Not P but Moby-Dick (16)

Sun Oct 1 05:54:28 UTC 2023

Thanks for the detailed discussion, it does help a lot. The translation is
actually not too hard, once I get a good understanding of what it is
saying.

On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 5:18 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I am going to risk the foolishness of repeating my take on the passages
> below in question. I think what I am saying has a clarifying meritand is an
> accurate understanding of what Melvlle is doing.
>
> In a way the passage seems a way for Melville to  indicate the triviality
> of a quest to take vengeance on a creature of nature as though the whale
> were the judgement of God rather than a creature of nature defending its
> life. Ahab is calm in that he is self aware enough to know he has deified
> his will to vengeance with calculated deliberateness, and "madness
> maddened" in that he knows that this may be, and will appear to others to
> be, a demoniac quest, but one on which the crew’s livelihood depends and
> therefor no one will swerve him.
>
>
> One thing I am observing here is that Ahab is typical of a human tendency
> to ascribe to oneself knowledge, power and technology that one often does
> not personally understand at all. How many of today’s thought leaders could
> actually build a computer or camera or internal combustion engine, yet they
> boast about western technology as though they were an owner of that
> knowledge rather than an inheritor. I think Ahab is similar. what does he
> really know about Iron railways and steam engines? He does know a
> particular technology of  rather crude and risky sea-going extraction,
> interestingly and prophetically of oil extraction, that fuels his own power
> as captain and that fuels the larger system with all its technologies of
> extraction, lubrication, mass production, and burning.  He knows the risk
> of his own will to vengeance, but he knows that the livelihood of the crew
> is dependent on his captaincy and the violent business of whaling, just as
> western expansion depended on disposessing indigenous peoples with violence
> and a lie about vengeance as though tribal peoples were the threatening
> force and not racism and greed.. He is describing a world view where the
> greatness of the great depends on the submission and smallness of those who
> serve this greatness and partake of it only vicariously. It is an
> anti-democratic vision turning to madness because Ahab ackowledges it has
> become a matter of vengeance: to dismember his dismemberer. He is again
>  asking  what kind of revolutionary society  do we want, the dream of
> Jeffersonian yoemen farmers and tradespeple, or an increasingly
> hierarchical empire of extraction dependent on endless warfare and a
> dangerous and ant-scientific disregard for a healthy biosphere. He asks do
> we want a citizen-shaped society that understands the interdependent nature
> of every biological community  or one shaped by great leaders of iron will
> and imperial ambition?
>
>
> How to translate this to make it plain is a challenge. The translations
> you cite seem quite wrong to me.  My main points are that the madness is
> coming from Ahab’s embrace of vengeance and with it the power to ignore
> both the business aspect of whaling and to place the safety and
> profitability of his crew second to that will to revenge himself.  It is
> couched in the deification of his will as captain, and representative of
>  his connection to ascendant capitalism. This  aspect of his madness may be
> seriously wrong-headed but not an indication of personal insanity.
>
> *"That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself” … . Perhaps:
> "That wild madness whose only calm is to know (*without regret) his own
>  calculated vengeance.    * *optional clarification
>
> Madness is obviously  not quite the same in English as insanity. It can be
> temporary,  and or emotional,  and or deliberative. It does not inherently
> imply the loss of mental clarity about what is real.It also applies more
> easily to larger cultural
> movements. A Chinese word would obviously do best if it reflected that
> quality, though I am sure I am speaking to one more expert on this topic
> than myself.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 29, 2023, at 5:40 AM, Hübschräuber via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails,
> whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the
> rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
> Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!”
>
> The man surely is focused...
>
> I agree that there is a larger general historical/philosophical meaning
> here. I would not narrow it down to "economic forces of history". I
> believe it is more about ideology (belief in a purpose of history,
> restoring Eden, more generally a teleological view of the world) with
> the economy only being one aspect. The "iron rails" in particular point
> to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Clearly, this is the opposite of
> Queequeg's world view, and it is not hard to tell where Melville's
> sympathies lie.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Am 29.09.2023 um 06:55 schrieb Ian Livingston:
>
> In order to change Ahab's course, any that come to deter him from his
> "fixed idea" will suffer the consequence of their attempts. The economic
> force of history determined with the advent of capitalism cannot be
> deterred (swerved off its course) without destroying whole populations.
> Melville at his most prophetic.
>
> On Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 8:52 PM Mike Jing gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> Also from Chapter 37:
>
> No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden.
> Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye.
> Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve
> me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there.
>
> What does "ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves" mean? And what
> is "man has ye there"?
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