A quick observation about the cultural discourse around whaling...

[tiamatschild]

The commercial exploitation of whales has always been multifaceted, but the most valuable product derived from them has always been the unsaturated fat produced by rendering their blubber. Whale oil

Comments

Borrowing a phrase from the tfwiki...

[tainry]

...Dammit, patriarchy!

I contemplated a lengthier comment, but I've got Drift and Perceptor snogging, and the Constructicons have gone neutral and are building a bachelor-pad city under the mountains in Norway, and the above actually sums it up pretty well. =_=

[tiamatschild]

Yeah. I only started to notice the disconnect between discourse in general texts on history and enviroment and discourse in texts actually on whaling fairly recently.

Robots are much nicer than factory ships! And Norway's a great place for a bachelor pad really. They could visit the famous music festivals! Only not. Because they're scary. But they might be Mixmaster's kind of thing.

[tainry]

A common problem, I think. Once you get to know the details, the generalities look pretty wan.

8D I'll have to have Mix tune in, then. They're not comfortable appearing aboveground yet anyway. Hook's looking around, enjoying the reflection of the aurora on Lake Rypedalsvatnet and everyone is yelling at him about it. Although Scavenger goes up too, secretly.

[tiamatschild]

Or you start to notice that the generalities picked are... not particularly effective generalities. Or else they're generalities that can be safely displaced. Onto the past or onto an already current cultural narrative about who to blame.

*laughs* Of course he is. No, Hook, our cover! I generally think of Mixmaster as enjoying social music. I'm not sure why. And, of course, at a festival you have rather a lot of people doing interesting things with recreational alteration of body chemistry. (Which has got to be an aspect of human culture he finds cool and slightly frustrating - look, people, this is totally normal, see, entire species do it all the time! Why must you be such spoilsports.)

[caiusmajor]

...margarine. Holy shit.

Which is not the point of the essay, I gather, but still. MARGARINE.

[tiamatschild]

Primarily, yeah. And that kind of is the point because it really is just. Margarine. Margarine. No, seriously? Margarine is what about ninety percent of the Antarctic blue population died for?

It was something the industry didn't want people to know, because there are several layers of ick involved with spreading heavily processed whales on your toast. So it was... not an open secret, really, a buried secret, with a lot of PR machinery dedicated to keeping it that way. And. Yeah. I can't really think of anything more emblematic of the relation of late consumer capitalism to -

Well. To the world at large.

[tainry]

Also, while I'm here again, is there a particular book or books containing this info (re whaling and the non-PR reasons behind the historical tar and feathers)? I'd kind of like to start having things on-hand because I get a lot of blank looks, even from friends, outside LJ when the idea of widespread, institutionalized misogyny comes up. Still.