On Friday Kanako and I went to a science museum exhibit about pirates. In fact, it revolved around a specific pirate ship named the Whydah, a slave ship captured by pirates who enriched themselves before mostly drowning in a storm off Cape Cod. Of course, that was only one way people of the early 1700s shortened their lives by lifestyle choice—such as becoming a pirate, and pretty much guaranteeing you would not retire to old age. But even if you would not make a dangerous choice of being a sea-based outlaw, your prospects for death in a non-violent way remained high. We know infectious diseases killed most people sooner or later—particularly true of pirates who lived in close and unhealthy conditions. And we know food was often contaminated and possibly poisonous. Pirates drank rum or “grog” (rum and water) because it was safer to be somewhat drunk all the time than sick from contaminated water. (I do think this habit helps to explain why ship’s crews in these times often lost battles they should have won, or did crazy things—the crew was mostly drunk.) Violence and accidents of daily life, while they seem common now, were much more common then. It was just hard to get old in those days. So why worry about high cholesterol (if they knew what such a thing was) when you won’t be likely to die from it?
So most pirates were in their teens or 20s, and I suspect not many survived beyond 40. Certainly their lives were as hard as that of professional football players, who can’t do that demanding sport beyond about 35. Given that most men who opted for the pirate’s life—or really any sailor’s life, as it was even harder on merchant and navy ships—your attitude about goals and futures has to change. No wonder these men would spend it all carousing in pirate-friendly port cities. Why not? It’s not like you had much future to plan for. They would rob the merchant ships, but you would think it would be hard for them to see the point of the gain. What would you want to do with the money? More booze, gambling, prostitutes or whatever in port, I suppose.
Beyond that, well, I don’t think people in those days generally thought much beyond a few years. Because probably they wouldn’t be there. Certainly with very few exceptions (but always there were a few) before the 19th century, perhaps 20th century, few people would make it to my age. And those who did generally would be physical wrecks. We thought then that life was short, the body was not made to withstand more than about 50 years, and so we had to move quickly before we fell into wrack and ruin of body. Even those who led more privileged lives—I read a book about Pope Sylvester II, the pope during the turnover of the first millennium in 1000 a.d., being wracked with constant pain and on the road to death while still in his 50s—and that was not unusual for medieval man. By the 1700s perhaps life was better. A little.
Sometimes people are surprised to hear of all the capital crimes that existed in 1700. You could be executed for stealing bread, and a hundred other things. Pirates too of course knew their capture would end in hanging. But people then took crazy risks with their lives. Why? Why not? Life was short regardless of the threat. The quality of your life even as a typical person farming or toiling in the cities was not pleasant. If life is short under the best of conditions, then it isn’t so very valuable, and its end not so much to be feared. The strength of religion, the belief in a beyond, was generally unquestioned then for good reason. Because if people took stock of their rationality and looked at existence and evidence squarely—then the only response would be despair. We have developed reason, rational thinking, scientific methods of investigation to learn about life beyond superstition and emotion. But in opening each locked box inside each locked box that takes us to understanding of existence, we see more and more that what doesn’t exist is God working in our daily lives, or indeed, a presence of God at all. This for many today is despair. For people hundreds of years ago, it would have been calamity. A few brave people by the 19th century undertook to face existence on the austere plane of reason. But it must have been terrifying and melancholy. It still is.
—March 18, 2012, Minneapolis
OtD 