Therapy For News Junkies
24 Jan 2012
Man Overboard?
Is chivalry dead? When the Costa Concordia ran aground, the old code of 'women and children first' was abandoned. What are our current survival priorities, asks Zoe Krupka
When the Costa Concordia ran aground and her captain Francesco Schettino was accused of abandoning his passengers and crew, a long and detailed media conversation about the etiquette of abandoning ship started. As reports came out that not only did the captain take off in a lifeboat, other men took seats in rescue vessels over women and children, the patchy history of naval chivalry and masochistic machismo was put in the spotlight. But what do the lifeboat priorities in this tragedy tell us about who and what we’re trying to save? If the age of chivalry is dead, what does this disaster tell us about our current survival priorities?
As we read and watch outraged reports of the behaviour of the Concordia’s captain and many of his passengers, as we listen to cries that chivalry and civility are dead, how do we understand our fascination with this event and our confusion about what we believe is right action in a time of disaster?
Mary Dejevsky, commenting on the etiquette of the new order as it manifested in the wreck of the Concordia, speculates that women and children first has become fathers first instead. With several passengers recounting how fathers refused to be separated from their children and took lifeboat places ahead of childless women and the elderly, are we witnessing a new code emerging? If fathers are now leaping into lifeboats to be with their children, has the nuclear family become the new priority in our hierarchy of the right to live?
The cry "Women and children first!" was coined during the wreck of the Birkenhead, but it was during the sinking of the Titanic, where more than 1300 men and only 100 women died, that the chivalrous patriarchal principle of men laying down their lives for women and children became part of our general understanding of the unwritten naval code.
I believe we know instinctively that we could all behave as Captain Schettino is alleged to have done. We have all put ourselves first at the expense of another, either to our shame or triumph, on countless occasions. But when we are caught doing this, when it becomes even marginally public, we usually cite a code in our defence, except when our actions will be seen as absolutely indefensible.
In Captain Schettino’s case, he tells us he was pushed into the lifeboat and had no choice but to abandon ship. Whether or not this is true, our vilification shows that he has broken a sacred cultural code. He has been sacrificed as a scapegoat for his sins, and for our own satisfaction that we are somehow exorcising this kind of terrible negligence with our condemnation. We have sacrificed him at the altar of our desperate desire to believe in male protectiveness and inherent leadership.
When the Titanic went down, women were fighting for the right to vote. The self-sacrificial chivalry of the men on board was used effectively against the Suffragette movement, with protesters accused of disrespecting the men who died in the tragedy by their fight for a political voice.
When we are fighting to save lives or defending our own, we often find ourselves fighting for things that have already been lost. When we enact our codes in a time of emergency, there is usually a desperate attempt to save concepts as well as people. It’s in these times of crisis that the ancient codes we still cling to show beneath the skirts of our new and more modern beliefs.
In the case of the Titanic, the age of chivalry was quickly dying. No outrageous gestures could stop the political, social and personal realities of the changes taking place between men and women. Yet it was this code of chivalry that men in their hundreds chose to die for, and this concept that the Titanic has come to represent.
Most of our coded beliefs about the right to life show a bias towards preserving what is most threatened. Like white tigers, the nuclear family is fast disappearing. Unlike white tigers, many don’t see this as a particular tragedy, this peculiar social configuration not having the track record for beauty and grace that the threatened tiger possesses.
In the case of the Costa Concordia, we may be seeing not only the end of chivalry in action, but also a desperate attempt to save the concept of the nuclear family. Like the age of chivalry, the nuclear family is well and truly declining, if not officially dead. And as the reports of fathers prioritising their lives over the lives of single people roll in, I believe we are witnessing a new code, one that once again is an attempt to save what has already died.
"O Captain, my captain", Walt Whitman wrote to the assassinated Abraham Lincoln, referring to him as a father. Schettino is not merely being vilified for abandoning his ship and the written and unwritten laws of his naval duties; he is being vilified as a bad father in a time where the myth of the traditional family has far usurped its presence in the wild.
ABOUT THERAPY FOR NEWS JUNKIES: Why does the news make the news? Why do certain stories gain such traction? Therapy For News Junkies is a regular NM column which looks at why audiences react so vehemently to particular issues. Zoe Krupka is a psychotherapist who uses her knowledge about how we react as individuals to better understand collective responses to the events of the day.
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Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 11:23AM
Interesting topic and point of view - perhaps with everything else in flux the biological facts of parenthood & dependant children have climed to a higher priority? Or maybe thats one of the few principals that men can be certain of these days, that the primal desire to provide for one’s children is unarguable & sacred.
