Spoilers?

Obsession is a strange, unpredictable thing. What will obsess people tomorrow? Can we learn from the history of what has obsessed people before and what continues to obsess people today?

In 24 days, at the time of writing, the seventh and final Harry Potter novel will be launched onto general sale. Already speculation is rife all over the internet. Which characters will die? Who will turn out to be the good guys we thought were bad, and the bad ones we thought were good? And what if somebody guesses right and spoils the plot?

What a barrowload of nonsense. This business about so-called spoilers is based on a very silly assumption: the notion that a story cannot be enjoyed unless the reader begins it in a state of ignorance about how the plot may turn out. If the fate of the central character or characters is revealed to the reader before he/she reads the book, then there is no point in his/her reading the book.

If the fallacy of that assumption isn't immediately obvious, let's look at its implications, which fall into a kind of sequence.

1. The story will be ruined if I know the end before I start.
2. Aargh - I just read a web 'spoiler' so I know who will die at the end of the book.
3. Therefore, as I know that there is no possibility of enjoyment, I might as well not bother reading the book.

Now if we accept the chain of reasoning above, we must accept that the only purpose of reading the book is to find out what happens at the end. This follows directly from the assertion that there is no point in reading the story if we already know the end. That means, then, that the author need not have bothered writing the hundred thousand or so words that precede the final chapter. Indeed, the last page would do the job on its own.

If you doubt the truth of the above paragraph's conclusion, I agree wholeheartedly with you. But now, neither of us can escape the further conclusion that there is a purpose in the part of the book that comes before the end. I suggest that the reader's enjoyment of a whole novel is diminished only slightly, if at all, by knowing something of the end in advance. So called 'spoilers' are effective only if we allow them to be.

RMS Titanic

Ninety-five years have passed since the Royal Mail Steamship Titanic slid forever beneath the waves of the Atlantic, taking with her some fifteen hundred innocent souls for whom everything had been absolutely normal less than three hours before they died. Titanic's story stands unique among maritime disasters for a bizarre mix of reasons. She was on her first commercial voyage and she was the pride of her fleet, the triumphal flagship of her opulent age. Her passengers placed absolute confidence in her, unable to begin to envisage the shattering disillusionment that lay in wait. She carried the torch of corporate human endeavour; the hopes and aspirations of a humanity riding on the crest of a wave of Victorian and Edwardian progress. But, hurled as she was like an overweight speedboat at dead of night into an ice field of menacing scale, she was cast into a chain of events that her designers could not have foreseen.

Now Titanic sits gracefully at the foot of a gentle slope, some two miles down, off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Her wreck was discovered by Bob Ballard too many years ago for children to remember, and since then she has been the subject of movies, documentaries, books... and an internet newsgroup, alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic.

I have a keen fascination for Titanic and, eager to meet up with like-minded enthusiasts, I started to post on that forum some years ago. And then I stopped. And this is why.

I had thought I would meet (among others) people like me, who wanted to discuss Titanic, talk about what happened to her and those aboard her, learn from one another, and explore the hitherto unexplained. One question that particularly interest me was the attitude displayed by many toward the wreck itself. There is a popular and vocal lobby that would outlaw all invasive exploration of the wreck, out of a sense of 'respect' for those who lost their lives that awful night in 1912. To a point I can see this, but I see also glaring inconsistencies. After a tragic air disaster, with horrific loss of life, do we leave the twisted fragments of the aircraft forever undisturbed on the mountainside, out of 'respect' for the souls who perished? Of course we don't. We clear up the mess and examine the bits of aircraft to establish the cause of the disaster. Even if that means cutting up the aircraft parts.

No-one would seek to stop French and Belgian farmers earning an honest living by ploughing up the battlefields of the First World War. Daily, old ordnance and human remains are brought accidentally and inevitably to the surface, reminding us starkly that any repeat of such insanely wasteful slaughter must at all costs be avoided. Yet no-one claims that the Somme should be declared a no-go area out of 'respect' for the thousands upon thousands of young men who were cut to pieces for nothing at all.

What, then, makes Titanic so different? I believe it has something to do with the seven decades for which she was unseen by humankind. I believe that something in us feels that her re-discovery has spoiled the game. That she was somehow taken from us as a punishment for our human arrogance, and that she now belongs out of the reach of humankind. That by finding her, and by probing her for her secrets, we are somehow not playing fair.

This viewpoint, argued as above, I expounded on alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic, and I was astonished at the result. A significant number of regular correspondents reacted as though they had been personally attacked. Not only did they refuse to contribute constructively to the honest and open discussion I wished to stimulate; they resorted to an ad hominem attack on me as poster. It was popularly agreed (but never rationally argued) that I was a troublemaker who showed no respect for those died aboard Titanic.

