Top Gun, Punch Ups, Management, Ukraine and Christ.
It is my birthday today. It is one of many that I have spent at sea, away from my family, friends, wife and children. It is a painful aspect of the job and one that honestly does not bother me as much as I thought it would before going to sea. I haven’t missed any of my children’s birthdays yet, but that will come soon. That will really be a sad day.
Staying in touch with family by video call is much cheaper and better now than it ever has been, in the 19 or so years that I’ve been doing trips at sea (on and off). This is how I choose to make a living at the moment, and I am not complaining. Although when I see my children piled on top of my wife on my little phone screen, fighting for hugs and attention, it does underline the total inadequacy of the virtual life. The transhumanist freaks and Metaverse aficionados clearly have no love in their lives, if they think this is a desirable way to be.
Please do not take physical contact with your loved ones for granted. Our nation-state may now have established a precedent whereby they can criminalise the act of touch, for any reason it deems fit. Whether you consent to it or not. I lost two family members to NHS bureaucratic decision-making in the last two years. One I was very close to and was falsely scare-mongered out of saying goodbye to. Even by video call. The joys of the modern world, eh?
Our ship has not been very busy this week, so despite having a lot of fun driving during days at sea, we’ve had lots of nights in port. I managed to get up the road and watch Top Gun: Maverick at the cinema, which was quite an experience.
For a Scientologist, Tom Cruise sure likes to play a Christ-like character. I counted at least three not-so-subtle moments of resurrection. The living ghost of his deceased wingman ‘Goose’, resurrected by his son ‘Rooster’. You can’t miss him. He’s the only one with a moustache and dressed in his dad’s exact clothing from the 1980s. The moment when we believe that Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell is dead does give us the classic ‘son-becomes-the-father’ resurrection. As Rooster takes command of the team, this resurrection of the spirit of the father moment is short-lived. We see very soon after it that ‘Mav’ is still alive. The two then pair up to resurrect an old F-14 fighter jet (with a symbolic lack of radar and communication equipment), before the ‘we still kill the old way’ routine plays out.
The reason to see this film is simply to enjoy the nostalgia, and the reason to see it at a cinema is to enjoy the aerial stunt scenes with speakers so loud that the floor shakes and feel the engine roar in your stomach. Aside from that, you don’t have to pay much attention. The plot is predictable, which is exactly as it should be for a film of this type. It was admittedly cheese flavoured, but brilliant. Although it is worth examining the propaganda element of such cultural phenomena as Top Gun, lest we be tempted to worship power because of impressive art.
I recall the few flying lessons I had in light aeroplanes and a helicopter in the Royal Navy Reserve. I was not cut out to be a pilot that is for sure. But if you can’t appreciate the awesome gift of aviation, that America bestowed upon the world, then you’re probably not being honest with yourself. Breaking the sound barrier is still really cool.
As a libertarian, it is impossible to watch a film like the new Top Gun without noticing the propaganda element. The conflation of the self-sacrificing Christ-like hero, with a man who serves not morality or truth, but a corporation. In this case, the reified US Navy, ultimately the nation. The Navy orders a strike on an unnamed, faceless, anonymous enemy. The snowy climate and the ex-soviet attack helicopter do have a sort of ‘Ukraine/Russia’ vibe, although great care is taken never to say so out loud.
However, military heroes are not Christ-like all the way. Maverick is not a carpenter. Although he apparently can perform maintenance on his aircraft, he builds nothing. His ‘sacrifice’ of being married to the Navy prevents him from being a father. The fact that his commanding officers actually admire him for destroying multi-million dollar aircraft without a second thought shows a staggering contempt for the taxpayer.
The equation of masculinity with the skills of courage, high achievement within an organisation, hard work and competence are seductive. They seem self evidently admirable virtues. But does Maverick ever disagree with the mission? Would he ever have the courage to fundamentally disagree with the target? How many dimensions does his competence have?
Air shows are displays of a level of specialised competence that can be jaw-dropping. In contrast, during my flying lessons, my instructor punched me and rattled my head off the canopy, before snatching the controls away from me. My aptitude for flying without instruments (that day’s lesson), was possibly as close to zero as he’d ever seen. No matter. I had a lot of fun and a deep appreciation for the military. But I couldn’t ever square my conscience with the idea that ‘my team is always good’. That is a category error in my book. Something I decided I couldn’t live with, when I abandoned my dreams of going Military, instead of Merchant.
‘Mav’ is a four-ring Captain by now. His epaulettes carry a rank slide that looks much like my own. The open shirt collars that lay flat are such an American idea of what a uniform should look like, that when I worked for an American-owned cruise line it was a genuinely bizarre feeling to wear one. A collar is reminiscent of slavery, symbolically diminished by this freedom-loving mode of dress. Yet, in a contradictory manner, the US Navy use the collar to display rank and specialisation. Like a codified priestly class.