This isn’t to say this is of all people behave ideally, or some of these people were saying anything to get on that lifeboat! But this core instinctual drive is very strong, and weakened social ties and with economies & social services withering, pehaps the instincual tribal values may become more prominent.
Regarding chivalry (vs feminism in all variations, and equality etc) this is an indicator of a modern “want to have my cake and eat it too” paradox - summarised simply as “you can’t be equal AND special”
The early equalitiy concepts were clearer in that regard, recently the “best of both worlds” expectations & practices make it far less clear, and what better time to discuss this than in the line for a lifeboat.
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 2:05PM
Intersting Zoe - raises some more questions -
* What sticks most in my mind about the Titanic is not women and children first - but first class passengers first and let the working class men, women AND children freeze to death…a class issue?
* Perhaps we are seeing a shift in values associated with our much more individualistic society?
* Or perhaps it demonstrates capitalistic values towards competition and proving your “worth”?
* “Coded beliefs”- perhaps spend some time explaining this one - I wonder how much agents of change (such as globalisation, multiculturalism, women entering all areas of the workforce, technology, education/schooling patterns) have blurred or changed traditional roles, values, beliefs systems (that were already coded/hidden to begin with!!).
* Our western culture is all about measurable phenomena, empirical data and all that - what scientific reasoning has contributed to our worlds - what we “know” - the coded/hidden it not so comfortable a concept within this atmosphere. Are we becoming a society unskilled in looking deeper? Such as the Johari window?
* Zoe you expose a particular attitue towards the nuclear family - that it is a myth, what’s this all about?
Thanks Zoe - a very thought provoking read!!
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 2:38PM
From the Hairpin, a poem by Alice Duer Miller (1915)
http://thehairpin.com/2012/01/are-women-people
Chivalry:
It’s treating a woman politely
As long as she isn’t a fright:
It’s guarding the girls who act rightly,
If you can be judge of what’s right;
It’s being—not just, but so pleasant;
It’s tipping while wages are low;
It’s making a beautiful present,
And failing to pay what you owe. Lovely!
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 4:57PM
This was interesting, although I am mistrustful of any psychoanalysis that finishes with an absent father.
I must say fightmumma I agree that class has a lot to say about the Titanic, and also about the Costa Concordia. Through this lens it might well be that the Captain is simply a fatuous twit and his miscreant male passengers a bunch of entitled rich knobs.
Perhaps they were simply convinced that they and their offspring were more important, smarter, better looking and with more potential than any competitors for the seats in the lifeboat.
This all too familiar parental facsism is on display closer to home, and makes me think that the nuclear family is under no threat at all but rather is threatening to undermine any broader sense of community.
What I think is interesting is how cheaply the captain sold himself into ridicule, since he could have done the right thing and survived easily. Surely this and the fact that he drove his ship into a huge rock at speed is evidence that he had a misplaced sense of his self worth compared to his abilities.
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 5:20PM
Well, I don’t get it.
The logic of any of it.
With a sense of trepidation, brought about via the chronic incompetence of Italian Journalism - unionised to the point of a self serving, self protecting guild - no reports of any reasonable leadership on the part of the crew of this ship has passed under my eyes. *
Whereas, in days of yore, it was part of the morality of the crew to hang around til the last passengers were off.
Panic more readily sets in when passengers detect both their ship is in peril and a leaderless rabble, running around in confusion, is supposedly in charge of organising their rescue. This has to be a recipe for panic. And panic can show humans at their lowest.
Zoe, nothing about chivalry in these circumstances is negative.
You and DebCleland point to some kind of imagined relationship between it and the treatment of women as second class citizens. I don’t see it, and you both don’t prove it. The linkage.
I ask, isn’t your “chivalry” in these circumstances, just a sense of decency?
With the chances of falls and accidents accentuated by a rapidly listing ship, and given the especial vulnerability of most women to suffering in such circumstances - and given the time constraints, ought not males make room? To ensure that anyone especially vulnerable, gets first dibs on the first available seats out?
Let’s then look at those inhibited by pregnancy. Chances are, most male contenders for an early lifeboat seat would not be pregnant and in need of more concern.
Surely the damage done to a “typical” woman being thrown about, and finally chucked into the sea, in these circumstances is greater than that of a “typical” male?
Women cannot take falls the way males can take falls. Not all women, and not all males, but, on the whole, this is the practical truth.
That said, I’m sure that in the circumstances of clear leadership, an organised, working ship would have pushed all those who turned up to their numbered lifeboat as they arrived and as the boats were filled, sent them off.
Note, the problem with the Titanic was the lack of an adequate number of lifeboats. A decision had to be made, on the spot, by all those involved, including the captain and crew. And they had to do this - on their first voyage together.
