ahab as luddite

[Terrance]

> And what are some of Ahab's "external arts"?
> The power of (Milton) Satan's rhetoric.
> 
> To Chapter 36
> 
> The Quater-Deck speech....
> 
> And only one man can resist it. Oh Adam, forsake me not....

And that man is a Quaker. And like the Quakers in M&D (including Dixon),
and like almost all the men of religion in this novel, Starbuck is a
Quaker who will recite orthodoxy when it suits him and break the
principle of his religion as easily. ANd Ahab knows the way to the
darker side of a heart is the lay or the coin.  

  "Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus
far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last
seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the
wonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick- but it was not
Moby Dick that took off thy leg?"
  "Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye,
my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick
that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he
shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a
heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that
razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!"

His leg? And did the whale take also his balls? His electricity?