ahab as luddite

[David Morris]

>From: Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
>jbor wrote:
> > > Is Ahab a Luddite?
> >
> > No, I don't believe this is necessarily a 1:1 match, or an 
>identification which Melville intended, though the quote Kai posted 
>certainly portrayed one aspect of the Luddite mentality: the instinctive 
>and obsessive distrust of anything which is outside the bounds of the 
>purely subjective experience of the individual. The question posed for me 
>is something like, "can this aspect of Luddism become manifested as 
>fascism"?
>
>I don't think so. Was there ever a fascist regime that deliberately set out 
>to destroy machines? Luddism from the beginning was directed against 
>capitalism, no? It is much closer to anarchism than to fascism, I believe. 
>On the other hand, I am inclined to think that both MD and GR contain a 
>devastating critique of the romantic world view, to which Luddism seems to 
>belong more or less. Ahab and Blicero are both romanticists - searching for 
>original harmony, longing for the mystical experience of everything falling 
>into place, of everything being connected. They may reach this kind of 
>epiphany (though Ahab doesn't get quite as far), but it is a wholly 
>subjective experience: It is what Foppl experiences in V. while 
>slaughtering the Herero and raping their women.

Interesting discussion above.  On one hand Ludd and Blicero are opposites.  
Ludd's romantacism was anti-technological.  Blicero's is pro-technological.  
But Ludd didn't seek the transcendent experience that Ahab and Blicero do.  
Ludd's goals were purely political:  he sought to maitain the existing 
decentralized production (and power).  He comes off a little bit insane, 
tilting at windmills, because his goal was already impossible, just as is 
trying to stop bio-engineering.

Here's an interesting "Neo-Luddite" manifesto:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/a/f/afd108/neo-ludd.htm

>>>>The origin of "King Ludd" and the other similar names has been lost to 
>>>>the shadows of history, but the name "Luddite" denoting a person who 
>>>>fears technology has endured. However, what the Luddites feared, was not 
>>>>the technology itself, but the loss of individuality, and 
>>>>self-sufficiency it represented.

>>>>The Luddite movement was a watershed event at the beginning of the 
>>>>Industrial Revolution. We look back on it now from the end of that era. 
>>>>The Industrial Revolution was a fascinating period that brought about 
>>>>profound changes in the human condition. In addition to the labor unrest 
>>>>the Luddite movement foreshadowed, we saw increased urbanization and 
>>>>mechanization. And we coined new terms like anomie and alienation to 
>>>>describe what we were experiencing.






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