If Any One Of My Posts Is To Break Containment, Make It This One.

Warwick Reynolds (British, 1880-1926) - Prosperity

𝘼 𝙃𝙪𝙜𝙪𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙩, 𝙤𝙣 𝙎𝙩. 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙬'𝙨 𝘿𝙖𝙮 | 1852

𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣: It depicts a pair of young lovers that has a dramatic twist because the woman, who is Catholic, is attempting to get her beloved, who is Protestant, to wear the white armband declaring allegiance to Catholicism. But, the young man firmly pulls off the armband at the same time that he gently embraces his lover, and stares into her pleading eyes. This incident refers to the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre on August 24, 1572, when around 3,000 French Protestants were murdered in Paris.

𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩: John Everett Millais

No matter how much you dislike your own writing, I promise you it’s better than AI

i'm Zombie i'm almost 30 and i'm famous for having nothing at all to say about anything except what i cannot shut up about

---it/its---

maybe it's just the Radical Rediker talking, but there's something pointed in the way that, say, popular pirate media like Pirates of the Caribbean dilutes the pirate's freedom to "bring me that horizon" as opposed to, say, "plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power" (Bartholomew Roberts).

broadly speaking, most pirates chose the life in order to escape and revenge the hard labour, corporal punishment, overworking, and unequal pay of merchant/navy/privateer ships; or the privations of their sudden unemployment once a war was over, ignored as soon as their ability to die for the state was unneeded. yes, many were thugs, but, consciously political or not, they were responding to a particular, material reality.

the pirate's desired freedom was from the effects of exploitative modes of statehood and capital production. but popular media usually shifts this into a general desire for freedom: freedom to roam, freedom to love (usually merely a cross-class white, heterosexual union), or freedom from the personal pressures of social norms. it's a vague, ahistorical, post-Enlightenment, libertarian ideal rather than a response to a real social and economic situation.

to be clear, this only really applies to specifically the late golden age of piracy, in the first quarter of the 18th century. earlier generations of pirates/buccaneers often displayed nationalist/religious motives, and were lauded, tolerated, or even encouraged by the French and English states for aiding their fights against the Spanish and Portuguese. only the last gasp of age of sail pirates had a truly anti-national energy, and both figured themselves, and were figured by the imperial powers, as the enemies of all nations.

but if we are to valourise the late golden age pirate, at his best, his ideals were for true democracy, and the abolition of nation, hierarchy, and labour exploitation; not "the horizon". he was striking out in response to specific political, social, and economic oppressions, rather than a general individual restlessness, and that reality - and its similarities to our own - are important.

I dunno, I just... have a lot of thoughts about the defanging of piracy in modern media. obviously there were a lot of things bad about them, too, and the level of egalitarianism varied between individual people and ships. but again, if we're going to be valourising them anyway... there were idealists. and they weren't subtle about they wanted.

"I shan't own myself guilty of any murder", said William Fly in 1726. "Our captain and his mate used us barbarously. We poor men can't have justice done us. There is nothing said to our commanders, let them never so much abuse us, and use us like dogs. But the poor sailors --"

one weird dude

A southern right whale. Filmed in Argentina. From Planet Earth III - Coasts (2023).