X. The Age of Arrogance

At the turn of the twentieth century, Victorian industrialists seemed invincibly in command of everything but themselves. Sad to say, in their smug little world of wealth and success, their self-satisfaction seemed justified by the triumphs of technology. It seemed that the adaptive genius of inventors and the application of reason to the material world by engineers and scientists had indeed brought the progress enlightened dreamers had foreseen. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, there appeared to be no limit to what technology could accomplish. The telephone, electric light, airplane and the rich man's newest toy—the horseless carriage—all seemed triumphs over nature. The physical world was viewed primarily as a source of gratification for anyone with the power and inclination to avail himself of its riches.

Unfortunately, the arrogance inherent in this "We can do anything" attitude came to characterize the general stupidity of our age and contributed to the monumental problems we have created for ourselves. While blatant aggression and exploitation of human resources and the natural environment comprise the most obvious of these in our century, they are in turn based on our fundamental inability to control the technology we have come to worship and ourselves, in whom we persistently believe. Until we find proper places for people and nature in the equation "Technology =progress", we will continue to pay the price for the arrogance which flaws the Western psyche and characterizes the official attitude of the Establishment. In fact, early in this century, even the most reverent believer in the invincibility of industrial technology should have learned from the fate of the Titanic that all our mechanical skill could not guarantee human safety when coupled with a vainglorious disrespect for nature.

Nothing serves better to symbolize our pompous belief in both our technology and ourselves than the voyage of that ill-stared ship of death. It was the biggest, fastest and most luxurious ship built, and best of all, it was unsinkable. Obviously, Captain E. J. Smith had nothing to fear from petty things like icebergs, of which he had been warned, so on the foggy night of April 14, 1912, it was full speed ahead at a reckless twenty-two knots. After all, if there were a collision, the iceberg would be more likely to sink than the Titanic, or so everyone believed.

As it turned out, the Titanic had actually been built to sink. The allegedly watertight compartments had been left open at the top so when six bow compartments filled up after the fated collision, the ship was pulled downward to such a degree that water spilled over into the seventh and then the eighth and so on. Naturally, there were not enough lifeboats on board, as they had been considered superfluous on an unsinkable ship so more than fifteen hundred souls perished that night. This was a large number for a single, totally unnecessary tragedy but a small sacrifice to arrogance as measured by later standards in a century of unnecessary tragedies.

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