Do You Feel Lucky, Historian? January 1, 2023
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback
I had the great pleasure to start the year with a podcast episode on luck and lucky charms (with Chris Woodyard and her extraordinary free source book). We spoke about the psychology of luck, Italy as the dinosaur valley of fortuna, corpse magic (golly), the Great War and talismans, burying St Joseph to sell your house and we had (of course) an argument about whether lucky charms (‘mascots’) became more popular in the later nineteenth century. I was repelled by the ghouls collecting teeth and blood from gamblers who had shot their brains out, but fascinated by the question of professional luck.
It is understandable that men and women who share a profession share superstitions. This is perhaps particularly so when there is danger in the job or/and unpredictability. Two traditional professions where workers were extremely superstitious were mining and fishing: both dangerous and unpredictable. In the texts that Chris gathered up I found it interesting that more modern professions also adopted superstitions easily. Two dangerous, but at least notionally predictable professions were nineteenth-century rail- and street-car workers. Workers in this sector built up a whole series of luck beliefs.
I’m curious whether this continues to be true of modern professions. Chris gave some examples of Soviet cosmonauts* and their lucky tokens: another unpredictable and incredibly dangerous profession, of course. What about coders or Amazon delivery staff or diversity officers? Do they have their superstitions or is there just not enough danger and unpredictability in the modern world workplace? Drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
Having written a couple of pieces on luck this summer I’m increasingly convinced that superstitions have been debased in the postwar generations (for good or for bad). Here the objections rain down. But all societies have folklore! I throw salt over my shoulder! Popular beliefs are part of the human weft!
Yes, but pre-digital superstitions tend, in my experience, to be bound together. They are an integrated system. Modern superstitions are personal quirks and societal fossils. We still have magical thinking, but of a different type from our ancestors of even a century ago.
*look out for her comparison in the podcast to the broken medieval sword.