The naval cap covers the brow, to prevent people from seeing the officers’ emotions naturally expressed there. The air of a laconic unflinching psychopath is the intended look for military fashion devices everywhere. The yellow and black rank slides are a universal symbol of danger. Genetic memories of bee-stings and tiger stripes ensure an uneasy feeling in the gut when speaking to a senior Naval Officer. The pure and brilliant whiteness of a clean naval dress uniform, sometimes embellished with gold braid on the rank slides, is an indicator of access to superior wealth and status to the general population or lower ranks. White cloth is more expensive to maintain. There is a code in every element of the dress, which makes those who can read it feel part of a greater whole. A priestly class of power-wielding warriors. And one that excludes outsiders.
The US Navy uniform speaks volumes. Not just an excuse to show how incredibly well Tom Cruise has aged, in particular contrast to poor Val Kilmer, a throat cancer survivor. But rather, a way to show that if you join the state and the warrior class, you too will be attractive and share in their authority.
I don’t wear uniform anymore. The British Merchant Navy is to the US Navy, as Red Dwarf is to Star Trek. We don’t take ourselves so seriously as all that, but we have our adventures, nonetheless.
I loved many things about the military but decided not to commit to that path full-time when I left university. On a cargo ship, I don’t have to wear any indication of my rank. Indeed, if I needed a uniform to instruct people as to my rank or competence, I would be ridiculed. In the Merchant fleet, your displays of competence are your only authority. Leadership is different here.
My wife and I met on a cruise ship, where I did wear the uniform. But I think my wife considers me to be much more masculine now than I ever was then.
Top tips for improving masculinity:
- Buy tools and learn to use them
- never shrink from an argument
- control yourself
- defend the weak
- serve your family
Masculinity certainly requires courage. Courage can take many forms. Sometimes it has required me not to walk away from a fist fight between my crew but put myself right in the middle of them and have it out. Sometimes it means telling my superintendent, the coastguard, the port, the client and my entire team that they are wrong and standing my ground. Sometimes it means following your degenerate, alcoholic, gambling-addicted, 25 stone, adulterous, suspected sex-offender of an officer around the town at night to make sure he doesn’t rape anyone. Sometimes it means gathering evidence and appealing to authorities, including the US Navy and NCIS. Sometimes it means saying no, sir, I will not do that.
But there are many different types of courage, equally masculine. The courage to have a baby with your wife and commit to bringing it into the world whether that baby is born disabled or not. The courage to make sales calls and be rejected 100 times per day, so you can provide a few bucks for your family. Courage can mean having the guts to have people make fun of you, as you try to build and create a business, or try and learn new skills at an old age.
Courage can mean being a dreamer, as well as a killer. The ability to do violent things, with or without high-tech aircraft, is only virtuous if that violence is aimed in a virtuous direction. You don’t get to do violence, because your team are the good guys. There is no such thing as the ‘good guys’, outside of the movies. Every action carries with it the opportunity cost of greater good or greater evil. Movies like Top Gun do not encourage us to contemplate such things as weighing the morality of an action. The movie’s most repeated phrase is the chillingly Gestapo-like ‘don’t think, just do’.
Masculinity is about becoming a provider and a protector. What example of masculinity do we have in the life of Jesus Christ? That man paid his tax to Caesar, but he did not toil for Caesar’s coins. He was a self-employed carpenter. A profession of problem-solving and building custom solutions. He was a master of water and fishing. He built things and never worried about failing to provide for people. He was confident and unafraid to challenge authority when speaking the truth. A universalist. Not a tribalist.
The human propensity to equate the will of the collective with virtue itself is one of the key ideas of the cultural moment we find ourselves in. From climate to covid, the idea that consensus equals truth is constantly repeated in our media and fiction.
As Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov taught us, one of the key methods in propagandisation is to conflate your message with a simple and irrefutable truth (or assumed truth), thereby making debate impossible. For example: ‘Vaccines are safe’ is a generalised comment, virtually incontestable in polite society. ‘These vaccines are safe’, is an entirely different statement, and one carefully avoided by many in the political class, in the early days of the Jabber Gibberish. As the KGB knew, once the population internalise something as a virtue, they will never change their mind back.
The cinema itself was speaking this language of conformity. Pride flags hung from every available surface. The bathrooms indicated superhero status, without any chance of misgendering me by assuming my mode of dress. The men’s room had tampons in it.
In case I would dare to have an opinion or object to the presence of tampons in the men’s room, a helpfully passive-aggressive sign informed me that the tampons were for poor people whose wives and girlfriends may not be able to afford such luxuries. It pre-emptively informed me that if I didn’t want tampons in the men’s bathroom, I was wrong.
I wondered what kind of person can spend £10 to go see a movie, but can’t afford a tampon for his wife?
My very wise Jewish father-in-law always reminds me to save some anger for when I’m an old man. He worries I’ll have none left by then, the way I look at the world. I feel indefatigable in this moment.
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Birthdays are always a time for reflection. In my 37th year on this earth, I have so much to be grateful for. Not least the recent surge of appreciation and support from you, my dear Sub stack subscriber!
