Hello again, Mike.
The problem with all of this is that those who cannot visualise a described event and cannot come up with a logical reason for it based on a realistic construction of that event, go public with a personal version of it. For this reason, many individuals in this story have unfairly and illogically been branded as liars, fools. idiots and even irresponsible
criminals. I am most aggravated by the reasons for publishing such inaccuracies based on individual Eureka! moments, all of which purport to be historical truth.
For a person to tell anything but the truth, that person has to have had a motive for doing so. The following motives were developed by arguably, one of the most knowledgeable person on the subject - Dr. Paul Ekman. Here are his 9 most frequent reasons for lying. I highlight the relevant ones in red and offer reasons for doing so.
"1. To avoid being punished. This is the most frequently mentioned motivation for telling lies.
It’s important to note that there were no significant differences for lies told to avoid punishment for a purposeful misdeed versus an honest mistake.
2. To obtain a reward not otherwise readily obtainable.
3. To protect another person from being punished.
4. To protect oneself from the threat of physical harm.
5. To win the admiration of others.
6. To get out of an awkward social situation.
7. To avoid embarrassment.
8. To maintain privacy without notifying others of that intention.
9. To exercise power over others by controlling the information the target has. "
With regard to
Titanic crew,
passengers and the rank and file crew witnesses from other vessels, we can eliminate reasons ,3,4,6.7.8 & 9 from the above list.
We know that certain crew members received payment form their stories so parts of the contents of such stories should be viewed with suspicion. There is therefore verification of motives 2 & 5 .
However, there was and remains to this day, an unusual aspect about a ship crew member witness which amateur historians ignore at their peril.
As by the very nature of their employment, a ship crew member rarely is alone when performing his duty. Consequently, unless he knows that all possible witnesses to an event have perished before he steps into the witness box, the following facts will govern the veracity of his answers:
A: No way he can be sure that the incident he is describing was, unknown to him, witnessed by another crew member.
B: A second witness to the same event may be called and subsequently demolish his lie.
Unless a positively identified "purposeful misdeed" was discovered, the only crew members who were likely to be punished were Certificated Officers. We have no firm evidence from them or others of any form of misdeed.
