Blue Saturday

exactly a year ago, I was running my own business, and had for the first time in my life reached the lower rungs of affluence. It was kinda cool. I'm 42 and what took me so long was a persistent drug problem which I'd finally gained some real control over.

But when I saw that I had enough money saved up that I could afford to do something silly, I stayed dabbling again. I thought I could chip (use moderately/occasionally) but I was wrong.

A year later I am at my mom's. Desperately fighting off a despair which I know will soon overtake me. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I turned on the TV, not to watch anything specific, not even out of boredom, but just to distract myself. I've never done that before

Just wanna say love you guys and hope you are doing OK and if you ever want to communicate privately feel free to get in touch.
I've been reallllly grouchy and depressed the last week or so, based on a lot of things -- money anxiety (my work now is not reliable), house being a complete mess, feel like i have wasted my life, etc. You guys are not alone and while I have no real practical advice, but eating right and getting enough sleep do seem to make a little bit of difference.

seriously be safe and take care of yourselves, anything I can do please reach out.

thanks ian. I wanted to say same to rvw as you've just said. I dunno what else I can do, don't understand why I publicly moan like this either, sometimes just need to spell it out to myself I guess. recognition feels like a good thing - all of us struggling along one way or another.

God bless all here

NV, there's so much we ask ourselves, doubt ourselves on every single day. Lets not make "why do I moan in public" one of them. I mean you're allowed but it's not necessary here, not as a disclaimer of sorts. Spelling it out is good and hard enough already.

Best to all <3

having to do stuff sucks, my mind wants to be free

felt weird about venting itt as it has a bit of a clubbish feel (not that that's anyone's intent, more just a function of who posts here and how often), so thanks for indulging me and for the kind words.

the first post here, with the playlist and the freecell, gets me every time. just perfect

god, watching Morse try to cop off with obvious murder suspects gets more painful the older I get

the memeification of Christmas jumpers can get right tae fuck imo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080dvyc

Sailors, Ships & Stevedores: The Story of British Docks

watched this last night. somewhere in the last 10 minutes there's footage of a docker complaining about decasualization. from memory he says something like "A man...a real man...he'll work, he'll provide for his wife and kids." The idea of better terms, of more stability of employment is an affront to the guy's sense of worth.

a couple of weeks ago I went to see a community play about Lillian Bilocca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Bilocca

Spurred into action by the Hull triple trawler tragedy of 1968 which claimed 58 lives she led a direct action campaign to prevent undermanned trawlers from putting to sea and gathered 10,000 signatures for a petition (the Fishermen's Charter) to Harold Wilson's government to strengthen safety legislation.

not from any ideological conviction but because people were sick of watching their loved ones die because their employers wouldn't spare any money or effort to protect them. this was a few years before the Health and Safety at Work Act, of course. and some local people vilified Lil for this. she got hate mail, threats in the street. newspapers implying she was "in it for the money" somehow. because people were worried that safety measures would mean them losing their jobs, losing the opportunity to maximize their pay. the same objections must have come up against HaSaWA time and again from the exact body of people that law was put in place to protect.

it all makes me think of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists and the way Tressell characterizers most of the workers' disdain and hatred of socialism, organization, rocking the boat. and the way the characters talk in that book, the clippings of folk wisdom they share from local newspapers, aren't caricatures at all - it's the same voices I've heard my dad repeat to me when talking about his work, it's the same tone I've heard throughout my working life.

I know we shouldn't talk about "false consciousness" in 2017 because it's a busted old Leninist notion but if not false then what? a continuous history of accepting your exploitation as long as you're not the most exploited or as long as there's enough in the kitty to stay in the pub all weekend. tiredness and apathy and protecting the present rather than gamble on a future, not just for yourselves but for your "wife and kids". this is Old Labour tbh, before a bunch of 60s Liberals who knew that joining the SDP was for losers forged an alliance and rebranded them. this is the history of the Trade Union movement, more so than communists on Clydeside or the Charge of the Scargill Brigade.

it's patriarchial and parochial and insular and anti...something, not "intellectual", fuck that, but it's anti-thoughtful and anti-love and anti-beauty. it's spun right thru every working class Brit's DNA imo. it's baked into our political system, a loyal opposition, a reasonable, respectable, forelock-tugging mulishness that gets a little bit naughty on bank holidays and works outings.

no shape to this really yet, just dry brain in a wet season. god help us.

church and king mobs in the 18th century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestley_Riots

