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The Good Enough Life
The Good Enough Life

Daniel Miller

polity
Copyright © Daniel Miller 2024

The right of Daniel Miller to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in
accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2024 by Polity Press

Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press
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Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism
and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5964-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5965-7 (pb)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2023934604

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 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction: Cuan and Kant 1

1 An Exceptionally Free Society? 34
2 Philosophers of Freedom 64
3 The First Satiable Society 78
4 Philosophers and Consumerism 105
5 Inequality, Drugs, and Depression 120
6 Justice as Fairness 153
7 The Body and Sports 177
8 The Origins of Philosophy in Sport 199
9 Creating Community 211
10 Placing Heidegger 231
11 Engaging with the World 243
12 The Stoics and Epicurus 261
Conclusion: Hegel, Anthropology, and Philosophy 282

Notes 301
References 326
Index 344

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am especially grateful to Pauline Garvey, who carried out a parallel

ethnography in Dublin and jointly wrote our project book, from
which many ideas and passages have been used in this volume. Also
to David Prendergast and Adam Drazin. Special thanks to my wife
Rickie Burman, who participated in the fieldwork and helped to edit
this book.
I would like to express my gratitude to countless people in Cuan.
I cannot list you all, but in particular Maria A., Monica A., Edel B.,
Eric B., Lawrence B., Peter B., Rachel B., Hilda C., Helen D., Mary
G., Pat G., Peig, Aiden H., Suzanne H., Dierdre J., Carol K., Eleanor
K., Marie K., Sian K., Bob L., Deidre L., Catriona M., Dominique
M., Geraldine M., Eamon M., Eugene M., John M., Katherine M.,
Michael M., Norma M., Oliver M., Raymond M., Vincent M.,
Catherine N., Kevin O., Michael O., Martin R., Bob S., Henry S.,
Noel S., Liam S., Maria S., Paul S., Janet W., and Serena W. Maria
A. and Henry S. also helped me find additional research participants
amongst migrants and in the new estates respectively.
Thanks for comments on the manuscript by Maria A., Rachel
Miller, Mathew Doyle, Haidy Geismar, Pauline Garvey, Richard
Miller, Sheba Mohammid, Felix Ó Murchadha, Maria Nolan, and
especially Martin Holbraad, Bob L., and the readers from Polity
Press. I am also extremely grateful to Justin Dyer for his impressively
conscientious and detailed copy-editing.
Special thanks to Laura Haapio-Kirk, who painted the front cover
for me as a birthday present.
While writing this book, I was very concerned that I would be
publishing detailed discussions of philosophers without any personal

vi
 acknowledgements

background or training in academic philosophy, which was likely

to lead to misrepresentations and distortions. It seemed essential
therefore to have the manuscript also read by someone trained in
disciplinary philosophy. I am very grateful to the philosopher Jeremy
David Bendik-Keymer for helping to eliminate some of those misun-
derstandings and misrepresentations from the chapters concerned
with philosophy. Any remaining misrepresentations and failures
are mine alone – a classic caveat that remains particularly true and
pertinent in this case.
Funding for the ethnography came from the European Research
Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 740472).

vii
 INTRODUCTION
Cuan and Kant

This book sets out to compare two potential sources for under-
standing how life could and should be lived: the writings of
certain philosophers about the good life; and an ethnography
based in a small Irish town of people living what will be described
as the good enough life. The discipline of Western philosophy is
generally considered to have developed from the sixth century bce
in classical Greece and its colonies with a focus on the question
of how to live well, exemplified by Aristotle’s discussion of the
term eudaimonia, generally translated as living well or a good
life. Fortunately, eudaimonia resonates with an ambiguity in the
English word ‘good’. When we say, I am living the good life, we
mainly refer to happiness. But when we say, I aim to live a good
life, we mainly refer to virtue and ethics. Early philosophers were
concerned with the relationship between these two. Socrates stated
that,

Seeing that all men1 desire happiness, and happiness, as has been
shown, is gained by a use, and a right one, of the things of life, and
that the right use of them, and good-fortune in the use of them, is
given by knowledge – the inference is surely that everybody ought by
all means to try to make himself as wise as he can?2

Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, confirms both that eudaimonia

is the ultimate aim of life (1097 15–21),3 and that the sound use of
reason will allow us to flourish through aretē (excellence/virtue),
demonstrated above all through thoughtful action by a harmonious,
well-habituated soul.

1
 introduction

These are philosophical ideals, but what of life as lived? Today,

we might feel less confident about the relationship between virtue
and happiness. Could a selfish and greedy person still be happy and
is a virtuous person necessarily happy? As it happens, most of the
people who contributed to this ethnography seemed to share the ideal
of eudaimonia that a virtuous life was also the most effective route
to personal happiness, though the examples of virtue discussed in
this book come from activities such as grandparenting and environ-
mentalism rather than through an abstract philosophical concept of
‘reason’. The people in my fieldsite do, however, make considerable
use of the principle of ‘being reasonable’ as a foundation for being
judged as wise. But it was a different observation that was the starting
point for this comparison between philosophy and ethnography. From
the very beginning of fieldwork, I was struck by the sheer love of this
community for the town in which they lived and their identification
with it – a sentiment reminiscent of the foundation of so much Greek
philosophy, which took for granted that the good life was based on
citizenship associated with a particular city-state, known as a polis.
This volume is therefore constructed through juxtaposing chapters
about well-known philosophers or schools of philosophy with other
chapters drawn from an ethnography of the retired population of this
small town in Ireland, people who would never consider themselves to
be either philosophers or exemplars of the good life. Anthropological
ethnography differs from most social research because the emphasis
is on observations of what people do, rather than what they say.
The portrait of these people’s good enough lives has been extrapo-
lated mostly from their everyday actions, rather than interviews. It
is the life they lead that provides our evidence. The premise for this
book is that there may be advantages to considering a population
that actually exists as against ideal models of what society might or
should be. This gives ethnography a potentially important comple-
mentary role to certain philosophical questions. Within the discipline
of philosophy, a consideration of the good life subsequently took its
place alongside logic, epistemology, politics, and a multitude of other
considerations as philosophy grew in breadth and depth. The concern
of this volume is, therefore, with only a small element of contem-
porary and historical philosophy. A final unusual quality of this book
follows from the use of ethnography to exemplify the good enough
life; increasingly, social science seems to be dominated by critique,
while this will be largely a book of praise.

2
 introduction

The people presented in this ethnography are all Irish. This does
not mean that they are necessarily representative of the population of
Ireland. I spent sixteen months living amongst these retired people in
a small town on the east coast of Ireland, which has been given the
pseudonym of Cuan. I didn’t have a car and hardly ever left the town.
I therefore cannot say how typical they would be of Irish people more
generally, although my findings were generally consistent with a
parallel and simultaneous ethnography by Pauline Garvey in an area
of Dublin with a similar demographic.4 Furthermore, most of my
informants were not born in Cuan but migrated from other parts of
Ireland or in some cases from abroad. I will sometimes use the term
Cuan as a convenience to describe the people I worked with, but the
arguments apply only to my research participants, who were mainly
retired, and not necessarily to the rest of Cuan.
The ethnography characterizes this population as an example of
the ‘good enough’ life. The semantics are not ideal. The phrase ‘good
enough’ might be seen to imply sufficiently good, which would make
this a rather complacent exercise, as though we could not aspire to
do a good deal better in achieving virtue. This is not the meaning of
‘good enough’ intended here. The phrase is mainly known in academia
through the work of the psychologist Donald Winnicott in reference
to good enough mothering.5 His point was that we could praise
rather than condemn a mother who, under often difficult circum-
stances and faced by all the contradictions of parenting, manages
to develop a reasonably sensitive response to her infant, creating a
secure and nurturing environment. The phrase ‘good enough’ is also
important as a means of differentiation from the way philosophers
consider the good life in reference to how a society should ideally be.
By contrast, anthropologists tend to comparison with other existing
societies, rather than against some ideal. This book is therefore not
trying to suggest that Cuan is ideal; rather that, for all the faults that
will be described, it is hard to find another currently existing society
that is demonstrably better.
Individual chapters of this book will focus on particular compo-
nents of the good enough life. John Rawls (chapter 6) helps us to
consider justice and fairness, when set against the inequalities and
other problems found in Cuan (chapter 5). Socrates helps to explain
the centrality of sports to the people of Cuan (chapter 8). Heidegger
is contrasted with the way Cuan has been constructed as a place
(chapter 10). The Stoics and Epicurus discuss what we should do

3
 introduction

with our lives as we age, in comparison to these retirees (chapter 12).