After a great deal of pondering I believe I now know what motivated (and probably still motivates) those people to behave as they did. As long-time members of the newsgroup they feel a kind of ownership, not only of Titanic herself but of the enormous emotive aura with which she has come to be suffused. Any kind of rational dissection of the issues risks puncturing the veil of exclusive inward-looking obscurantism, and might just expose the shallow platitudes that abound in that newsgroup for what they are.

I must add that there are also polite, civilized posters on alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic and that I was privileged to converse with more than one of them. But even they failed to come up with any arguable reason why Titanic is different from any other site that has been visited by tragedy. They just declared the issue off limits, claiming that if I couldn't understand the difference then no-one could possibly explain it to me. When pressed, they resorted to ad hominem criticism which sidestepped the point.

The scale of the tragedy of that night is nothing less than colossal. Every one of those passengers and crew was a human being with a face and a smile and a warm hug and a past and love and feelings and loved ones and hopes and fears and problems and successes and anxieties and trivia and... and in the blink of an eye, the crack of steel rivets, the inrush of freezing water, the knives of bitter cold, and the vice of earsplitting pressure as the hull sank, all of that was snuffed out. And the lives of thousands more, the families, the close friends, were devastated beyond hope of redemption. All of that I can understand and perhaps begin, on a tiny scale that is almost an insult to the memory of those involved, to feel.

I resent the attitude of some of those who post on alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic. I resent their muscling-in on the tragic misfortune of Titanic's company. I resent their attempt to superpose their own bored pseudo-emotions onto a real, genuine cataclysm. I resent the implication that the tragedy belongs to them and that any attempt to discuss Titanic rationally is an insult to the departed and, by their own warped logic, an insult to the posters themselves.

So strongly do I feel this that I was moved to pen the following humble verse, in which Titanic's lost souls take up the tale.

Three score and thirteen years we lay
Beneath the ken of mortal soul
Beyond reach, ever locked away
From ev'rything warm, human, whole.

Cruel tragedy of epic scale
'Tis true, that night scarred many a mind,
From old to young came down the tale:
Our wreck, 'neath ocean deep, enshrined.

We stole, as down we fell from view
To crushing, freezing, tearing end,
The lives of those we loved, and who
Without us, cursed to live, remained.

Our lonely land inviolate
For long years cold, dark captive held
Through ages we could only wait
Revered, awed: and yet, expelled.

Somehow, they say, here we belong,
Debarred forever from life's glow.
To visit us would be quite wrong!
Nay, show respect! Leave well alone!

Fewer and fewer, they who knew
The parting torment, pain and grief,
'Til lately, we attract a new
Voyeur: an abstract kind of thief.

In history we took our place
(Though how we suffered, few can know)
Most contemplate that night with grace
But some would claim it for their own.

When once again light shone upon
Our wreck, and human heartbeats came,
These frauds, these do-good hangers-on
Cried, "Stop! We're out to spoil the game!"

Safe hid for years in waters deep
Our wreck, they felt, had now become
In some way theirs, to hold and keep
Apart from life's rich, vibrant hum.

Explorers, so they said, defiled
The sanctity of our repose.
"True caring folk," they coldly smiled,
"Would simply let her decompose."

You self-indulgent pushers-in;
You parasites on what we shared,
Go take a walk! Please pack it in!
You'd come and find us if you cared.

Your only thought is for yourselves
Your halos, polished daily, shine
With smug, complacent tone that tells
The others, "Hands off! Mine, mine, mine!"

Seduced by glam'rous tragedy
You cheaply seek to buy a share
By laying claim, vicariously,
To moral high ground, deep down there.

Perhaps your lives are too bereft
Of real subjects for your tears.
Instead, you hit out, right and left,
At those who would roll back the years.

Come, Ballard, Cameron, everyone!
Pray lighten once again our gloom!
Let us back in! Let us back on
Life's roundabout! We're just like you!

The world should see where we were cast
Against our will for years in tens.
The sanctimonious naysayers last;
First place to those with common sense.

Titanic is a ship no more.
A treasure-house of secrets, she
Is yours to see, touch, feel, explore
She's nothing left for such as we.

We cannot take material things
Where we have gone, nor would we seek
To mar the thrill discovery brings
For one and all, where life still beats.

Possessiveness has no place here.
She's man's creation; man's to use
As he sees fit. We have no fear
Of anything that man might do.

Look long; look well, for quite soon now
The sea will end what she began
In 1912. This crumbling bow
Will merge forever into sand.

Morality?

