't moved much on the book writing topic since then other than continuing to sketch out themes and reflections on past adventures. I want to do a couple more of these student trips before I write a book. I am thinking about doing some type of a Civil War/Revolutionary War trip to New England next summer so I would love to bend your ear on ideas and hopefully meet up with you along the way.
Will be in touch.
I get what you're saying and agree wholeheartedly with the fact that for some number of us, there are unexplainable connections between a "place" or an event that keep bringing us back. I have to say that my interest in history has always been "immersive"—I'm not much for visiting a battlefield to hear something I could've read in a book. I don't know if I'm an empath or highly sensitive to "place" but I get sometimes unexplainable feelings—sometimes feelings that cannot be articulated— in certain places. When I was in Gettysburg (I've only been once), a friend and I drove around just before dusk through the park and as we were on Little Round Top, I got the heaviest, saddest feeling, like a weight I couldn't throw off—it stayed with me until we left Gettysburg and headed out for Fallingwater, which was our ultimate destination. Almost ten years later, I discovered that a great-great-uncle died on Little Round Top. Can I explain that? No.
There may have been a particular interest in the Titanic for one or two of the people in the Titan submersible, but I don't think the owner/CEO of Oceangate was one of them. He wanted to be the Elon Musk for ocean adventures. I think he was driven to sell trips for wealthy folks who perhaps have an historical interest in the Titanic and other shipwrecks, etc., and went for it, taking his son with him.
I don't understand that motivation. I don't understand those who participate in any Xtreme activity that could easily kill me if something goes wrong. Then again, I suspect that I would have been looking at the Wright brothers, going "Are you nuts?" At the same time, I appreciate that without them and countless others who died trying, there are a lot of things I've seen in person that would have remained in a history book.
Thanks for the comment, Vally. I can't say I understand the need to risk one's life to visit something like the Titanic either. I suspect we are all hard wired differently and that our tolerance for risk taking differs widely.
Kevin, I think this is a great post. I think there is a need for lots of reasons to connect to something greater than ourselves. I think it partly explains the myriad of NPS historic sites and their visitor numbers.
I have an experience similar to yours with several sites I regularly visit. Several years ago while walking the American line at Saratoga I stopped at the site of an American battery and surveyed the far tree line with a monocular. As I was standing there it occurred to me I probably wasn’t the first American officer to stand on or near that spot and ponder where the other guys would come out tree line and how they would try to cross the open ground to my front. Nothing mystical going on but connections to people who had gone before me? Yes. I think that’s why so many Americans of all political persuasions visit these places. And, I think the contribution of people like you with the battlefield tours, good battlefield tours, is to make the experience more meaningful.
Hi Kevin, “It’s about the stories of the past that I have the opportunity to revisit as well as the promise of new stories that continues to spark my fascination and keeps me coming back.” This line really resonates with me. It is this pull that pushes me to bring students to historic sites so they can come face to face with stories learned in the classroom and maybe forge lifelong connections like we feel at Gettysburg and other places. And as you said, Personally, it’s the excitement of the new story that seems to steer the car back on autopilot. The quest for new stories is why I enjoy hiring battlefield guides and historians, those who continue to research the sites, to introduce new stories/Learning.
Immersion is a hot word now in history tourism as some folks look for more of a connection to these stories than a mere visit. Historic immersion can be a powerful way to people personally connect with the past - smell, taste, sleep in or walk the same ground of those historic people.
As technology advances increase and those with money can access it, the pull of stories, this desire to immerse in a place will likely increase these visits to remote and dangerous sites like Titantic.
Thanks for the comment, Chris. I just remembered that I owe you an email response. My apologies. Let's touch base soon. In fact, I would love to interview for this site about your recent class trip.
Great post. Gonna need to read that Dennett piece in great detail. Someone whose opinion I value commented to me that one sentence in my book about having an identity rooted in something explained everything.
Your post reminded me of my time reenacting. I never particularly cared for where it happened and certainly doing it wasn't learning anything. What did (and still does) appeal to me is that it--for a brief weekend--gave us the opportunity to get outside of our daily lives and experience just a little bit of discomfort. My favorite memories are of things like snuggling so close to a campfire to keep warm that our blankets got burned; sheltering from a violent rainstorm under a bush and looking at my friend Mark across the way sheltering under his own bush and just busting out laughing at the situation; drinking the worlds worst coffee and eating the grossest bacon all with great satisfaction because we're hungry and anything will do; lighting a pipe with a cinder from the campfire... all in idyllic landscapes and awesome sunsets.
That little edge of discomfort that loosens things a bit enough to experience something vital. I think that's what makes Joseph McGill's operation special in that it invites folks into similar situations. This displacement gives you tacit permission to think and experience history and life differently. I wonder if that's not what drove these Titanic adventurers--maybe not caring about the history or about learning anything, but about doing it (far, far) outside a comfort zone in order to experience something unique and special.
Don't reenact anymore, but I do crank up the firepit in my back yard as much as possible, and light a pipe with a cinder and enjoy the sunset. It's part of my identity now, jean cloth or not.
I read a good deal of Dennett in graduate school. I highly recommend his book, *Consciousness Explained.* I am not surprised to see that the post brought up personal memories of reenacting for you. Thanks for sharing.
I just started Joe McGill's new book.
I don't much of anything about how Oceangate prepared its customers for their dives to Titanic, but unfortunately I don't see much of anything that counts as storytelling in your comment. It assumes that the wreck itself contains the narrative and that simply being in proximity to it will expose you to all that it *could* offer. Thanks for the comment, Taylor.