The hundreds of new subscribers and thousands of kind people who’ve been sharing my work this week may now be wondering what they’ve signed up for?
Allow me to explain myself. I am not here to cover the news, although I might do that later. (Things like the UK government’s new Maritime Recovery Road Map, so shockingly details how our current fascist paradigm of public spending/private profits, and totalitarian agenda setting works, that I may soon have to start covering these items.) I am currently working at sea, as a licensed Merchant Navy Captain, or ‘Master Mariner’. I’m a 500-tonner, and I’ve been ashore for about 6 years in government and publishing, so I’m basically a ‘baby captain’. Although, as I now finish up my fourth trip as skipper, my imposter syndrome is almost entirely gone.
I have committed to writing about whatever is bothering me about the world, once per week on a Sunday. This is a minimum commitment. As a contractor offshore, a small business owner and a father of three children, it is difficult to produce more than this, but I may occasionally produce more. Please let me know if I’m bothering you. Equally, let me know if you want more on a particular train of thought.
I do not write from a position of authority. My journey through life, becoming a sailor, a husband, a father, a Christian and a captain has given me a perspective on my relationship to authority that I hope to explain and share with people as best as I can.
As a professional navigator, the works of Jordan Peterson have massively influenced me. I hope that influence will shine through in my nautical metaphors, over time.
I think understanding our relationship to truth, and authority are the keys to becoming a better leader, at work and in your personal life.
The last two years have taught me that the lessons of the life of Jesus Christ are worth examining, sometimes daily, in order to understand the world we now live in. I believe that God is the personification of absolute truth, and I am trying hard to understand my relationship to the word and to that truth. In the same way that Jesus spoke in parables, I believe that anyone can look at the little things in their own life to infer and extrapolate powerful guiding principles from the smallest events. Principles that transcend time and space, and elevate our lives, if we can live by them.
As a sea captain, in the pseudo-military world of the Merchant Navy, we are taught always to challenge authority and assumptions from people of any rank. We are taught to question every order, from day one. We deal with danger every day and face risks of poisoning, drowning, asphyxiation, crushing injuries, hypothermia, fire, explosion, piracy, armed robbery, murder, sexual assault, collision, groundings, storms, and falling from height to our death on steel surfaces. If we follow improper orders without question, we can die in a moment, and it is no good appealing to authority when it is too late.
We learn how and when to exercise our own judgement and authority. And taking responsibility for everything that is within your view, and recognising that all things are important, is the principle that leads you to be able to take command. And in command, we aim to decentralise authority.
It is something that I have struggled to learn well, and I hope to share what little wisdom I’ve managed to scrape together in my time on this earth.
That wisdom has been added to by years of exposure to working around the world in different cultures. By travelling as a working man, and interfacing with governments worldwide, not as a tourist. By living in the USA. By marrying into a Jewish family. By reading and understanding the intertwined history of Scotland, and the people of the American South. By debating philosophy with many a Filipino or Indian crew mate on those long midnight to 4 am watches while crossing the oceans.
I have sailed with so many Ukrainian and Russian shipmates over the years, that the current war in Ukraine has been on my radar since the original incursion in 2014. When I read articles in the Spectator about what heroes of the West are Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania or Alex Rodnyansky of Ukraine are for antagonising China, or trying to introduce UBI to Ukraine, I just go and speak to my Russia/Ukrainian and Lithuanian crew mates. They give me all the details about how these guys are KGB descendants, how many times the mafia has tried to kill them, etc.
I do have a perspective on many things, after years at sea, that others maybe do not.
I believe that the fundamental problem with our current situation in the world is technical and not managerial. That is, there are fundamental problems with the concept of statism that mechanically prevent an ethical person from acting within their own conscience. It is not simply a managerial problem. Shackleton could say ‘change the men or change the men’. But at the scale beyond a recruitment or managerial level, we are left with a problem. There is a human nature.
I’ve heard many people speak about emigrating here and there during the last two years. Searching the internet desperately for signs of a political territory somewhere that believes in freedom. Like a ship at sea, we may wish to change the men, in charge or otherwise. But we are stuck with what we have. Our systems create these types of people. Every country faces the same problem – a human love of power. On this earth, there is nowhere else to go. If we lack the courage to fight for a better mode of being, then we do not deserve one.
I believe that in the future, we people of conscience will not be forced to toil unnecessarily, to cope with the monetary inflation that wastes our precious resources. We will not have our income removed at source and used as collateral to enslave our grandchildren in national debts. We will not be forced to have our money go to fund the evils of unnecessary or sex-selective abortions or the unjust invasions of foreign countries. We will no longer pay for our own propagandisation.
We will do what ships have done since World War Two. If we do not like our governance, we will change our flag and be on our merry way.
Sharing is a sacred act. A privilege that we still enjoy, but one that many would like to interfere with. Please like, comment, share and subscribe, and exercise our rights as free people, able to create and build relationships as we see fit, without permission. Help build the authority we are all capable of, together with me.
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