Me: You’re one of the last ships to go down in the collective memory as a tragic accident.
Titanic: Humph.
Me: If you’d gone your way as planned, finished your journey and grown old, you would have ended up being scrapped just like all the rest. Who would ever mention you then?
Titanic: They would have built even bigger ships. Ones that would have sunk.
The legitimate conclusion of seafaring, the gladly reached port, the serene ocean calm – can be just as deceptive as its opposite derivative, which over the years has changed in meaning. In the ancient world and in medieval times human transgression and the unsolicited usurpation of the divine element were considered an exorbitant breach in conduct. The consequence was quite fittingly called: shipwreck. Shipwreck as an expression of failure on life’s sea journey. From dry land such a failure could well be pursued with a certain sense of gratification: There you are, you see! Took a bad ending – serves them right! Yet as the Enlightenment took hold and Christianity’s symbolism of salvation began to fade, the metaphor of the shipwreck likewise underwent change. Today we no longer have the choice of land or ship; we are definitely on a ship’s deck. Simply stuck onboard for life. The natural element of water is demythologised and freed from the sinister depths, and whether we like it or not the human race is mired in the adventure of what is to come and completely powerless against future sensations and demises. From a philosophical approach the shipwreck remains an image depicting a situation of failure. Nonetheless, and this is entirely new, it is now also the impulse for a possible new beginning; the shipwreck as a clean slate providing the metaphorical framework for pondering over humanity’s most fundamental questions. From the ruins of old ships new ones can be built. And from the perspective of someone drowning, let us take Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, any ship arriving now could mean salvation.
AR
Image: Théodore Géricault: The Raft of the Medusa, Oil on canvas, 1818/19, Musée du Louvre
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