ahab as luddite

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:
> 
> My problem is that I think that both Kai and David are right.
> 

>From the passage that Kai posted, I read Ahab as I read Blicero (neither
is quite a Captain and both Pynchon and Melville play with the
"Captain-ness" or lack of "Captain ness" of these characters). 
Both are men of great charisma (in Weber's sense). Melville's Ahab, we
should remember, is not a naval Captain, he is more the captain of a 
floating business. Hunting whales for oil is an enterprise, a venture,
and the men own stock or shares in the business (even Ishmael works for
share of the company's profits). As such, the ship is more egalitarian
than any naval vessel, because the hierarchy is flattened out by its
being a joint-stock company. So from where does Ahab derive the power to
control the men? Same question for Blicero/Weissmann? How does Melville,
like Pynchon, fuse the Fox and the Lion? Language is one answer. Both
Blicero (with his corrupted Rilke) and Ahab have the rhetorical skills
of Milton's Satan.