^^^forget whether this is actually discussed in e.p.thompson's "the making of the english working class" -- i think it slightly predates the period covered but may be mentioned in passing early on

i suspect the phenom as it exists in british culture is bound into the class specifics of the early formation of england as a modern nation (one of the first attempts at the abolition of monarchy; pioneer of the industrial revolution; the layered caste requirements of creating and maintaining the union etc etc)

a further good point is hinted at in the wikipedia article: the fact that the less reactionary fraction is probably the mobile fraction -- the one that moves to the big city, to london, overseas to empire, off to uni and a nice media job in brussels -- and that with this comes a definite (and not entirely unjustified) resentment among the left-behind, as well as an unaddressed self-hatred

angry-young-man-ism and lol oasis are artistic movements that address and deploy these resentments: in both cases almost everyone involved has ended up as a bitter reactionary (obviously not bonehead)

yes, before university and nebulous middle-class careers were a viable route for working class people that mobility just manifested in different ways - criminality or religious dissent, roving mechanics, all of them able to lose themselves and reinvent themselves in the safety of numbers that cities created. and those routes lead to revolutionary politics. last month watching the German Luther biopic I was reminded again (via Luther Blissett's Q) that one of the main forebears of radical politics was radical Protestantism that became atheism, agnosticism, pantheism, whatever you like. and of course so much of that is fighting back against Nobodaddy.

that's the interzone between genuine working and genuine middle class and it leads to distrust from both sides, tho obv the middle class are more accommodating in some ways as long as you don't mind them laughing behind yr back.

what this implies for genuine lol class consciousness I'm never entirely sure tho. hating that refractoriness is like hating a part of myself - which I do! - but also impossible because so much of my deepest values is still rooted there, because it's still a homelier space to me, the only comfortable social space for me if I'm honest. but home is so sad.

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" = Jesus invents false consciousness

the main problem with false consciousness as a concept is the implication that there's a "true consciousness" -- weaponised by an org, this takes you into sc13ntology/swuppie territory distressingly quickly (or so history seems to teach us)

my take: all consciousness is more or less false, and what we have to do is select from its competing areas which is (situationally) the most useful (where the demands of the immediate situation may well conflict with the demands of imagined futures) (the competing areas do adapt to each other, but dynamically more than harmoniously)

mark s' theory of consciousness: it's like a lava lamp balanced on top of a speeding car

no I agree, my crack about Leninism was irritation that the idea that we're fundamentally wrong about our life situations is dismissed. the real problem is precisely what you say - naive dialectic of false/true. funny how I hadn't realised before that Jesus's cross-based remark ties into the idea so neatly tho.

incredible posts, kiu

there was a "cult expert" last night on the radio talking about dead Manson who suddenly got very cultish when somebody asked him if some people might just like being in a cult. "NOOOOO, THEY ARE ALL PROGRAMMED, BLAH BLAH PSYCHOBABBLISH JARGON" went on for several minutes sounding like a slighted guru in a deliciously ironic display of butthurt

this ties into a problem with a lot of the mental health things I've done and read, so much mental health talk seems to rely on having a stable and true version of relating to the world that you're supposed to come back to no matter how much the cult of *e.g. depression* might offer you that's preferable to the supposed cure

This is terrific stuff guys

Cosign on posts

Fear of agitants rocking boat very likely tied to two main things imo

- the idea that as lean a system as possible ito waste is the best way to maximise earnings at the lower levels of manual/risk work. Or rather the suspicion/knowledge that the cost of waste (and for the purposes, waste here can be taken as 'the cost of not maximising the unit output of labour' which is obviously the crux n'est pas) is going to be taken from the wages of piecework in the first instance and the likely return from an attempt at systematic change to address any of this seems a bigger risk than your control over what your own two hands and body can provide for you in the immediate or ongoing future. Something something working class male bodies.

- the suspicion that agitants are just afraid of the level of work needed to prove yourself a real man, as spelled out well by NV in that storming post above. The measure of selfworth as a function of not just income/output but of the proving effect of the toil/risk/will as a thing in itself and the inherently conservative instinct to stay close to what has always worked (fagvo always, fagvo worked, lol) because eh most lads that land in this type of work haven't been encouraged towards thinking by their upbringing and indeed their education system, but they've been given a pride in what has ever been required of their fathers before them and ever shall it be

Son of trawlerman and a trawler family beyond time here btw iirc

there's an immediacy of risk/reward in those kind of jobs and that kind of work - levelling the playing field risks you making less money than you're capable of, that's why piecework is so attractive. but you'd think surely that the very visible spectre of the old and knackered friends and family all around you might give you some pause for thought of your own future. at least racehorses don't watch their broken-legged pals get shot, I assume.