Other philosophers have been selected because of their commentaries
on the nature of freedom (chapter 1) or affluence (chapter 3), both
qualities of this population to which chapters have been devoted. The
capabilities approach associated with both Martha Nussbaum and
Amartya Sen is found to have some aspirations in common with this
ethnography, as does the book After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre.
In the conclusion, Hegel is deployed to try to resolve some of the key
differences between these philosophical approaches and what has
been learnt from the ethnography. In every instance, it is only my
attempted interpretations of these philosophers that can be offered
in the course of these comparisons. I have no training in academic
philosophy.
Why write a book on the good enough life right now? We live in
a restless world. Over the centuries, hundreds of millions of people
have migrated in search of a better life. Consider those who have
over time colonized the lands of North America, reducing the indig-
enous people to a small remnant. Or consider the 250 million people
who more recently have migrated to industrial regions of China and
were the subject of a wonderful study by Xinyuan Wang comparing
their migration from rural areas to work in factories with their
simultaneous migration from offline to online.6 Many contemporary
migrants are refugees from war and oppression. The most impover-
ished rarely have the resources to undertake such migrations. The
majority, such as in the case of the vast Chinese migration, move in
search of ‘a better life’. What this term ‘a better life’ implies is that
they seek the security of a higher income or a better health service
or the opportunities of education for their children, as well as escape
from struggle and coercion. For many such migrants, the aspiration
is to seek a largely middle-class and suburban lifestyle,7 which they
hope to achieve over one or more generations.
This then raises some rather important questions. How should
we regard this middle-class, suburban, settled life that most of the
world now aspires to? Is this a perfectly reasonable ideal, the sort
of life that pretty much everyone could and should emulate? Is there
some plausible concept of the good enough life, or of life purpose,
that this lifestyle corresponds to? Or is it an illusion or a trap, an
image created by the wider political economy, these days often glibly
termed ‘neo-liberal capitalism’, in order to sell us a lifestyle to which
we sheepishly conform? Rather than reaching some ideal, have we

4
 introduction

fallen into a muddy rut along the way? In the past, the only way of
conceiving of an ideal life would have been through sketching out
some version of a speculative utopia. But in the twenty-first century,
quite a few migrants have largely achieved the life they sought, in
countries where that is how much of the population now live. Instead
of speculative utopias, we are in a position to appraise the very
ordinary lives of millions of people, living in versions of a middle-
class, suburban lifestyle within a welfare state. If this lifestyle already
exists and can be observed, then we have reached the point where we
can consider the value of such lives.
Ireland is a largely middle-class country with a centrist government
and a welfare state. Cuan could be considered suburban in that
it is within commuter distance from Dublin. The population who
form the backbone of this book seem to correspond, then, to these
migrant aspirations. One of the groups deliberately included within
the ethnography were migrants from outside of Ireland who have
settled in Cuan. There were not many such migrants because Cuan
is a relatively expensive place to live, but those who became research
participants regarded the town as a clear fulfilment of their ideals as
migrants.
On occasion when discussing this book with other social scientists,
the result has been a horrified expression. Why am I not studying
people in poverty or the highly oppressed? Don’t I know how much
people around the world are suffering? As it happens, most of my
previous work has been with such populations. I have lived for
considerable periods with people who had no toilet of any kind other
than the fields, only intermittent electricity, and could afford just
two meals a day rather than three. I have published a book about a
hospice whose patients had received a terminal diagnosis and were
dying.8 It is important to observe and report on deprivation, struggle,
and suffering. But it is also important to write about lives outside
of these conditions. One of the limitations of disciplines such as
psychology and much social science is that, if we are mainly engaged
with the problems and pathologies of modern life, in order perhaps
to assist in such situations, the result is a strange perspective that sees
so much in the world from the viewpoint of pathology. By contrast,
the remit of anthropology is first and foremost to explore the cultural
diversity of humanity and help all of us to understand empathetically
what it means to be other than who we are. Anthropology is currently
trying to make this a more egalitarian pursuit in repudiation of its

5
 introduction

colonial and privileged origins. All populations should be equal in the

possibility of becoming the subject of some inquisitive anthropologist
and also in the possibility of becoming an anthropologist. This was
another reason for embarking on a study of a population that is
slightly more affluent than the UK, where I live.
Whenever I hear people tell me (as they often do) that, ‘Oh, they
would be of interest to an anthropologist, you should study them,’
I sigh, because anthropology should regard no population as more
authentic or interesting than any other. It is essential to anthropology
that we, too, should be examined for our weird cultural beliefs
and assumptions that other people find astonishing and in need of
explanation. Otherwise, we will assume that somehow our beliefs
are more natural and obvious, and it is only others who require
such investigations. Like most of my research participants, I am
middle class and suburban and I found many things that we held in
common. But I also found people in Cuan to be remarkably different
in their approach to life than those I had written about in a previous
ethnography of a similar-sized population in a fieldsite just outside
London.9 (I am myself a Londoner.) It is reasonable to see Cuan
as the kind of society many people aspire to, but beyond that it is
hard to regard it as typical. Often in contemporary social science,
the context of neo-liberal capitalism is appealed to as the cause of
some observation. But the populations who live within neo-liberal
capitalism seem just as heterogeneous as those who don’t. If Cuan is
remarkably different from the English settlement that I had recently
written about,10 it could hardly be because of some fundamental
difference between British and Irish capitalism.
One of the reasons for alternating the ethnography with discus-
sions of sometimes analogous and sometimes contrasting philosophy
is that the aim of this book is not just observation but also
appraisal. Appraisal required some kind of yardstick against which
Cuan could be measured, and this is provided by philosophy.11
There have been many previous attempts to juxtapose philosophical
questions with anthropological approaches, and there has also been
a recent growth of interest within anthropology in topics such as
virtue, happiness, and ethics. The closest parallel is probably a
recent edited collection by Harry Walker and Iza Kavedžija which
explicitly addresses similar questions regarding the relationship
between happiness and eudaimonia.12 As might be expected from an
anthropological collection, there is no attempt to measure the good

6
 introduction

or happy life. Rather, ethnographies demonstrate a plurality of values

and priorities. Older Japanese people may be more concerned with
tranquillity, seeking a balance between autonomy and dependence,
and focus on modest aesthetic aims within everyday practices. That
makes them very different from the association between happiness
and excitement of young people in the US. Humanists link happiness
more closely to virtue, while Chinese parents try to decide whether
to focus on their happiness or that of their children. Most people
see happiness as the by-product of other aims and not necessarily
enhanced through explicit discussion, a conclusion that will be
reinforced by the evidence presented in this volume. There are many
other anthropologists concerned with various aspects of the good
life,13 as well as works that examine different dimensions within
the relationship between anthropology and philosophy.14 I am not
aware, however of any that adopt the precise structure of alternate
juxtaposition that is employed here. I apologize that this book only
examines Western (itself a highly problematic term) philosophy and
that I possess none of the knowledge that could permit venturing
beyond this. Given that I have no formal background in academic
philosophy, it already felt like an act of considerable hubris to try
to engage with the range of philosophers who will be discussed, but
at least these were mainly figures I had encountered during decades
working in social science.
If anthropology has a record of engagement with philosophy, there
are also movements in the other direction. A notable influence has been
the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of previous attempts
by philosophers to create a more general or universal approach to
virtue.15 MacIntyre argues that our ideas of virtue are inculcated by
our socialization into particular traditions and cultural values. This
would give licence to anthropological approaches that extrapolate
eudaimonia from studies of culture,16 and that analyse virtue through
observing practices such as sharing.17 Similar arguments about the
necessity of culture and comparison may be found in the writings
of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, notwithstanding their own
philosophical differences.18 By the end of this book, it will be apparent
that the example of Cuan differs from some of the expectations that
have emerged from this literature. Virtue for this population will
turn out to have much less to do with tradition than might have
been anticipated. The arguments of the conclusion lie closer to what
will be suggested were Hegel’s arguments for virtue and freedom as

