Setanta wrote:Why someone would or would not be a part of the "dregs" of society was not my point. My point is the unreality of making a hero of someone who was in those circumstances.....
......We have no more reason to make heroes of these people than we do to demonize them. Nevertheless, "cowboys" have become the central figures in a powerful American myth which hasn't a shred of basis in fact.
You misunderstood me I think. I was merely commenting that it would not have been easy to stick to the straight and narrow given the options available at the time. I was by no means disagreeing with you.
(And, it seems, the same surely can be said about today's celebrity 'heroes'.)
Setanta wrote:"Cowboys" came from all over North America, and from Europe. Even a good number from Australia--in the "Gold Rush" days of California, the liveliest, and most dangerous, gambling/prostitution district in San Francisco was the one where the Australians had congregated.
I'm not too sure of the relevance here. Yes, I am well aware that cowboys came from various backgrounds and countries. When I went to school, our studies of history went beyond the borders of Australia. I did learn about the exploration of America and the gold rush (we had one of them, too). You would not be 'demonizing' Australians because some of us congregated in 'the liveliest, and most dangerous, gambling/prostitution district in San Francisco' in the Gold Rush days of California, would you? :wink: Of course not!
My own slant on 'The West' was that it comprised three separate yet interlocking categories -
The West - which was the earlier opening up of America by the explorers and trappers and then settlers moving out from the Eastern cities;
The Wild West - Those settlers putting down stakes and building their farms and ranches, their troubles with the original inhabitants not wanting their lands and way of life taken from them, the military presence, the cowboys, the outlaws etc.; and
The Wild, Wild West - The gold rush, California and its Barbary Coast (where one of our most famous bushrangers, Frank Gardiner, ran a hotel after being exiled from Australia).
This is a simplistic overview, I know. To me, "Westerns" (movies) come from that middle category.
Setanta wrote:For an accurate view of life in the forecastle, i'd say skip Billy Budd and read Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana.
Agreed.
I used 'Billy Budd' only to illustrate how a young innocent could be so totally unable to cope with the circumstances that beset him.
