Empty Seats

One hundred years ago yesterday, the "unsinkable" ship sank. Around midnight, the Titanic scraped up against an iceberg, shredding the side of the ship. The passengers didn't worry. They had no reason to. The ship was unsinkable; they had been guaranteed. Thirty minutes later, they weren't so sure. The ship was slowly dipping lower into the water, especially on one end. They began to panic and soon found out that the ship was sinking, and the crew had known for an hour. Those who believed it began storming the deck, fighting to get into one of the few lifeboats that were being lowered, half full, into the water. Many people were forced to stay on the ship until its last seconds above the icy water below. Are those people, as they stand on the deck of the boat with the water rushing around their feet watching the upper class ride to safety, required, or even capable of forgivness. Where is the line drawn? The Bible says to always forgive, but one who watched half filled life boats coast over the horizon before they were drawn into their icy death, would they be able to forgive any one of them? When thinking about forgivness, it is easy to say 'yes, one must always forgive' but when placed in context, its not really that easy. In this situation, forgivness would have definately been hard, maybe impossible. As one sinks beneath the water, loosing feeling in their extremities and feeling their heartbeats slow, seeing many seats in the lifeboats, each a way they could have survived, float away in the distance, forgivness, should be, but might not be an option.

The Dark Side of Superman

"The superhuman asking a subhuman for something superhuman..." is teh explanation that Arthur gave Simon when Arthur learned of Simon's experience, and Simon bought it. This depicts two things. First, the Jews opinions of themselves. A subhuman is defined as a lesser human or someone who is not quite human. The Jews see themselves as not important, or not even quite human, because that is what they have been fed their whole lives.

The second thing is the comparison that it makes. The Jews see themselves as dirt. They have even fallen into the brainwash just a little, and they view the German's, ironically, as superhumans. Usually superman carried a good connotation of a flying man in blue tights, but here it is a reference to the power they have, but use in the wrong way. the Germans are "super human" because there is not way for the Jews to stop them. The Jews are subhumans because they are looked down upon, almost to the point that they aren't even considered humans.

We like to think that this mindset is one of the past, but it has reoccurred multiple times in history. The American civil war was for the rights of the time's "subhumans". Even now there are cases of extreme racism where one group thinks of themselves a better than the other. It is even as minor as the "populars" discriminating against the "geeks", or the "rich" against the "poor". So, it comes down the the eyes of the person, are "super humans" really the super people? Or are the subhumans through "superhuman" tasks becoming the "supermen".