Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron - sustainability message and parable of humankind

I love James Cameron's "final word". Just stumbled onto this - the others of the family were watching the final fate of the Titanic, and then James Cameron closed with this - watch from about 4 minutes on.


But I've typed up every word, anyways.

James Cameron:

"I've been working on Titanic for nearly 20 years. I planned this investigation to be my final word. It's time for me to pass the baton, and move on to some new challenges.

"But I'll never stop thinking about Titanic. For me it's so much more than simply an exercise in forensic archaeology. Part of the Titanic parable is of arrogance, of hubris, of this sense that we're too big to fail. Well, where have we heard that one before?

"There was this big machine, this human system that was pushing forward with so much momentum that it couldn't turn, it couldn't stop in time to avert a disaster. And that's what we have right now.

"Within that human system on board that ship, if you want to make it a microcosm for the world, you have different classes - you know you've got first class, second class, third class. Well, in our world right now you've got developed nations and undeveloped nations. You've got the starving millions who are going to be the ones most effected by the next iceberg that we hit - which is going to be climate change. We can see that iceberg ahead of us right now, but we can't turn. We can't turn because of the momentum of the system: political momentum, business momentum. There are too many people making money out the system the way the system works right now. And those people, you know, frankly have their hands on the levers of power and aren't ready to let'em go. Until they do, we're not going to be able to turn to miss that iceberg and we're going to hit it. When we hit it, the rich are still going to be able to get their access to food, to arable land, to water and so on, it's going to be the poor, it's going to be the steerage that are going to be impacted and it was the same with Titanic.

"And I think that's why this story will always fascinate people, because it's a perfect little encapsulation of the world and all social spectrum; but until our lives are really put at risk, the moment of truth, we don't know what we would do.

"And that's my final word."


By the way, I just realized who James Cameron is. I knew that Avatar contained an amazing message - but I didn't know that James Cameron had written it until recently. I really appreciate his wisdom, and clarity. Thank-you, James.