I just finished The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria.  He persuasively argues that unfettered democracy is having a negative effect on constitutional liberties.  Two of his favorite examples are the California Proposition movement that has bankrupted the state and the infestation (my word) of the American Congress by lobbyists.  

This is not new:  tyranny of the majority was a point of concern for Plato.  But Zakaria heaps on generally interesting historical and contemporary facts to bring the point home.

I think at least one is misleading though.  He praises the historical power and responsibility of the Anglo-elites who ran the country like a mostly deserving aristocracy.  He deplores the rising of the unwashed and their distain for elitism and gives an example of dishonest characterization from pop culture.

He says that in the movie Titanic, the rich men are shown pushing and scratching their way to the lifeboats.  Nothing could be further than the truth, he says and this much I think I know independently.  For example John Jay Astor pushed his way to a lifeboat, put his wife on the boat, and then backed away to his certain death.  These were gentleman to the end and when it counted. 

But my daughter had an interesting twist.  She said that the only ‘gentlemen’ depicted in an unflattering light was the bad guy.  All the other first class men did the right thing, as she recalls.  I don’t remember the movie as well as she does, but I do remember the lifeboats being full of women. 

Can anyone corroborate that in the movie, the rich men were mostly depicted accurately and favorably?