Lying at the bottom of the problem of history is the question of whether we have any use for the literal truth at all; or whether the literal truth can only ever be meaningful to use in terms of Myth: the great simplifying device, one that allows us to grasp things which in the form of mere detail simply slips through our fingers.

Some of my friends in the broad profession which saves me from the curse of having to write for a living, specializes in business intelligence. And his job in a manner of speaking, is to turn detail into myth; to create insight from terabytes of data. Managers give him a bunch a data and ask him “what does it mean”. The fact that he uses “R” or that I may sometimes have to write code to create this or that visualization is incidental. He wants a Myth, which is not quite the same as data.

Myth gave us a common purpose; a common origin; a sense of brotherhood. I am not sure that we or any other race of sentient creatures can live without a binding story. CS Lewis, who thought about this subject quite a lot truly understood that sometimes it was necessary not to let detail get in the way of the narrative. Lewis saw the need to locate oneself within the Tale, or know one’s place on the Road that goes ever on. There were truths that only came down like fire and were as necessary as bread and wine. He wrote:

The question was no longer to find the one simply true religion among a thousand religions simply false. It was rather, “Where has religion reached its true maturity? Where, if anywhere, have the hints of all Paganism been fulfilled?”

Maybe the only the thing that matters in all the stories of history, whether of the Titanic or the Hood is whether we see in them the “hints” of larger Myth; in the empty boot by the Titanic’s hulk; or in the ship’s bell lying at the bottom of the Denmark Strait find that in every age and clime men still hoped and strove.