ahab as luddite (Quakerism)

[Terrance]

The Great Quail wrote:
> 
> Terrance writes,
> 
> >>  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.
> 
> An interesting point, but Ahab is also a Quaker, and no doubt most of
> the Nantucketers on the ship, including Flask and Stubbs. (Although I
> can't recall if their "secret origin stories" are mentioned.) I think
> you are being a bit hard on ol' Starbuck, though. He was faithful
> enough, in his own way. It's not his fault that Satan would one day
> appropriate his name to shill $3 cups of coffee....
> 
> --Quailqueg


It's quite important that these men are Quakers who kill Leviathan. They
are Quakers with a Vengeance. Melville, like Pynchon, does not stress
this fact just because it is historical. What are we to make of Ahab's
black mass rituals and his gnostic sermons? 


CHAPTER ONE 
Ahab's Trade The Saga of South Seas Whaling By GRANVILLE ALLEN MAWER 

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/mawer-trade.html

I'm not being hard on Starbuck, he resists.  and yet he too Falls
Tragically, and so I compare him with Adam in PL. 




Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other
Nantucketers, was a   Quaker, the island having been originally
settled by that sect; and to   this day its inhabitants in general
retain in an
uncommon measure   peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and
anomalously
modified   by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of
these same  Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and 
whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a
Vengeance.

And what of Avarice?  

How now in the contemplative evening of his
days,   the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the
reminiscence, I do not  know; but it did not seem to concern him much,
and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible
conclusion
that a man's religion is one thing, and this practical world quite
another. This  world pays dividends. 

A bit of Calvinism in your Quakerism? How does one reconcile or
rationalize the contradictions? The hypocrisies? One doesn't look at a
coin or at a share to find God, one looks in the heart of each and every
man. That is, if one is a Quaker. That's what Dixon, for all his
unorthodoxy, does. 

>From Weber, on Methodism 

  Once and for all it must be remembered that programs of
  ethical reform never were at the center of interest for any
  of the religious reformers (among whom, for our purposes, we
  must include men like Menno, George  Fox, and Wesley). They
  were not the founders of societies for ethical culture nor
  the proponents of humanitarian projects for social reform of
  cultural ideals. The salvation of the soul and that alone
  was the center of their life and work. Their ethical ideals
  and the practical results of their doctrines were based on
  that alone, and were the consequences of purely religious
  motives. We shall thus have to admit that the cultural
  consequences of the Reformation were to a great extent,
  perhaps in the particular aspects with which we are dealing
  predominately, unforeseen and even unwished for results of
  the labors of the reformers. They were often far removed
  from or even in contradiction to all that they themselves
  thought to attain. 

  As he observed his own conduct, the later Puritan also
  observed that of God and saw His finger in all the details
  of life. And, contrary to the strict doctrine of Calvin, he
  always knew why God took this or that measure. The process
  of sanctifying life could thus almost take on the character
  of a business enterprise. A thoroughgoing Christianization
  of the whole life was the consequence of this methodical
  quality of ethical conduct into which Calvinism as distinct
  from Lutheranism forced men. That this rationality was
  decisive in its influence on practical life must always be
  borne in mind in order to rightly understand the influence
  of Calvinism. On the one hand we can see that it took this
  element to exercise such an influence at all. But other
  faiths as well necessarily had a similar influence when
  their ethical motives were the same in this decisive point,
  the doctrine of proof. 

  So far we have considered only Calvinism, and have assumed
  the doctrine of predestination as the dogmatic background of
  the Puritan morality in the sense of methodically 
  rationalized ethical conduct. This could be done because the
  influence of that dogma in fact extended far beyond the
  single religious group which held in all respects strictly
  to the Calvinistic principles, the Presbyterians. Not only
  the Independent Savoy Declaration of 1658, but also the
  Hanserd Knolly of 1689 contained it, and it had a place
  within Methodism. Although John Wesley, the great organizing
  genius of the movement, was a believer in the universality
  of Grace, one of the great agitators of the first generation
  of Methodists and their most consistent thinker, Whitefield,
  was an adherent of the doctrine. 

  It was this doctrine in its magnificent consistency which,
  in the fateful epoch of the seventeenth  century, upheld the
  belief of the militant defenders of the holy life that they
  were weapons in the hand of God, and executors of His
  providential will. Moreover, it prevented a premature
  collapse into a purely utilitarian doctrine of good works in
  the world which would never have been capable of motivating
  such tremendous sacrifices for non-rational ideal ends. 

  The combination of an  emotional but still ascetic type of
  religion with increasing indifference to or repuiation of
  the dogmatic basis of Calvinistic asceticism is
  characteristic also of the Anglo-American movement
  corresponding to Continental Pietism, namely Methodism. The
  name in itself shows what impressed contemporaries as
  characteristic of its adherents: the methodical systematic
  nature of conduct for the purpose of attaining the CERTITUDO
  SALUTIS. This was from the beginning the center of religious
  aspiration for this movement also, and remained so. In spite
  of all the differences, the undoubted relationship to
  certain branches of German Pietism is shown above all by the
  fact that the method was used primarily to bring about the
  emotional act of conversion. And the emphasis on feeling, in
  Wesley awakened by Moravian and Lutheran influences, led
  Methodism, which from the beginning saw its mission among
  the masses, to take on a strongly emotional character,
  especially in America. The attainment of repentance under
  certain circumstances involved an emotional struggle of such
  intensity as to lead to the most terrible ecstasies, which
  in America often place in a public meeting. This formed the
  basis of a belief in the undeserved possession of divine
  grace and at the same time of an immediate consciousness of
  justification and forgiveness. 


  Added to this is Wesley's doctrine of sanctification which,
  though a decided departure from the orthodox doctrine, is a
  logical development of it. According to it, one reborn in
  this manner can, by virtue of the divine grace already
  working within him, even in this life attain sanctification,
  the consciousness of perfection in the sense of freedom from
  sin, by a second, generally separate and often sudden
  spiritual transformation.  However difficult of attainment
  this end is, generally not till toward the end of one's
  life, it must inevitably be sought, because it finally
  guarantees the certudo salutis and substitutes a serene
  confidence for the sullen worry of the Calvinist. And it
  distinguishes the true convert in his own eyes and those of
  others by the fact that sin at least no longer has power
  over him.

groin (groin) n. 1. Anatomy. The crease or hollow at the junction of the
inner part of each thigh with the trunk, together with the adjacent
region and often including the external genitals.