What will not fade into irrelevancy?

As we followed the tragically fascinating news of the search for the missing sub that tried to journey to Titanic, my son and I switched to the topic of Titanic itself. He asked: hundreds of years from now, what will be remembered more: September 11th or Titanic?

I had to think about his question. The events are vastly different; you can’t compare them. But the question was asked. Titanic, I replied. My logic was that September 11th, for all its shock and tragedy, falls into the bucket of “war” type events. There wasn’t a war then, but I put it in the same category as Pearl Harbor. There was a war-type act of aggression. I’m not saying that wars are not shocking, but the entire human history is a collection of war and aggression episodes.

Something is deeply intriguing about the Titanic story. Maybe I am too influenced by pop culture — I am referring to how James Cameron’s movie turned the sinking of Titanic into a pop culture moment. Or maybe I was too absorbed by the news of the missing sub, which again reminded everyone of Titanic. By intriguing, I’m referring to imagining the moments, the cycles of emotions, and the decisions the Titanic passengers went through as the ship began to sink in the middle of the cold and dark ocean. Some managed to survive through privilege, luck, or because they reacted quickly. There was no war, no aggression. It was an unexpected catastrophe during a peaceful night. Something mighty, man-built, collided with nature, as mighty, in the middle of nowhere.