7
 introduction

derived from the way society collectively creates culture and thereby
creates itself.
In using the term ‘yardstick’, a curious other possibility arises.
If a range of philosophical discussions are set against the ethnog-
raphy, then it could equally imply an appraisal of these philosophers
through examining how their ideas measure up against an actual
population. This volume will pay equal regard to both possibilities.
The ethnography will be employed to reconsider the contributions
of some philosophers, while philosophers such as Rawls will be
deployed to make judgements about Cuan. This is, then, two books
in one. If you find yourself falling asleep when reading the sections
on philosophy, you have the option of just reading the alternating
chapters devoted to the ethnography, and vice versa.
It is possible that my research participants are going to be a little
horrified at being employed in such a manner. Generally speaking,
they are quite a modest lot. I can’t think of a single one of them who
would see themselves as representing any kind of ideal life, let alone
having the hubris to compare themselves to the great philosophers.
As far as I could tell, they do not regard themselves as special in any
way. But, of course, that is precisely why they serve this purpose
so well. There was no search for an ideal society. The value of the
ethnography lies in understanding a ‘good enough’ society that
people might feasibly aspire to. I must apologize to my friends and
research participants whom I am setting up here as Irish ‘Davids’
against the ‘Goliath’ of Philosophy. It should be crystal clear that
this is entirely an author’s conceit exploiting their very modesty by
making that virtue part of their qualification for being utilized in this
fashion.
As already noted, it was an early but then sustained observation
about Cuan that became the catalyst around which the ambitions of
this book crystallized. This was the degree to which the people of
Cuan seemed besotted by Cuan itself. There was not even the germ of
a plan to write a book on the topic of the good enough life at the start
of a very different research project. This book arose mainly from the
evidence that while people in Cuan did not describe their individual
lives in glowing terms, they constantly went on and on about how
Cuan itself was the ideal place within which to live a good life. This
seemed to correspond to the relationship between the good life and
the polis in the Greek city state. This book is not a detective story;
it can start with its conclusion: that to the degree to which these

8
 introduction

research participants live the good enough life, the principal cause
turns out to be the manner by which they have created the town of
Cuan.

The Love of Cuan

I settled in Cuan for an entirely different purpose. I was running an

international project, funded by the European Research Council,
called ASSA: The Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing.
As part of this comparative project, I would study this topic in Cuan,
while my Irish colleague, Pauline Garvey, who teaches Anthropology
at Maynooth University in Ireland, would carry out a parallel project
in a Dublin suburb. Subsequently, we wrote up our findings, which
turned out to be largely identical, in a book called Ageing with
Smartphones in Ireland19 as one of a series of monographs that
derived from the ASSA project. I apologize for the fact that in writing
this volume it has been essential to reprise some of the themes already
discussed in that earlier volume, but it is likely that book will mainly
be read by those interested in either smartphones or ageing, while this
volume is frying up some bigger fish.
One of the joys of traditional anthropology was its aspiration
to a holistic methodology. The method known as ethnography or
participant observation consists of living with a population, in this
case, as mentioned, for sixteen months, during which most days
are spent in their company, engaging in activities alongside them,
but also sometimes interviewing them directly. The anthropologist
arrives with a topic that requires studying, in this instance ageing
and smartphones. But an ethnography implies examining those topics
as part of everyday life. In order to understand the consequences of
smartphones, the vast majority of research has to be about people’s
offline lives, since we cannot know in advance whether it may be
family life, religion, education, gender, or something else entirely
that will help us interpret what people are observed to do with these
devices. We therefore need to investigate everything else that goes
on in their lives in order to be confident about our explanations for
smartphone usage and consequences. After all, no one lives inside an
academic topic; they live all these things at once. I call our method
holistic contextualization. Ethnography is unusual as perhaps the
only academic research method that seeks to correspond to life as it

9
 introduction

is actually lived. It is almost the exact opposite of hypothesis testing,

which would reduce research only to variables already known about.
Ethnography is also a qualitative method that refuses to reduce
observations to data, or things which can be counted. As a result,
it can have no pretensions to be akin to natural science, and indeed
ethnography is often looked down upon by other disciplines because
it has little that they would consider as hard data. What it contains
instead is a grasp on life that is not a result of any kind of artificial
parameter or encounter. We simply spend around sixteen months
swimming in their sea. (As it happens, most people in Cuan do swim
in the actual sea and considered me completely wimpish because I
found it too cold.) For many anthropologists, even interviews are
suspect as artificial research contrivances. Instead, we mostly trust
observations based on life as it unfolds around us and overhearing
conversations that are naturally taking place between others.
It follows that often the most rewarding part of an ethnography
is the encounter with topics that could not even be envisaged.
Ethnography then becomes a voyage of discovery. This book is full
of topics that were never intended to be studied, not just the good
enough life, but pet dogs, bingo, cocaine, sports, or where people
choose to go on holiday, all of which came into the frame as general
background. But none of these made quite as strong an impression
as the observation that slapped me straight in the face within days
of arrival: the love of Cuan felt by the people of Cuan. They were
also pretty keen on the fact of being Irish. Most of the current inhab-
itants of Cuan are themselves migrants from other parts of Ireland.
They are referred to as ‘blow-ins’. Soon after arrival, I heard many
versions of ‘I didn’t know anything about Cuan when I moved here,
but it turned out to be a magical decision.’ For the entirety of my
stay, this sentiment dominated all others. Almost everyone wanted
to make sure that I was aware of just how much they loved Cuan.
Cuan has turned out to be such a perfect place to live that they could
not now imagine living anywhere else. None of this was a response
to any research question. It just seemed important to so many people
to drop this sentiment somewhere into the conversation. Over
time, it also became clear that this is something they frequently did
amongst themselves and was not just mentioned for my benefit. The
people of Cuan are simply besotted by Cuan; the term ‘heaven’ is not
infrequently used. As in the initial quotation, a common refrain was
that this was an example of simple good fortune, because they had

10
 introduction

not known any of this in advance of moving there. They had just
lucked out.
The praise took many forms. One of the most popular statements
concerned the range of activities. The claim that Cuan has everything
except a swimming pool, a hotel, and a cinema was heard at least
a hundred times, always with those same three caveats. The iconic
Cuan walk is along the seafront. This was felt to be an infinite
pleasure as the sea presents a different aspect however many times
one stares out at it from one’s walk. This particular walk would
also inevitably lead to social encounters such that a ten-minute
walk could take hours as people stop to chat. Other commonly
cited virtues included the lack of crime, the suitability of Cuan as
a place of retirement, and the weather relative to other parts of
Ireland. Another popular refrain was that, if any individual wanted
to develop some new craft or activity, there would always be others
who would come together to help make this happen. The claim,
however, that dominated to a degree that it ends up as the bulk of
chapter 7 in this book was that Cuan is heaven because of the range
of sports available.
The emphasis on sports was closely related to another heartfelt
form of praise for Cuan. This was the hope amongst older people
that their children would return. People living in small towns in
every region face the fear that their children will one day leave in
search of something bigger and better. The children of Cuan mainly
do leave when they go to college or first obtain jobs. By the end of
their teen years, they are bored to tears by the town and claim there
is nothing to do there. But, in many cases, it seemed that once they
contemplate having children of their own, then they wish to return
to the town so that their own children might replicate their positive
experience. Much of this rests on the success of sports as providing
enjoyment and purpose for younger children. A silver lining of the
economic crash in Ireland was said to be that children of Cuan were
then able to purchase properties in the town that otherwise had
become unaffordable for first-time buyers. My study of the newest
housing estate suggested that, despite the expense, around a third
of purchases were from people originally brought up in Cuan. This
will not be the only example of the town’s virtuous circles. In chapter
9, we will see that this sense of positive community led to it being
differentially favoured by government grants, which meant it was
becoming a still better place to live.

