The People's History & the Cold War

[Michael Bailey]

so to continue - none of the above points might even be *the* point,

(I hang a little bit of creedence on the notion that rather than
"having a point" maybe sometimes the idea of "something could be said
about it" is more realistic)

like, maybe it's an early description of Freud's Thanatos principle.

Since, as you mention, Melville worked his way up from deckhand to the
captain's table, wrote travel accounts, stories, novels and even an
epic poem - he was considering the vector if at any one point he were
to decline the challenge of the hour...

which hasn't really much to do with capitalism, but a lot to do with living...

and it's interesting that such an active person would take enough of
an interest in the contrary notion of nay-saying to write such a
story.  In that context, it really does seem like a cautionary tale...

and thus affirms "at least do something" which applies to anarchists,
certainly, as well as to capitalists and mercantilists and I don't
doubt Ayn Rand herself would find something in it, although she would
be much more inclined to see refusal of capitalist endeavour as
tantamount to embracing Thanatos...

whereas Zinn, and me with him for at least a few steps, would more
likely expound on capitalism as a setting conducive to the kind of
despair that might lead to such an outlook...the copying of documents
asserting ownership of such items as real estate, money and even
people...said ownership inhering in people you know from personal
experience to be more or less undeserving...said ownership pre-empting
other people's claims with whom you might have a lot more
sympathy...freakin' depressing...


Does Bartleby represent one's conscience?
I stumbled on that idea a minute ago...