The Art of Fixing Blame

 

Almost everyone on Earth knows the fate of the passenger liner Titanic: she struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank with heavy loss of life in the icy northern Atlantic on April 15, 1912. I think part of the continuing fascination with this otherwise open-and-shut case lies in the forensic analysis of the contributing causal factors. Whenever there’s a disaster, it seems, there’s always dozens, hundreds, thousands of narratives that attempt to connect the dots of the factors that led to it.

Take the aforementioned Titanic. The proximate cause of her sinking was the hole torn open in her hull from colliding with the iceberg. The material causes, however, are myriad (for those less familiar with causal analysis, in order for something to qualify as a material cause , it must pass the if-not-for test, as in “if not for Titanic’s rudder being too small, it would have missed the iceberg, and, therefore, not have sunk.”). For example, let’s start asking “why” a few times to see if we can’t isolate a material cause or two. Why did the ship hit the ‘berg? Because her crew recognized the danger too late to turn the ship away. Why did they recognize the danger so late? One possible reason is that the lookouts were not equipped with binoculars. Why not? Because the ship’s purser had been relieved of his duties back in Liverpool, prior to the ship sailing, and took his locker keys with him. The binoculars were in the lockers, but nobody had the keys, so that’s where they remained (and may very well be there to this day). Also contributing to the ship’s inability to navigate around the iceberg was the fact that the sea was extremely calm, and an iceberg is far easier to see at night if there are waves breaking against its base. Additionally, the Titanic was – informally, at least – attempting to break a speed record in her Atlantic crossing, and ships turn more slowly the faster they are going.

Given these facts, can the following be reasonably asserted?

·         If not for the purser being fired prior to the voyage, the lookouts would have had access to binoculars, warned the bridge in time to turn the ship, and the Titanic would not have sunk.

·         If not for the new purser being reluctant to break open the lockers holding the binoculars, the Titanic would not have sunk.

·         If not for the lookouts watching Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet kissing on the foredeck, the Titanic would not have sunk (I just made that up, but there seemed to be at least a hint of this in the movie).

·         If the sea had not been so calm, the Titanic would not have sunk.

·         If the ship could turn sharper at higher speeds, the Titanic would not have sunk.

·         If the ship was not involved in an attempt at record-setting, the Titanic would not have sunk.

This list could go on and on (e.g., let’s say the purser was fired for a trivial reason. If not for the purser’s boss having cold coffee at breakfast, he would have been in a better mood, not fired the purser for trivial reasons, meaning the lookouts would have had access to binoculars, etc., etc. The assertion then becomes, if not for a cook giving the purser’s boss cold coffee, the Titanic would not have sunk.).

When we conduct a forensic analysis of what happened in a project nightmare (finally! Michael’s turning to the October theme!) there’s a distinct danger of swerving away from a legitimate causal analysis, and towards competing narratives. Whenever you hear the expression “historians disagree” about anything, then you are seeing just such an instance of competing narratives, and I have to ask, “why?” Aren’t the facts known? Haven’t the assertions that don’t meet the criterion for being evaluated as facts been tossed out? What are those guys doing hanging around the grassy knoll with their silly-assed pamphlets, then?

Don’t think the exact same thing doesn’t happen whenever a project goes south. People with only the barest grasp of causality analysis, the rules of evidence, or the rules of logic will leap to the forefront with their particular narratives, narratives that serve their own particular interests. The whole “lessons learned” effort then becomes a bitter competition among narratives, dramatically reducing the odds that the true causal factors of any given project disaster become known, much less avoided in the future.

Which is why Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater, single-handedly, sank the Titanic.