11
 introduction

The sheer level of praise for the place might have seemed extreme.
But another piece of evidence made this still more strange. If Cuan
as a very heaven was an almost universal view of those who had
lived for some years in the town, it was not a view shared by anyone
outside. Even today, Cuan is a largely disregarded place. On my rare
forays to Dublin, people always expressed surprise that I should have
chosen this out-of-the-way fieldsite for my research. It is not a place
I have found referenced in tourist guides to Ireland. People are aware
that it was a seaside destination in their parents’ day but can’t really
see much reason to go there now, given the weather is so much better
in Spain. There are plenty of good beaches and more swish-looking
towns much closer to Dublin than Cuan. It is as though Cuan is
surrounded by the river Lethe, so that only those within it are aware
of its glories. No one ever suggested Cuan as the kind of place that
would be ‘of interest’ to an anthropologist – which seemed as good
as any reason for settling there.
How could a place be so well regarded internally and so disregarded
externally? I confess that I, too, could have voiced these sentiments.
My choice of Cuan as a fieldsite related to logistical convenience and
the reputation of its age-friendly group, since I planned to be working
mainly with older people. Yet I ended up liking the place just as much
as everyone else and wondering which star to thank for my fate. At
first, all I felt was some bemusement in the face of this enthusiastic
self-love of Cuan. But as an academic it clearly required explanation.
Not just why are people in Cuan besotted by where they live, but
also, if this is clearly experienced as the good enough life, what does
this tell us about the way people consider the meaning and purpose
of life more generally? It helped that one of topics within our project
on ageing and smartphones was also about life purpose – a topic that
arose naturally from a project devoted to retirement, when people are
more likely to be confronted by questions of what more they want
out of life.
As fieldwork progressed, I realized that not only was I coming to
share something of this fondness for Cuan, but I also shared many
of the values and interests of my interlocutors. I am not Irish and
have no Irish ancestry, though, being Jewish, I don’t identify with
being English to the same extent as people in Cuan identified me as
being English. I do have Irish grandchildren, which was one of the
reasons I wanted to live there, to explore another part of my family
identity. More generally, though, I am of a similar age to these

12
 introduction

research participants. Perhaps bizarrely, I write books about being

retired instead of retiring myself, but that seems to make me just as
happy as retirement makes them. I come from a similar liberal left-
leaning orientation, and most of my informants seemed sympathetic
to the woes of the British Labour Party, of which I am a member. I
am at a similar level of comfort and income, with common interests
in taking holidays and the wider world. We watched the same TV
series and the same Premier League football matches, and often read
the same newspaper (The Guardian). I support my wife in her work
with a project to help asylum seekers, which parallels the kind of
philanthropic work common in Cuan. More than any other ethnog-
raphy I have carried out, I could see myself mirrored by my research
participants and increasingly could see myself living happily in Cuan.
This obviously raises the question of whether I will be expressing the
values and opinions of the people in Cuan or my own. My advice to
the reader is that when the values and practices you encounter in this
book are those you approve of, you should see them as emanating
from Cuan, but when you cringe at what you regard as complacent
naïvety, assume that is me.

Introduction to Ireland20

This book is certainly not intended only for people interested in

or knowledgeable about Ireland. This presents a problem since it
would be hard to fully appreciate the ethnographic chapters without
some knowledge of Irish history. Fortunately, a truly excellent
account of that history was published while I was writing this
volume. Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is enormously
helpful equally for the degree to which it is the background to this
ethnography and the degree to which the ethnography turns out to
be so different from what this history might have presaged.21 It is
a wonderful read because of the author’s facility in interweaving
his personal history, the political and economic history of Ireland,
and the more general shifts in the lives of the Irish. It is particularly
important that this is quite a personal history, because the Irish
who appear in my book are of a similar age to O’Toole. The life
that is recounted in his book is in large measure the life that my
research participants have lived through, with some of them born
in a similar part of Dublin to O’Toole. You will therefore certainly

13
 introduction

have a better appreciation of what follows in this book if you have

previously read his book.
The Republic of Ireland, with a population of almost 5 million,
shares the island with Northern Ireland, a part of the UK with a
population of around 1.8 million. Ireland declared independence
from the UK in 1919, and this was acknowledged in 1921. The
capital city of Dublin has a population of around 600,000, while
that of Dublin county is around 1,300,000. Cuan is within one
hour’s travel from Dublin. Ireland became a member of the European
Union (EU; back then the European Economic Community or EEC)
in 1973. The lifetime of most of the research participants has been an
economic rollercoaster. Younger people find it hard to comprehend
the social and economic transformation that Ireland has undergone
within living memory. At the time of independence, 58 per cent of
employed men worked in agriculture.22 O’Toole points out that no
one really expected this to change. Ireland was destined to remain a
low-income agricultural backwater to Europe. Many of my research
participants were born in rural locations and tell vivid tales of
poverty both on farms but also in Dublin during that period. They
couldn’t possibly have imagined becoming the people we encounter
today. O’Toole also stresses the ubiquity of emigration as a hallmark
of twentieth-century Ireland, creating a diaspora that is widely
dispersed around the world,23 to the extent that there was serious
discussion about the possibility that the Irish of Ireland might more
or less disappear. A striking feature of the time in which these people
were born was that since 1922, the newly independent Ireland under
the tutelage of Éamon de Valera systematically replaced the colonial
authority with the authority of the Catholic Church. The Church
ran almost the entire education system and had such a strong grip
over government and the everyday life of the people that the country
could be considered an effective theocracy. For example, a marriage
bar introduced in the 1930s meant that until 1971 women in the
civil service were legally obliged to give up work on getting married,
in order to encourage them to concentrate on rearing children and
caring for families.24
Many respondents commented on the deeply conservative beliefs
held by their parents, and often initially by themselves. Not infre-
quently, differences of opinion about religion led to rifts within
families that spanned decades and left lasting scars. Catholic bodies
such as the Christian Brothers oversaw their education and their

14
 introduction

general behaviour. The Pope’s visit of 1979 seemed to reflect this

degree of devotion. The explanation for this theocracy lay in the
primary aim of the Independence movement to assert a complete
break from British colonial domination. The Catholic Church was
being granted power that it seemed to have earned from its relative
suppression over the previous centuries of colonial rule by the
Protestant English. Similarly, a huge effort was made, and continues
to be made, to spread usage of the Irish language, though in this
area to little effect. I never heard a single sentence uttered in the Irish
language as part of casual conversation in Cuan, though I would
have done had I been on the west coast rather than the east. My
impression was rather that in Cuan the Irish language has become a
kind of performative sacred language that is the effective replacement
for Latin within modern secular Ireland.
What is astonishing is how quickly a rural theocracy, without
even the expectation of change, has become something else entirely.
The sociologist Tom Inglis argues that, in one generation, Ireland
has transformed from being an isolated Catholic agrarian society to
being a liberal-individualist, secular, urban society revolving around
business, commerce, and high-tech transnational corporations.25
By the early 2000s, Ireland was identified as having an open global
economy. The Church didn’t so much decline as abruptly collapse
in its claims to authority subsequent to a series of scandals from
the 1980s onwards.26 This perhaps reached its apogee during my
fieldwork in 2018, with the convincing vote to repeal the constitu-
tional ban on abortion.27 The scale of such change is evident in that
as late as 1993, homosexuality was illegal in Ireland, but just twenty-
two years later, in 2015, it represented the first country to legalize
same-sex marriage by popular vote and was hailed as being in the
‘vanguard’ of social progression by the New York Times.28
The term ‘rollercoaster’ is appropriate since the experience of
Ireland was not simply one of consistent economic uplift. It included
the boom years of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ but also the mauling of that tiger
by the severe economic crisis after 2008. This recession, sparked
by the economic freefall of the banking system, led to a bailout by
the International Monetary Fund and EU.29 The period was charac-
terized by high levels of unemployment, mass emigration, a collapse
in domestic construction, and austerity measures imposed by the
European Central Bank.30 By 2017, when the fieldwork began, the
recession had largely passed but had left many scars. Austerity had

