“Civil Misbehavior”

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“Civil Misbehavior”

January 20, 2012

There have been few events that so magnificently illustrate the decline in Western mores over the past one hundred years than the contrast between the behavior of Captain Francesco Schettino of the Costa Concordia this week with that of Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic one hundred years ago.

At 11:30PM on April 15, 1912, four days out of Southampton, England, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. Less than three hours later, she disappeared beneath the cold seas of the Atlantic. Within minutes of hitting the iceberg, Captain Smith recognized that the “unsinkable” ship was doomed. He told his officers of the necessity for calmness, so that the evacuation process could proceed orderly. “Women and children first” was the command, and was largely obeyed. Unfortunately, the lifeboat capacity was too small for the number of passengers and crew. Of 2,223 people on board, 1,518 drowned, including the sixty-two year old captain.

In contrast, the scene aboard the Costa Concordia has been described as one of bedlam and panic, with commands being barked in two or three languages, but not in English. Allegedly, Captain Francesco Schettino abandoned his post, either deliberately or, as he claims, because he fell into a lifeboat. Either way, he was discovered on a lifeboat while most of his passengers were still aboard, struggling in the dark. A recording of a conversation between Captain Gregorio De Falco of the coast guard and Captain Schettino (“Chicken of the Sea”, as the New York Post ignominiously called him) is distinctly damaging to the latter – De Falco ordering the captain to return to his post; Schettino whining that it was too dark and too dangerous. The cruise liner struck a rock when Schettino maneuvered the ship with 3,206 passengers and about 1000 crew members aboard, too close to Giglio Island, the second largest island within the Tuscan Archipelago. The island is located between the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas, a few miles from Livorno, on Italy’s northwestern coast.

The two events are evocative of the marked change wrought by the passage of one hundred years. Civilization is fragile. Victor Hanson Davis writes in the current issue of “National Review Online” that the continuation of a civil life “requires respect for the law…individual self-reliance and common codes of behavior and civility.” Manners came naturally to people raised in that earlier time. Fifty years ago, I introduced my then twenty-three year-old girlfriend (now my wife) to my eighty-nine year-old grandfather; he stood when she entered the room. Today, such a response would seem quaint and forced. Small gestures, such as removing one’s hat when entering another’s home, opening doors, pulling out chairs, listening when another is speaking, saying please and thank you, are acts of civility, but more importantly they show respect.

Of course, there is much of that old world that is better gone. Society was far more structured, as the popular British TV series, “Downton Abbey”, so clearly portrays. The “One Percent” was a far more exclusive club than it is today. It was a world in which the young lived as had their grandparents, whether rich or poor, and the expectation was that the process would persist through ensuing generations. In Europe, royal and aristocratic families reigned, as they had for centuries, amassing wealth and enforcing laws to protect it. World War I and then World War II brought an end to that way of life. In the United States, white, Anglo Saxon families dominated business, finance and government. Immigrants were largely ostracized (as are many Mexican immigrants today) and the plight of African Americans was deplorable. Women were treated as second class citizens, not considered capable of exercising a right to vote.

We have come a long way and life is fairer than it was, but we have lost something in the process. There was a code that governed one’s conduct, a code that was embedded from a young age in those of my parent’s and grandparent’s generation. P.G. Wodehouse captured that spirit in the title of one of his greatest novels, The Code of the Woosters. In his recent novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles captures the last death throes of that world in 1938 New York. (Interestingly, the title comes from George Washington, as a teenager, famously transcribing ‘Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior In Company and Conversation’) While acknowledging that there are many who feel that man has lost his moral balance, James Q. Wilson argues that most people have a moral sense, but some of us have chosen to ignore it. “It is,” he writes in the preface to his 1993 classic, The Moral Sense, “as if a person born to appreciate a golden sunset or lovely song had persuaded himself and others that a greasy smear or a clanging gong ought to be enjoyed as much as true beauty.” However, further on he admits that “we may have promoted self-indulgence when we thought we were only endorsing freedom.”

We live in a world where twittering has replaced conversation; where friendship is measured in the number of hits on one’s Facebook page, rather than in the depth of a true relationship; where selfishness is given higher priority than selflessness; where knowledge, which was once stored in volumes, is now measured and stored in gigabytes, petabytes or even in zettabytes. But technology has not necessarily improved all aspects of our lives. The revolution in communication, software and game theory has not improved traffic flows, nor lowered the cost of healthcare, nor has it made our public schools better. Is an airline traveler’s experience at JFK better today than forty years ago at Idlewild? I don’t think so.

If one looks at a photograph of Edward Smith today, it is inconceivable to imagine him either falling or climbing into a lifeboat while hundreds of his passengers remained onboard. It would not have happened. The ship of which he was captain struck an iceberg with the nearest relief vessel more than several hours away. Honor, duty and respect governed his response, which was to save as many women and children as possible, knowing that he and most of the men aboard would perish. It was an attitude that deserves emulation, especially in this day of “me.”

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My wife and I will be in Florida next week where tennis, which for me can never replace skiing ; will be my daily activity; so my TOTD’s will be more sporadic, as they have been this week, with Monday’s Holiday and Tuesday’s evening in Boston.