Cheap thrills are dear at the price

The other day Boris Johnson wrote a glowing panegyric for the ill-fated crew of the Titan submersible. The article was long, but its title cum lead paragraph really said everything Mr Johnson had to say on the matter:

“Lefties sneer. But those brave souls on the submarine died in a cause – pushing out the frontiers of human knowledge – that’s typically British and fills me with pride.”

This isn’t journalism. It’s an election leaflet that says nothing about the Titan catastrophe, while saying a lot about the route back to politics Johnson is charting for himself.

The salient points are instantly obvious: Johnson isn’t a leftie because lefties sneer at the tragedy and Johnson doesn’t. Neither is he a reactionary – he is all in favour of pushing back those proverbial frontiers. But he is a patriot, which is why he proudly if vicariously participates in any great feat accomplished by the British. In fact, accomplishing such feats is a typical trait of the British and, by association, Johnson. Ergo, vote for Johnson the next chance you get.

Now, I’m not a leftie either, but that’s not why I don’t sneer at Titan’s deaths. Actually, I’m not sure such sneering has a political dimension to it at all. This is about basic decency, not politics.

Yet at the same time I resent the implication that anyone who finds anything wrong with the Titan expedition is tarred with the leftie brush. I know it’s hard for a politician to see the world as anything other than partisan confrontations, but it’s possible for a man to disagree with Johnson and still remain conservative.

Moreover, I’d go so far as to suggest that disagreeing with Mr Johnson on most subjects, including this one, is an essential qualification for a conservative. One characteristic of that breed is the imperative to think before speaking or writing. Yet Mr Johnson treats that requirement with cold disregard.   

First, exploration that pushes out the frontiers of human knowledge isn’t typically British. It’s typically human, and I can prove it with just a list of names: Ericson, Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, Magellan, Diaz, Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama, Amundsen, Nansen, Peary – to say nothing of Neil Armstrong.

None of them was British, though all of them were true explorers. Hamish Harding and his friends weren’t. They were adventurous tourists in pursuit of an adrenaline rush, which to me betokens a certain paucity of inner resources.

That’s not how Johnson sees them: “Hamish Harding and his fellows were trying to take a new step for humanity, to popularise undersea travel, to democratise the ocean floor.”

Considering that a seat on Titan cost the best part of £200,000, this democracy is more Athenian than British. If we want to designate those fellows with a Greek word, plutocracy comes to mind more readily.

They weren’t archaeologists, oceanographers or marine biologists. They were holiday-makers looking for exciting action, not a way to expand the boundaries of human knowledge. As to undersea travel, there is no need to popularise it – it’s already quite popular among certain groups, namely smugglers.

They have been using submarines for ages, for example to transport contraband to places like Panama and then on to North America. There aren’t too many eagle-eyed customs officers down below, which offers endless possibilities for pushing out the frontiers of human greed.

Other than that, I don’t see any obvious advantages to travelling undersea, especially since oversea traffic is never particularly heavy. One doesn’t see too many jams in the Atlantic.

As to travelling undersea in a craft like Titan, that undertaking smacked of a suicide mission. The submersible hadn’t been properly tested and certified, and some of its parts were off-the-shelf trinkets purchasable at any DIY store.

Some real experts had issued dire warnings, saying that Titan was unsafe. That didn’t deter those extreme tourists: mortal danger injects even more adrenaline into the bloodstream, which is the whole point.

Many years ago I saw a poster saying: “Noah’s Ark was built by an amateur. The Titanic was built by a professional.” Titan was built by professionals too, but those who were as lackadaisical about fine detail as the designers of the Titanic. But to make matters worse, Titan was crewed by amateurs, and not by real explorers.

They were reckless, but this is a particular type of recklessness. It’s a trademark of blasé men who have made a lot of money and don’t quite know how to extract maximum pleasure out of their wealth.

I’ve met many such self-made men, and the impression is they are never quite finished. That’s understandable: making a fortune in today’s world involves such single-minded focus of one’s mind and energy that there is nothing left to develop faculties like spirit, culture and intellect.

However, once the purpose of one’s life has been achieved, the adrenalin reservoir gets depleted and needs to be replenished. Rather than rejoicing about having plenty of time to enjoy spiritual and cultural pursuits, the nouveau-riche acutely senses a deep void.

He needs to do something with his time, and not just any old thing. He needs his adrenalin fix that making money used to provide, but spending it in any ordinary ways doesn’t. Hence he climbs Mount Everest, flies into space or dives 2.5 miles deep in a jerry-built craft.

Like an addict he needs ever greater doses of the drug – and like a real addict he doesn’t stop to think about the dangers involved. Getting that fix is all that matters.

Not being a leftie, I don’t think people should be prevented from harming themselves, provided they don’t harm anyone else. Nor do I begrudge them their wealth – on the contrary, I congratulate them for it. And when they kill themselves, I don’t sneer – I pray for their souls.

Yet neither do I admire them, nor feel pride if they happen to be British. In fact, I’d rather they were more careful about preserving God’s generous gift to us: life. And more devoted to cultivating the faculties of mind and spirit that are the greatest parts of that gift.

The crew of Titan, RIP

P.S. Here’s something else for Boris Johnson to be proud about: British cultural influence on the world. One sees all over France posters for the movement to abolish police. The movement is called 1312, and one has to be a particularly perverse collector of slang to figure out why.

The fact is that many British criminals have tattooed on their four knuckles the letters ACAB, which stands for All Cops Are Bastards. If you assign their alphabetical numbers to those letters, you get 1312.

That’s what I call cultural colonialism, and my French friends ought to be proud of their countrymen’s multilingual adroitness. One only wishes it were applied to a worthier end.