Richard Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth, retired Bishop of Oxford, talks a good deal of sense about many issues. For instance, he is outspoken on the dangers and evils of the creationist movement currently spreading outward from the United States. However, his anti-euthanasia arguments are unconvincing. Baron Harries accepts that there are circumstances under which a person may wish to die in order to avoid pointless suffering, but he stops short of sanctioning the right of doctors or others to take the life of terminally ill patients who no longer wish to live. First, he objects on the grounds that human autonomy is not as important as the collective wishes of, say, the patient's family. But surely the patient's voice should be heard at least as loudly as the voices of those who are not suffering? And surely, if the family members truly feel for their ailing loved one, they will respect, share and desire to uphold their wish? Otherwise, they would be saying, "Yes, we know you are terminally ill and in terrible pain, but you really must be guided by us and continue to suffer because it's against our principles to pander to human autonomy." Baron Harries doesn't see it this way. Perhaps his morals have been distorted by his theology.

Baron Harries' second objection is related to, although distinct from, his first. He argues that the family could make the sick patient's last few weeks on Earth "a beautiful time" which, were the patient to be dead, they could not share. But from whose perspective is the time beautiful? Surely it is not to escape beauty that the patient wishes to die. Surely the beauty lies only in the minds of the family, who prefer a world in which their loved one is living, to one in which he/she is dead. What arrant selfishness on the part of the family! "OK, our loved one, we know you are suffering terribly but we insist that you continue to do so because we are enjoying our beautiful time with you very much." That would be a very strange kind of love.

Finally Baron Harries makes the point that to dispatch a loved one from the here and now, by helping them to end their life, would be to send them a clear message that their presence in the world is no longer valued. How presumptuous! Surely, refusal to assist the patient in his/her wish to die sends out a much stronger message: "Your wishes, even though you are the one suffering and we are not, are less important than ours, so you'll have to lump it and continue to suffer."

Baron Harries says that his objections to euthanasia are not motivated by religion in the sense that the old argument that "only God can take life" is. But his apparent inability to see the immorality of his own stance begs an explanation. I suggest that the explanation lies in his failure to subject his own morals to critical examination: a failure shared by many religious apologists. I think such people feel something like this: "I am a thoroughly virtuous person, my virtue stemming from my religious beliefs, so I do not need to examine my morals. They must be OK or I wouldn't be a religious person. So I can say whatever I like that sounds reasonable without having to think in depth about it." I think that such a feeling is a very common symptom of a religious mindset.

To be fair to Baron Harries, he adds that palliative care has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years to the extent that fewer and fewer patients find themselves in intolerable agony. Modern pain management regimes and up-to-date hospices have enhanced the quality of life of the terminally ill. But that doesn't alter the perspective of those who still find their lives intolerable and with zero prospects. If palliative care, however marvellous, is failing them, then do they deserve to have matters taken completely out of their hands and placed in the hands of those who value an abstract principle more highly than a person's freedom to choose?

Long live HM the Queen!

Watching Her Majesty the Queen participating in the recent welcoming ceremony at the start of her state visit to the USA this week, I'm reminded of what an integral part of Britishness she is. Although there are some who would abolish the monarchy, the Queen remains hugely popular among her subjects. Her reign is second in length only to that of HM King Bhumiphol Adulyadej of Thailand. Why is the Queen seen as such an indispensable part of the UK's heritage, despite the undoubted expense of maintaining the Royal Family with all their bits and pieces? I believe it's because, in a sense, the monarchy belongs to all of us and is something that binds us all together. The monarchy is a thread of constancy through the turbulence of history. True, there have been some characterful monarchs who have done very questionable things, but our current head of state is such a figurehead of solidity and dependability that the world somehow seems a friendlier place with her than it would without. Yes, that sense of well being that stems from the Queen is an illusion, but it's an illusion shared and enjoyed by so many that it's worth preserving. Long live the Queen! May I propose the Loyal Toast?

Faith: entitled to respect without question?

I've just listened to this piece of trenchant good sense on my iPod. I find myself in complete agreement with Professor Dawkins. If I were to stand up and make not only a series of claims about the universe, but also a series of demands governing the behaviour of those who inhabit it, then I would expect to be called upon to justify my comments through reasoned argument. If I could not provide such justification, or if I simply refused to, then I would expect to be ignored. It is about time we all started applying that principle equitably and universally.

Virginia Tech

The recent awful events at Virgina Tech serve to remind me of the following recurrent thought. At some time or other in our lives we have all been angry enough, albeit fleetingly, to do real harm, given the means of inflicting harm quickly. We might regret our anger a few moments later but had we been armed when the red mist came down, all the regret in the world could not unpull the trigger. If we're unarmed, however, then all we can do is beat our fists on the floor to vent our frustration.

Yes, the massacre at Virginia was brutally premeditated in a sense that my scenario above is not, but the same principle holds. Take away the access to firearms and the tiny minority of crazed social misfits who would visit such senseless destruction on their fellow humans will be forced to join the harmless fist-bangers.