Those old and knackered friends whip you with the legend of their own times and hardiness in this type of culture ime

Man, even 'the sea' is idk.....I've been to these places all over the world and all of these guys are worshipfully fatalistic about the risks that are portrayed as inherent, it's real societal sacrifice shit

true enough, but it wasn't so many years ago when telling those legends would be their only way of grubbing themselves a beer I think.

It's a mesh, is it kidding themselves it was how it had to be, comforting themselves that it's true and just, making sure by god if I had to go through it these little shit have to as well, never did me any harm, who wants to live forever and yeah pay the pot to the grizzly survivor you'll be there yourself some day lad

Ben thatchers britain

"nobody's going to tell me I wasn't master of my own destiny" is probably one of the main underlying thoughts yeah

suddenly reminds me that petty officer evans -- the only one in capt scott's polar party from the lower decks -- had a plan when he returned to open a pub in rhossili (called "the south pole" obv) and end his days as a landlord comfortably being bought pints as he told the relevant stories

in event he was overworked and underfed and first to die and (… takes it to the conspiracy thread… )

Tom Crean!

how much of exploration and the Scott party in particular was "proving yr masculinity by exposing yourself to suicidal risk and effort"? especially from the 20th century onwards where these things weren't really done for material trade benefits

also for some of the working class lads adventure must've felt more enticing than the life they'd otherwise have mapped out for them

Xps Not polar party, withdrawn :)

make yourself a strenuous man!

there was a significant element of prove-you're-not-an-aubrey-beardsley-style decadent, yes

more complicatedly, sir clement markham, scott's mentor -- who had been on an arctic expedition as a young man in search of franklin's bones -- was obsessed with the necessary manliness of never using dogs to pull the sleds: brawny manhauling was the only acceptable way for the empire (also amateurism: amundsen was bad bcz he was a professional explorer)

x-p: tom crean was present at key stages on several of the madder expeditions! heroic but taciturn, saved another evans by a 35-mile one-day solo march across the ice, ended up running a pub i think -- not in the actual polar party, but in the last one sent home

complicatedly bcz markham's tastes ran to brawny young men

how the hell do you people do it? how do you do it?? how is it done????

is there a foreign object in my head that's impairing some essential survival mechanism?

sorry, carry on

:(

i don't know, sometimes the best i can manage is a near-functional blankness, apparently that'll do.

caveat: all i know abt trawlerman culture is (a) in this thread (b) when the boat comes in (c) that old ad that said "gone fishing gone away"

but am guessing it's a culture where, rather than the whims of the factory boss that everyone faces, you are mainly confronting the market directly (if you catch and sell enough, your family eats) -- so that cutting across the shared knowledge and tribulation of the other adversary (the sea), where you feel at one with those who know and disdain for those who don't, there's an intense competitive rivalry... cultural solidarity but not really economic solidarity?

not sure how this extends to docker culture (abt which i also know nothing obv except for on the waterfront)

marcus rediker has argued that the tradition of libertarian constitutionalism began with atlantic pirates: radical individualists by persuasion (they called themselves "masterless men" in an age when this had huge meaning) , they were nevertheless all in it together ("or we all hang separately" etc) and collectively recognised the need to strike up a contract with the pirateship's pirate captain, abt equitable division of spoils and abt restitution

^^^the latter is what the "black spot" is in treasure island: the crew's right to vote out their captain

obviously trawlermen aren't pirates *or* dockers, so i'm not sure where i'm going with this

Heh trawlermen are at least half smugglers, whatever about pirates

another culture i know nothing about, let me generalise some more (i read moonfleet as a kid)

Sexton Ratsey? No it's just the way my trousers are hanging...

Hull trawlermen as I understand it where at the whims of their bosses - they were hired labour on boats owned by a small number of wealthy family companies, and the owners didn't go to sea iirc

but their contracts are renewed on a single-voyage basis? that will also cut into economic solidarity (and is closer to dockers) (at least, the ones in on the waterfront)

oh yeah, the reasons for non-solidarity are clear, tho I think many of them were unionized to some extent

*deletes long speculation abt vikings*

lately get more and more sick of the sound of my own voice even when it's only internal

prefer it when my brain plays instrumentals