15
 introduction

led to increasing levels of inequality and the proportion of the Irish

population at risk of relative (if not absolute) poverty had risen to 21
per cent. Yet property prices in 2016 soared to rates of increase that
mirrored the earlier ‘Celtic Tiger’ period. Economic growth for 2017
was among the highest in the EU (at 7.3 per cent). Economic figures
for Ireland can be misleading, however, due chiefly to the distortions
represented by the activities of the IT sector, which was flourishing
thanks to the country’s low taxation rate for such companies.
Domestic activity was also up 4.9 per cent and there was strong
employment growth. A long history of emigration had been halted by
the attractions of Ireland as a site of immigration during the ‘Celtic
Tiger’ period. With recession, this was again reversed, only for the
tide to turn once more as Ireland recovered its economic prosperity,
such that by 2013 there were renewed invitations for emigrants to
return.31 My fieldwork coincided with a new confidence, although
the shadow of the recession was still present in many people’s
lives.32 I heard about people who had committed suicide during the
recession out of despair regarding their future prospects. Yet in the
post-recession era, Ireland became the fastest-growing economy in
Europe, while still dealing with the legacy of recession. This was their
rollercoaster. Another important factor was that I was conducting
fieldwork in a place where people received a higher pension than
the English with whom I had previously worked. Whatever the past,
today they were reasonably comfortable.
The shift from theocracy to modern, largely secular Ireland was
equally dramatic. The clerical scandals in the 1990s and 2000s,
including the sexual abuse of children, the treatment of ‘fallen’ women
in the Magdalene laundries, and the deaths amongst children left in
care, have all undermined the credibility of the Church. A reversal of
past attitudes to same-sex marriage, divorce, and cohabitation have
led to newly established norms.33 What is distinctive about Ireland
is not these liberal values, but the fact that they developed later and
faster than in most other regions.34 Yet here change should not be
exaggerated. While there has been a growth in secular values and
some forms of liberal individualism,35 the two-parent nuclear family
is still the most typical environment in which children grow up in
Ireland.36 Divorce rates remain low (6 per cent) when compared
to trends in other European countries. While most countries in
Europe are concerned with a growing aged population and low birth
rates, Ireland’s population is relatively young and fertility rates are

16
 introduction

among the highest in Europe37 at around 1.9 children per woman.38

Intergenerational ties remain strong.39
The period of fieldwork was one that reinforced a positive sense of
European identity set against a dramatic decline in the international
reputation of the former colonial power of Britain. The decline in
any respect for the British that resulted from the Brexit débâcle is
discussed in chapter 1.40 But this also meant renewed anxiety about
the future of the Northern Irish border, and the potential economic
slump of a no-deal Brexit. Additionally, fundamental state services
such as housing had been cut during austerity, while health and
welfare provision are still quite fragile. The word ‘crisis’ was a
common adjective to describe both health and housing. Housing
represents a particularly potent cypher for the state–citizen contract
in Ireland41 and economic boom and bust seems to be measured in
the popular imagination in bricks and mortar. The fact that Ireland
saw the highest percentage increase in property prices during 2017 of
any developed country, at 12.3 per cent, seemed reminiscent of the
pre-recession unsustainable property boom. Accounts vary in discus-
sions of income inequality in contemporary Ireland and I am not
expert enough to judge between them. Chapter 5 in this volume will,
however, describe in detail how such inequalities present themselves
within Cuan itself.
By contrast, Irish politics had become relatively stable, with nearly
a century of fairly predictable alternations between two parties that
had origins in the bitter civil war that followed independence: Fianna
Fáil and Fine Gael. Despite these roots in savage conflict, they are
today generally regarded as two sides of a centrist coin. Cuan, being
mainly middle class, would be strongly reflective of this largely
liberal consensus. The main political shifts concerned an oscillation
between Labour, the Green Party, or Sinn Féin as people searched for
a credible opposition; the specific ideology of these three parties may
have been less important than their potential for this role.
A further conspicuous factor is the sheer size of the Irish diaspora,
which dwarfs the local population as a result of the more recent
emigration to the UK in the 1950s and again in the 1980s, along
with the better-known and earlier migration to the US.42 By contrast,
migrants from outside Ireland were rare in Cuan owing to high
property prices, though women from Eastern Europe were increas-
ingly evident within the local labour force, particularly in catering and
childcare. A nearby town to Cuan reveals a sharp contrast. Its older

17
 introduction

proletarian history is now overshadowed by extensive immigration,

with migrants from Africa and Asia representing around 15 per cent
of the population.
Today, there is a generally positive sense of Irish identity at home
and abroad. An increasingly strong European identity was boosted
not just by the decline in respect for the English but also by the
sense of European support of the Irish position during the Brexit
negotiations. There is a keen interest in travel abroad, where the
Irish generally find they are regarded as genial and egalitarian. At the
same time, many people either retained or were developing interests
in icons of specifically Irish culture. These included Gaelic sports,
such as hurling, alongside a substantial revival of traditional music.
People in Cuan took pride in the fact that Irish music and literature
punch well above their weight, with figures ranging from the
novelists Sebastian Barry and Sally Rooney to post-punk musicians
Fontaines D.C., alongside a generally positive, albeit romantic and
often crudely stereotypical, American-Irish identity that has been
disseminated through film and television and is much discussed by
Fintan O’Toole.
The importance of O’Toole’s book lies just as much in what it
does not presage. My research participants are of a similar age
and lived through everything he recounts. Both tell a story of
how conservative, theocratic rural Ireland could finally become my
ethnography of secular, urban, and urbane liberal cosmopolitans.
On the other hand, O’Toole pays a good deal of attention to the
rise of mass consumption and the interest in wealth, status, and
materialism that grew alongside this history. It is not a book that
would predict chapter 3 in this volume, which claims that by far the
most important measure of status in contemporary Cuan is environ-
mentalism and anti-consumption. O’Toole’s book has extraordinary
stories of veniality, corruption, and scandal, yet this ethnography is
of a population of such probity and citizenship that Cuan would have
garnered the approval of Weber.
More complex is the relation between the ethnography and the
fundamental theme of We Don’t Know Ourselves. O’Toole’s book
tells of a people who above all kept things swept under the carpet;
a refusal to acknowledge what was nevertheless at some level well
known. He argues this through case after case from the heights of
politics to what people didn’t acknowledge in the streets around
them. On reading chapter 5 of this volume, which examines deep

18
 introduction

inequalities within Cuan and the incidence of cocaine usage and other
problems, there is some continuity with O’Toole’s thesis. But I have
never been to a place that didn’t turn something of a blind eye, for
example, to lower-income housing within its midst. Instead, I would
argue that, taking a more general overview, the people of Cuan have
shown, if anything, an admirable self-perspicacity and an openness
about (most of) their vices and virtues. In conclusion, there will be
shown to be some remarkable contrasts between the portrait painted
in this volume of Cuan and that of O’Toole’s entirely excellent and
plausible rendition of the recent Irish history which my research
participants lived through.
There is, also, an important point where our accounts converge,
appropriately since O’Toole’s final chapter is dated 2018, the same
year that I spent in Cuan. At this point, O’Toole is remarking on
how Ireland both repealed the ban on abortion and granted same-sex
marriage.43 He draws attention to the number of over-sixty-fives who
voted for the repeal. This tallies with a wider claim that the contem-
porary Irish possess a legacy based more on embracing constant
change, rather than just referencing back to any fixed indigeneity or
their own historical narrative. This in turn explains why our accounts
are ultimately quite compatible. Because while the focus of O’Toole’s
book is on the refusal to acknowledge what was happening, this took
place within a narrative of quite remarkable change over his lifetime.
If much of the ethnography that follows in this volume contrasts with
the Ireland that he has portrayed, it merely confirms that there has
been no let-up in the pace of change. It follows that this book’s claim
to be contemporary will also soon be out of date.

