Blue Saturday

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

Dream baby dream

True story, I couldn't open this thread in zing for like months.

I'm in the weirdest mood, like I actually feel good (if drunk, which is in itself bad, for me) but also --1

Haha I fell asleep before I could finish articulating what I meant, nm

yeah I didn't really know how to respond I was half asleep when I read it

I dunno I mean -1 seems fair enough to me

here are the young men the grapes on their shoulders

had a real urge to nail myself to something today, then spent a while thinking about what substances might kill me quietly and painlessly, then thought about going back to the pub, then made a sandwich and turned the central heating on, then chatted shit on the internet

of all of the little tricks and rituals to help survive being alive, possibly my #1 is don't listen to decades, ever

i wasn't! i just thought of the grapes thing.

i once told a woman i really loved that the reason i was chirpier than her was because i listened to reggae and not Lou Reed first thing in the morning but

there's definitely something to that. maybe i can rig finally by cece peniston to be my alarm

Best alarm song is Si Begg’s “River” feat. Jinadu from The Director’s Cut (2003)

i listened to decades : /

all I wanna do is cocoon myself in the house and meditate on sadness and pointlessness but I'm still not going down the Joy Div route :)

promised myself I was gonna stop posting, there's the first failure of the day

https://www.whsmith.co.uk/pws/client/images/catalogue/products/9781/47/3627345/xlarge/9781473627345_1.jpg

Armstrong and Osman, kings of looking like smug wankers while wearing shirts and jackets without ties.

If I could pull off that look, I'd be the CEO of a second tier tech company.

never stop posting iirc

http://memegenerator.net/img/images/5103481.jpg
"Always... Be... Cposting..."

Finally, they come along
The weight upon their shoulders, it just can't be wrong
If you'd only seen, the trauma and degeneration
I just can't describe it, oh no no

Finally it has happened to me, door slammed right in my face
My heart's lost forever