OceanGate sub
© Douglas Murray
I ADMIRE bravery. I admire adventurers. And I was brought up in a Britain which admired these things too. But much of our country has changed. Where we used to admire adventure we have become cautious and safety obsessed.

Where we used to admire heroism we now favour moaning and victimhood. Where we once admired success we have come to elevate failure. There could hardly be a clearer demonstration of this ugly shift than in certain responses to the submersible tragedy at the site of the Titanic.

It was confirmed this week that the lives of all five people on board were lost due to a "catastrophic implosion". They included 19-year-old Suleman Dawood and his father. It is unimaginable what his grieving, widowed mother is going through now.

Ordinarily, the people who talk about "kindness" and "compassion" would be kind and compassionate at such a time. But no. Because the people on board the vessel were guilty of a terrible crime; they were rich.

The victims included Hamish Harding, a self-made billionaire from this country. Dawood's father Shahzada was also a successful businessman. You had to be wealthy because places on the sub reportedly cost as much as £200,000. And of course, money like that provokes envy in ugly people.

Sure enough, one of the vilest commentators in Britain promptly leapt on the victims. Self-confessed "communist" and Guardian writer Ash Sarkar, who can frequently be seen on the BBC, lost no time in trying to politicise the tragedy.

Even as hope remained that the men could still be alive, Sarkar took to social media to say: "If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough."

That's quite the reaction. As a teenage Pakistani boy and four others were thought to be struggling for their last breath as oxygen supplies dwindled, this "luxury communist" criticised them for not being taxed more highly.

From where I sit, when someone is dead or dying it never occurs to most decent people to have a discussion about tax policy. But Sarkar and other lefties on social media doubled down on the victim-blaming — something they usually pretend to hate.

"The Titanic submarine is a modern morality tale of what happens when you have too much money, and the grotesque inequality of sympathy, attention and aid for those without it."

The point of this ghoulish communist seemed to be that if the victims had been poor no one would have taken any notice. But similar disasters that have grabbed the world's attention have often involved people with no money at all.

A few years ago the world was on tenterhooks at the story of the Thai boys stuck in a flooded cave. People from around the world — including billionaires — rushed to try to help and, indeed, on that occasion the schoolchildren were saved.

The public's sympathy has nothing to do with wealth. It has everything to do with empathy for people in an unimaginable situation. The idea of running out of oxygen is one of the most basic human fears of all. But bitter people are able to feel bitterness everywhere.

If the victims had all been white then the bitter Left would have attacked them for being white. But as it was they have been attacking them for being rich. For having the money to view the wreck of the Titanic, something plenty of us would have liked the opportunity to do.

If anyone is to blame for the tragedy it is OceanGate, the company in charge of the expedition. But it is not the fault of the victims. And in any case, apart from being rich and successful what exactly were they guilty of? Of being curious. Of wishing to explore the depths of the ocean. Of seeing extraordinary sights and returning to tell people about them. Of putting their lives in the hands of people who they trusted.

They are people to be admired, not attacked. They should be admired for being successful in their lives. And they should be admired for continuing one of the things that is greatest about us as a species.

Which is our quest for knowledge and experience, even when it comes at the most terrible price. A healthy society would admire them.