Cuan

Cuan was, for some periods of its history, an important fishing port,
but this peaked in the eighteenth century. Towards the late nineteenth
century, the boats were used to trade cargo such as coal. The
surrounding area is fertile, but was dominated by English landowners
under a tenants-at-will ruling that meant that they could be evicted
without notice, making life more precarious. Generally, the area was
poor, as was most of Ireland, but perhaps a bit less food-poor and
so less impacted by the Famine in comparison to the west of the
country. The historical record emphasizes the heroism of those who

19
 introduction

supported Republican calls, for example, in the 1916 uprising, with

streets named after associated martyrs. Less discussed were the splits,
even within families, represented by that period and the subsequent
civil war, which may well have led to the emigration of those who
ultimately supported the losing side. This was combined with the
destructive impact of the First World War.
The population before the modern expansion was around 2,300.
When most of the research participants were born, Cuan had become
mainly familiar as a holiday destination, where local people often
rented out their homes for the summer and lived in a smaller dwelling
built within their own garden. During that period, Cuan was known
for its holiday camps, and the associated ballrooms and music scene.
This proved highly significant when the first private estates were
built, since many of the people who chose to purchase these houses
knew of Cuan because either they or their parents had taken holidays
there. The holiday industry was well developed by the 1890s but
collapsed quite quickly when people in Ireland started taking cheap
vacations abroad in the 1970s, resulting in this current situation
of Cuan being largely disregarded and having practically nowhere
where people can stay.
There was never much by way of manufacturing industry in
Cuan. Its class identity was mainly a result of geography. People saw
themselves as higher class than the more proletarian town on one
side and lower class than the more upmarket towns on the other side,
which continue to draw holiday makers from Dublin. This geography
has a considerable impact on how the people of Cuan understand
themselves. The feeling that they are middle class is partly derived
from being literally in the middle between the posh and the prole-
tarian. With respect to internal class divisions within Cuan, there
have been two major state housing projects, the first built conspicu-
ously outside what would have been the town boundaries at that
time. Private housing really took off in the 1970s, and during this
period the population doubled. From that time on, there has been
almost continuous building of new estates, as remains the case today.
The result is a major expansion of the population, which currently
numbers around 11,000. Much of the state housing has been sold
off, with fewer than 200 such homes remaining. It is common for
adult children in Cuan to leave in their twenties but return when they
want to have families in their thirties. Many people from the new
estates commute to Dublin to work or study. Around 700 individuals

20
Random documents with unrelated
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Nerve enough
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Nerve enough

Author: Richard Howells Watkins

Release date: April 26, 2024 [eBook #73469]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Ridgway Company, 1925

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NERVE ENOUGH

***
 An air pilot and the field of broken wings

NERVE ENOUGH
By Richard Howells Watkins

The time was when the T. M. O. Transportation Co. occupied a proud

position in the latest infant industry—aerial passenger carrying.
The T., who was Jim Tyler; the M., Burt Minster; and the O.,
Delevan O’Connell, each had a plane of his own. The company
leased a field on the edge of a sizable little city and erected hangars.
No less than three mechanics labored to keep the ships in the air.
The three partners had a bank account and a growing clientele
among the more progressive members of the community. They had
carried doctors to patients, ministers to congregations and judges to
court. Yes, undoubtedly the T. M. O. Transportation Co. was the peer
of any aeronautical outfit in the country.
As Del O’Connell put it, in one of his prophetic moods—
“The day will come when T. M. O. means as much in this country
as C. O. D.”
That was rather strong, perhaps too strong, for not three days
later, quite without reason, Del’s motor threw a connecting rod clean
through the crankcase. In the consequent forced landing in a
pasture some distance from the field, he cracked two struts of his
landing carriage in a successful effort to save the wings.
FALLS THREE THOUSAND FEET;
LIVES
was what the morning paper shouted to the city at large, and the
growing clientele shriveled like a violet on a griddle, and the bank
account was not slow in following it. Of course Del O’Connell hadn’t
fallen an inch; he had merely glided down without motor; but how
are you going to explain that to a headline-reading public. It worried
him, however, that the cracking of two struts should split their little
business to its foundations. And he prophesied no more.
At last the T. M. O. Transportation Co. loaded itself into the two
good ships remaining, left two of the mechanics behind and
departed for fresh fields.
At another town, smaller than the first, they had pitched their
tents and taken a field—by the month. The hard work of building up
reputation in a business generally considered the apex of the risky
was begun again. They carried hundreds of passengers in safety. Not
once did one of the pilots yield to the desire for a jazz ride and
tailspin a ship or even roll it over once or twice. The strict
aeronautical aristocrats consider such antics in commercial flying
equivalent to the employment of a puller-in outside the store in the
retail clothing business.
Prospects were good, though the company was not yet
prosperous. Then, one morning when Burt Minster took off alone to
test-hop his ship, he banked a bit too much just after leaving the
ground and came down in a side-slip that completely washed out his
plane and left him in the wreckage with a split ear and a bad
headache.
That reduced the T. M. O. Transportation Co.’s assets to Jim
Tyler’s ancient training-ship. They moved on, minus the last
mechanic. They were no longer an organization with a fixed base, a
reputation and a bank. They had descended in the world to the low
estate of gipsy fliers, winging hither and yon, picking up such
business as presented itself and landing in more cornfields than in
airdromes.
Yes, they learned about flying from those cornfields—more than a
pilot will ever know who always has four hundred yards or so of
neatly groomed turf in front of him to set his ship down on, but it
didn’t help their self-esteem any.
And in Burt Minster’s big head grew the conviction that if he
hadn’t side-slipped his bus in that silly way, the company wouldn’t
have dropped so low in the scale. He had made them aeronautical
hoboes.
The day arrived when an offer came from the Baychester Fair for
a stunt-flying, wing-walking, parachute-dropping exhibition. The
three partners grasped it eagerly. Stunting a ship, walking around on
wings and fuselage with a desert of space under you and dropping
overboard with only thin silk between you and the next world are all
hazardous propositions, but not nearly so hazardous as consistently
going without food. It was hard on their pride, of course, for they
remembered the time, only days behind them, when no money
would have tempted them to descend so low as to indulge in thrillers
to drag a crowd into a fair grounds. They were—had been—in the
transportation, not the Desperate Desmond, business.
The contract was couched in terms that permitted them to kill
themselves without incurring the animosity of one Jenkins, manager
of the fair, provided that they did it in a spectacular and public
manner. In return for this concession, they extracted sufficient cash
from Jenkins to buy two parachutes and three square meals.
And here they were, in an old shack within the mile track of the
Baychester Fair Grounds on the evening before opening day, with
discord rampant in their ranks, and threatening to blow the company
into its three component parts.
At one end of the rickety table sat Delevan O’Connell, a slender,
animated young man. His wiry body was so short that he was
compelled to lean forward on his elbows in order to raise his angry
blue eyes above the two brand new parachute packs on the table
and focus them on the big form of Burt Minster. Burt scowled back at
him.
“Oh, shut your traps, both of you,” growled Jim Tyler, bestowing
an impartial glare on his two partners. “What difference does it
make which of you does the first jump?”
The gist of the trouble was this: Both O’Connell and Minster felt
responsible for the straits in which the company found itself, and
therefore each man aspired to go over the side in the new
parachutes. Now a chute jump is nothing much; but when you
haven’t made one before, and haven’t even a man alongside you
who has and knows something about the sensation and the harness,
it is somewhat lacking in dullness.
Delevan O’Connell was swift to answer Jim Tyler’s question.
Already the discussion had gotten well within the bounds of plain
speaking.
“It makes this much difference,” he snapped, keeping his eyes
fixed on Burt, although he spoke to Jim. “The first jump must not be
botched.”
“And therefore you must make it!” exclaimed Burt Minster, with a
great laugh.
Del O’Connell flared up.
“I can not have this outfit broken up because this great oaf lacks
a little nerve at the crucial moment.”
Burt Minster leaned backward in his chair to give his chest room
for the discharge of another roar of mirth.
“Why, you poor insect, you, I’m only about twice your size, but
I’ve three times your grit, at least.”
Jim Tyler thumped Del O’Connell on the back in time to halt the
fiery little man’s response.
“It isn’t nerve but nerves that both of you have,” he asserted
emphatically. “You’re both worried about those crashed ships, and
you both want to take the first risk, in consequence.”
The truth does not belong in an argument. This theory of their
conduct was drowned in a combined shout of protest, but Del
O’Connell was a bit faster on the tongue than Burt.
“I’ll make that first jump; I’ve got to!” he cried, springing to his feet
and thumping a quick fist on the parachute packs. “You can’t trust
this fellow, and if he bungles it, we’re gone!”
“I’ll not bungle it,” retorted Burt Minster stubbornly. “And as for
nerve, I’ve more nerve than he has language, which is some.”
Jim Tyler slumped wearily against the side wall of the shack and
waited for the argument to subside.
“I stand ready to prove you a liar in any way you want to pick,”
Del O’Connell declared heatedly.
Burt Minster did not answer at once. His face reddened at the
challenge, but his eyes, as they dwelt upon the parachutes, were
merely thoughtful. Jim Tyler plunged into the lull.
“Since none of us has ever gone over, perhaps we’d better
rehearse a jump this evening, before we try it on the crowd,” he
suggested, in the hope that action would halt dissension.
But Burt Minster had by no means given up the controversy. He
had merely been planning.
“This Jenkins who is running the fair intimated to-day that he
might raise the ante if we pulled something particularly spectacular
the first day,” he said slowly. “And we need the money, if we’re ever
to get back where we started. Well, I have a scheme that’ll settle
this nerve question once and for all, and give us a big lift toward
buying another plane as well.”
“Out with it, then,” snapped Del O’Connell. “I’m willin’ already.”
Burt Minster laid a hand on the parachute packs.
“We have two of them, and we planned that the jumper should
wear both, as is customary. Well, instead of that, we’ll both jump,
you and I, at the same time.”
“And what would that prove?” snorted Del.
“I’m not through yet,” Burt rebuked him. “We’ll announce the
thing as a race to earth, the man landing first winning. You see, you
don’t have to pull the rip-cord that opens the parachute the minute
you leave the ship. You can fall free—an army expert fell almost two
thousand feet before he opened his ’chute—”
 Del O’Connell’s eyes glinted.
“’Tis not a bad idea at all,” he admitted, and looked upon Burt
Minster with less rancor. “I like it fine.”
“Wait a minute,” interposed Jim Tyler. “You mean you’ll both
jump, and let yourselves fall a quarter of a mile or more? Why, that’s
the craziest—”
“And the man who pulls his rip-cord last wins, for he’ll land first,”
Del O’Connell explained. “As good a test of nerve as ever I heard of.”
“Well, you can fly yourselves, then, for I’ll not have a hand in it,”
Jim Tyler announced firmly. “It isn’t necessary for you two to kill
yourselves to prove you’re fools. I’ll believe it now.”
His statement made no impression on his partners. This was no
sudden quarrel. Each, feeling guilty, was consequently touchy, and
doggedly set on doing his utmost to retrieve their misfortunes. And
from this attitude it was only a short step, in the ragged state of
their nerves, to an open conflict over the issue of courage—or any
other issue about which they could contend.
“Well, Jim,” said Burt Minster at last, as Tyler continued to stand
his ground unswervingly, “there’s another plane here at the fair, you
know. That fellow will take us both up if you won’t.”
Jim Tyler gave in at that, for he saw that his opposition to the
plan was only making them more eager to try it. Secretly he nursed
the hope that next day would bring them back to rational behavior.

