This was a very interesting book and I enjoyed learning more about the actions of those on the Californian and of the following inquiry. My only objection is the lengthy defense the author gives to the idea that there was no discrimination against third class passengers on the Titanic, that the reasons why so many of them died lay entirely with their own character defects, specifically their passivity in standing back and expecting others to help them instead of taking initiative for their own survival. The author seems to equate ‘discrimination’ with individual conduct, and since the first class men behaved in a brave and selfless manner, it can only be concluded that no discrimination existed or contributed to the relatively high death toll among the steerage passengers.
However, the discrimination that occurred on the titanic was not the personal behavior of first class passengers, but in the assumptions and unquestioned practices that led to marked class differences in access to lifeboats, help in getting to them, and timely access to them. Third class passengers died at a higher rate because that was how the situation was structured. Imagine a situation where a race is organized in which participants are given a limited amount of time to reach the finish line, which contains a limited number of slots in which runners can stand if they reach them first. One group of people starts near the finish line and has no obstacles getting there. A second group starts further back and is held back for a while, but then released after the first group has finished, with no significant obstacles (except women and children first and limited time) to the finish line. A third group is placed way at the back with a complicated maze of corridors that they must navigate with no signage or helpful guides. There are multiple places where they might exit to the finish line, but several of them have guards posted preventing them from advancing until all the runners in the first two groups have completed the race, and only a few lucky people find the exits from the maze that allow them to go right to the finish line while slots are still available. At the time the race is called, most of the first group have finished in time (at least the women and children, who are urged to go ahead of men), some of the second group have, and very few of the third group have. The situation described here is the very definition of discrimination at the system level–the way the race is structured makes things harder for some people and easier for others, and their own personal gumption and initiative have little to do with it. It has nothing to do with whether first class men behaved selflessly or with malice–they (or their women and children) simply benefit from where they start the race and the same is true of the group of people in the back–their greater likelihood of failing to complete the race has nothing to do with their ‘passivity’ as individuals, but is due to the way the race is structured that makes it more difficult for them to finish before the available slots disappear and time is up. I think the rest of the book is thoughtful enough that I’m surprised the author made the argument that he did with regard to this issue.
He does, however, employ a similar argument with regard to his diagnosis of Stanley Lord as a sociopath–he blames his behavior on a personality trait. I agree with the conclusions of the various inquiries and investigations–Lord should have acted but for unclear reasons failed to do so, and all the stuff about mysterious third ships and mysteriously changing coordinates that place the ship 20 miles away is just smoke and mirrors; moreover, when given the chance to come clean and acknowledge responsibility, he instead deflects, obfuscates, blames, and fabricates, even apparently going so far as to alter the ship’s logs for that night, and claim that he had no idea what the white rockets meant–they might have been company signals. I would agree that this is not the behavior of a man who has nothing to hide, and there is certainly nothing inconsistent with a diagnosis of sociopathy, but diagnoses of personality disorders can only be made following careful clinical examination from a qualified clinician. Psychologists and psychiatrists are regularly admonished for armchair diagnoses of public figures they have never actually met, so as readers we should take such diagnoses from an author with an appropriate grain of salt–it might be so, but in the end we can only agree with condemning the visible behavior, and not speculate about its roots in specific personality traits.
All in all, this is a really good book, very informative and I enjoyed listening to it, but all the author’s speculation regarding personality traits of third class passengers (who had a lot of circumstantial reasons for their poorer outcomes) and finally of Stanley Lord (who I agree looks quite guilty of all charges) should be met with appropriate skepticism.