Some decisions, such as those in steerage being left to drown were lamentable. But, under the imminent threat of a terrible death, some of the most powerful folks on the planet chose to die rather than take the place of a woman or child. Whatever your political center, let’s agree, that such a resolution indicates a level of bravery that is not common to all. Same happened with the Birkenhead. Reading this you need to recall that given a free for all, a competition based on physicality, only soldiers would have left the Birkenhead in boats. They chose to stay and make way for those with less chance of survival than them. Like it or not, that’s brave.
It appears to me that it is a low form of argument to diminish the collective and individual bravery of the dead, as they demonstrated themselves to be in remarkable acts of bravery, in circumstances imposed without notice, and needing an immediate and instinctive reaction.
On the whole, I don’t aspire to the instincts shown by many in the latest sea drama. The fact that you do, or seek to justify it, is difficult to understand.
* http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/ships-captain-a-victim-of-fla…
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 5:57PM
Dr D - yes actually I hadn’t thought of it in terms of the current crash - just the Titanics becasue it is so famous - but you raise another possibility - ie attitudes to others according to their social status???
FfromF - I like what you have written here and agree - bravery is bravery, and many brave people die without the fame and recognition that they deserve (I suppose THAT is tragedy). And we could add another * - that of leadership which is itself, quite a social phenomenon. How would a poor leader get to be a captain?
FfromF - are you thinking along the lines that perhaps Zoe sees the contemporary situation with no chivalry as more preferrable to the chivalrous acts and selflessness of other eras such as the Titanic?
DrD - your adjectives are flying freely today!! You obviously also have opinions on the nuclear family? This isn’t an issue I have considered before - except that it also ties in with capitalism and class, opposite of the tribe values of past eras - is that what you’re getting at? Wouldn’t mind a discussion on that one if you’re up to it??!!!! Cheers oh fey one!!
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 6:43PM
Thanks fightmumma and frank. Class was indeed an issue on the titanic, although strangely not as we might expect. More women from third class survived the wreck than men from first class. Men in third class or steerage however fared much worse. And certainly overall more third class passengers died in the tragedy. http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/titanic.html
I have no wish to denigrate bravery, or decency. I wish there was more in evidence here. And I’m not sure what I think about chivalry in general. But I do want us to think about what we’re reacting to when we talk about the end of civility. What do we want? What do we miss?
Posted Tuesday, 24 January 12 at 10:25PM
@fightmumma, thanks for your comments.
I’m not sure I was chasing “fame and recognition” for those who have given up lifeboat seats so that others can live. I think a simple respect is where I was heading. The need to show some level of respect.
And yes, I see your second question as a yes.
@Zoek, all good points. I’m surprised that so many women in steerage survived. This is not what is often written.
Perhaps the most decent thing to do, would be for someone in the design office to insist on the lifeboats being on board and able to be launched.
Reminds me of a local aircraft design that killed many people. Everyone knew at the design stage the horizontal tail surfaces were located incorrectly. No one had the guts to call it and get the budget increased for a redesign.
Many died later. A bit of social/career bravery was needed but not provided.
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 12:43AM
DrD - another thought - class also affects family structure, roles, expectations etc. I remember an interesting read for uni last year about how parents chose their children’s high schools. The determining factors where very different with each class, with different schools attractive for different reasons (working class homes having much more practical priorities such school times and transport fitting in with mothers’ work hours). I wonder if concepts of the nuclear family can still vary?
Posted Thursday, 26 January 12 at 12:34PM
Duty of Care. This is what is owed to the passengers by the Captain and Crew.
They should have been there until the last, organising the orderly abandonment, and rescue efforts. What we did see is a lots of lies (one woman actually telling a group of passengers that nothing is wrong, go back to your cabins!!!) and self-serving. The Captain and Crew deserted the passengers. Nothing less.
As for chivalry, these people are all presumably the cream of society, ones that made themselves, or got rich at the expense of other people, and as such they can not be expected to be other than what they are…utterly selfish and untrustworthy.
There were apparently rare and wonderful exceptions, in both crew and passengers.
In general, I tend to agree that in these days of female liberation, where you are frowned up in opening a door for a woman, the survival of the fittest comes into play as the primary motivation. If we are all equal, other than the infirm, who can say who should go first?
And as I say, the passengers being what they were, personal survival, plus that of their heirs and successors, would have been primary. As has been noted in this group every day, wives and mothers can be replaced all the time for a bit of cash.
It happens!
Bit of possum stirring? Dazza.
Posted Thursday, 26 January 12 at 2:13PM
dazza - cheeky bugger!!
Love this line - “If we are all equal…who can say who should go first?”
What a dilemma!!
Toss a coin and leave it up to kharma!!
Living is a day to day affair.