But the opening hour of the fair found them still fixed in their resolve
to carry on perhaps the strangest duel of nerve that had ever been
devised. The three partners kept apart, since talk only led to
acrimony, and each at his post of observation watched the crowds
gathering.
They came in battered tin automobiles, and they came on foot,
and they came in ancient horse-drawn vehicles, from Baychester
County and from the county across the Baychester River which
flowed past the Fair Grounds. Jim Tyler’s airworn but still airworthy
Burgess training-plane was the center of a milling mob, for
Baychester was not so sophisticated as some of its neighbors, and a
flying machine was still an object of doubt and an object of awe.
The ropes about it strained under the pressure of the curious, and
the voices of the guards who reinforced the ropes grew hoarse and
querulous. And word of the race to the ground through the thin air
spread through the murmuring crowds.
The time of the flight came.
“Now boys, be sure and give us a good treat,” Jenkins, a stout,
harassed, badge-encrusted gentleman instructed, as he bustled up
to the shack wherein the partners had come together again.
“You’ll get it,” returned Burt Minster grimly.
“Two of them,” promised Del O’Connell, buckling the harness of
his ’chute about him, and taking a final glance at the dangling rip-
cord and the ring attached to it.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” the official declared, and dashed
away.
At the plane the three men waited, while space for a takeoff in
the infield was cleared of spectators. Jim Tyler warmed up his motor,
and then, throttling down, left the cockpit and confronted his
partners.
“If you’re set on going through with this fool thing I suppose I’ll
have to stand by,” he said briefly. “Where are you jumping from—
wing or cockpit?”
“Since we’re not pulling the rip-cords at once we might as well
jump from the cockpit,” said O’Connell. “You can signal to us better
from there and it will look more spectacular.”
“That suits me,” replied Burt Minster curtly.
“I won’t be able to get this bus up over six or seven thousand
feet with the weight of three men in her,” Jim calculated. “Suppose
we make it five thousand, to be sure?”
“A mile is plenty, since it’s going to be a sprint,” Del O’Connell
said, with a chuckle. “Though of course,” he added, looking sideways
at Minster, “one of us may not do much sprinting.”
“Speak for yourself,” growled the other man. “You’ll probably
starve to death before you get to the ground.”
 “Remember, when I turn and put up five fingers, get ready,” Tyler
broke in hastily. “And when I nod, jump! One from each side. And
jump hard, so you’ll clear the tail.”
“Right,” assented Del O’Connell eagerly, and Burt Minster nodded
agreement.
The infield was clear at last. With a final glance at the fastenings
of their harness and the rip-cords that would release the parachutes,
the two men silently climbed into the rear cockpit. They wedged
themselves into the narrow seat. Then both turned automatically
and studied the direction and force of the wind, as revealed by the
whipping flags on the grandstand.
Jim Tyler gave the ship the throttle. Bouncing and lurching, it
charged into the wind, the propeller flickering as it cut the air and
flung it back upon the tense faces of pilot and ’chute jumpers. Far
across the infield the plane raced. Finally the wings took the burden
from the rubber-tired wheels. The ship, with a final jolt, parted
company with the ground, hung poised above the grass, and began
its upward climb.
Though it was an old story to them, the two men in the rear
cockpit looked downward, each upon his side, and the plane climbed
in great circles above the fair ground below. The green of the
countryside prevailed, but the brown of the oval racetrack cut
through it, and just outside this ellipse was a speckled band of many
indistinguishable colors that is the indication of people in masses.
Beyond that, behind the cigar-box grandstand, stretched a tightly
packed section of black and gray-black, where the automobiles of
the crowd were parked. Booths and buildings, gay with bunting,
displayed their tiny square outlines in regular patterns around the
ground.
And then, as the plane rose higher, the fair grounds contracted
until they were a mere detail of the landscape below—the great
green and brown squares and oblongs, with larger irregular patches
of woodland, interspersed here and there by tracts of well-watered
pasture land, of a lush green. Across it all, as if dividing all the world
into two parts, ran the almost straight course of the Baychester river.
 Del O’Connell and Burt Minster at just the same time turned their
attention from the earth to the back of Jim Tyler’s head. They were
approaching their mark and both sensed it, although there was no
altimeter in their compartment.
The motor labored on, and both men thrust feet out straight, and
moved shoulders tentatively, as if to drive away any incipient
stiffness that might hinder action in that one swift leap into space.
Both were entirely at home in the air, as seamen are at home on the
water, but neither had ever gone out, deserting their craft for the
impalpable element in which it swam.
Suddenly Jim Tyler turned a grim face toward the rear cockpit
and raised his left hand, with fingers outstretched. Five thousand!
For an instant little Del O’Connell and big Burt Minster turned and
looked at each other. Determination was imprinted in the lines of
both countenances, and together they squirmed to their feet in that
cramped compartment, standing full in the buffeting stream of air
flung back by the whirling propeller. Del O’Connell, with an agile
twist, got one foot up on the rim of the cockpit and gripped the edge
with both his hands. His head turned forward, and his eyes fixed
themselves on the stern face of the pilot.

Burt, a little slower, slung a foot over his side of the machine, and
with one hand fumbled for the ripcord and dangling ring at the end
of it. Tyler nodded.
Del O’Connell, with a quick spring, brought his other foot up out
of the cockpit and, clinging with his hands, crouched on the edge of
the fuselage. His legs bent more sharply for the leap that would
carry him far out into space.
But just then the eyes of Jim Tyler caught a sudden flash of white
from the pack on Del’s back. The next instant the great silken
parachute whipped out of its confining envelop. Del’s rip-cord had
fouled on something inside the cockpit, and his eager jump to the
rim had jerked it.
 The great spread of cloth billowed open instantly and whisked
backward in the grip of the wind. For just an instant Del, entirely
unconscious of what had occurred, held his place on the fuselage.
Then, like a stone from a catapult, he was whipped off his feet and
flung toward the tail of the racing plane.
The open parachute swept into the tail assembly. The
tremendous force of the wind ripped it from skirt to vent as it
caught. Shroud lines parted like threads. Then the silken cloth
wrapped itself about elevators, and several of the shrouds that did
not snap became entangled over the point of the balance of the
rudder.
O’Connell’s whirling body struck the tail of the machine. Then it
swept past, dropping out into space. But the remaining shroud lines
were securely held by the rudder. O’Connell’s fall was checked by a
bone-jarring jerk. His body dangled below the tail of the plane,
swaying in the rush of the wind.
The plane wavered in the air, its flying speed dropping fast under
the resistance of the silken cloth whipping backward from the tail
assembly, and the drag of the man’s body swinging behind. Jim Tyler
opened the throttle full, and thrust the stick forward for a steep
glide. The elevators responded. They had been unhurt by the lashing
parachute. The nose of the plane turned earthward; its speed
increased.
The sudden catastrophe had come before Burt Minster had gone
over the side. He drew back in the cockpit and stared over at the
figure of Del O’Connell, dragging behind the plane by the precarious
strength of a few unsevered shroud lines. As he watched, he caught
sight of the white face of his partner, and saw that O’Connell, dazed
by the suddenness of the accident and his whip-like snap from the
cockpit, was just coming to a realization of what had occurred.
Jim Tyler turned and stared backward, too, and then the eyes of
Jim and Burt met. Speech was impossible in the fury of the motor’s
roar, but their eyes appealed to each other for help—for some way
out. The plane was diving sharply earthward; to check that dive
meant losing control of the ship; not to check it meant to crash at
terrific speed into the ground. There was no way of getting
O’Connell back into the ship; that was utterly impossible.
That communion of eyes lasted but a brief second; then both
men turned despairingly to the doomed man trailing behind the
plunging plane. They, too, were doomed in that headlong dash, but
somehow their plight seemed as nothing compared to his.
O’Connell had not lost his senses. They perceived that with both
hands he was fumbling, working at his right hip. Even as they
watched, his hand went to his left side in the same peculiar
movement. Then they comprehended.
O’Connell was unbuckling his harness. Already he had unclasped
the snap buckles that fastened the heavy webbing straps about his
thighs; now but one more buckle remained—the one across his
chest. He did not look toward the plane; his whole attention was
absorbed in his task, exceedingly difficult in that lashing wind,
dangling there in space at the end of the cords. But in an instant he
would no longer be dangling. The ship would be saved—at a price.
Jim Tyler watched, paralyzed by the horrible fascination of the
thing. In another instant O’Connell would have cast himself off from
the plane—and from life. His dry throat framed at last an inarticulate
sound of protest at the sight of that sacrifice. The wind swept it
away unheard.
Burt Minster, too, was watching. The breast buckle came apart.
Del O’Connell was free of the harness. He hung there by his hands,
and his face turned briefly toward them. A strained, twisted grin was
on it.

A pain shot through Jim Tyler’s shoulder; it was a blow from Burt
Minster’s heavy fist. The big man was squatting on top of the
fuselage.
“Right turn!”
His voice blared in the pilot’s ear, audible even above the thunder
of the motor. Jim obeyed automatically. The plane swerved sharply
to the right.
 As the machine swung around, O’Connell’s body whipped
sidewise, no longer directly behind and below the tail. In that instant
Burt Minster leaped out into the air, all the strength of his powerful
muscles concentrated in the thrust of his legs. His body, its
momentum aided by the rush of air, shot through space. He crashed
like a plunging bull into the lean, small body of Del O’Connell.
The two men dropped together as the long arms of Burt wrapped
themselves about his partner.
The plane disappeared instantly from their view; they plunged
downward in a free drop, locked together, face to face. Air was all
about them; the thunder of the machine died away in their ears.
Beneath, the countryside was slowly expanding, opening up before
them like a magically blossoming flower.
“R-r-r-r-rip-cord!” roared Burt Minster. His own arms tightened
their clutch on Del O’Connell until the little man’s breath was
squeezed out of his chest. But even before Burt had spoken the
quick right hand of Del was wriggling downward, between Burt’s
shoulder and his own, toward the release ring. He found it. He
pulled.
Burt Minster’s breath followed Del O’Connell’s out of his body as
an iron band tightened across his breast; his thighs were squeezed
as if a boa had wrapped his constricting merciless folds about them.
Del felt a repetition of that shock that had hurled him from the
fuselage.
Burt emitted a sound, half expiration, half grunt. His parachute
had opened.
It spread above them like a shield. The country below ceased its
eerie expansion. Burt Minster’s grip about Del O’Connell’s chest
relaxed slightly, and the smaller man breathed again—deep, lung-
distending mouthfuls of sweet air. There was no longer any rush of
wind or roar of motor; nothing but a gentle, lulling sway from side to
side under that great canopy of silk.
Burt Minster spoke first.
“These things are supposed to handle up to four hundred
pounds, so I guess we’re all right,” he remarked, with an effort at a
casual tone.
Del blinked.
“If you’ll loosen up on those arms of yours, I’ll be able to get a
grip myself,” he answered. They adjusted their positions, and Del
took some of his weight from his hands by fastening his belt about
Burt’s harness. They continued to drift downward. The sudden
cessation of hubbub and speed made this gentle movement
dreamlike.
Del O’Connell cleared his throat—and cleared it again. Finally he
muttered:
“That stuff about nerve, Burt—I’m a liar of the first water. Nerve?
You’re nothing else.”
“I saw what you were doing, yourself,” mumbled Burt Minster,
equally shamefaced and uncomfortable. “That certainly took guts,
Del.”
“I’m glad to be out of that mess,” said Del fervently. “Look! Here
comes Jim!”
Jim it was, and he was not above but below them. He was
climbing fast, and it was plain to see that he had complete control of
the ship. As they craned their necks toward the ascending plane he
banked sharply, and went circling under them, waving his hand
toward the tail. Nothing but a few tatters of silk and several shroud
lines trailed from the control surfaces of the tail assembly. Jim had
dived his encumbrance into ribbons.
With the plane whistling around them, they were wafted
downward almost directly over the fair grounds. A gentle wind was
drifting them toward it, for Jim had calculated well before signaling
for the jump. The earth was coming upward now with greater speed,
as their horizon drew in upon them. No longer could they survey half
the county.
Legs dangling, they waited. Past the eastern end of the racetrack
they drifted, and then, suddenly, the ground thudded up against
their feet, and down they went in a heap together. The parachute
slipped sideways, and lay billowing on the ground.
 “We finished together, Del. It’s a dead heat,” said Burt Minster,
climbing to his feet and lifting the smaller man with him.
“Dead enough,” answered Del O’Connell emphatically. “But I’ve a
hunch this last little stunt has broken our run of bad luck, Burt. See!
Here comes Jenkins on the run, and I’m crashed if he hasn’t got his
checkbook in his hand!”

THE END

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 30, 1925

issue of Adventure magazine.
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