Not P but Moby-Dick (16)

[Joseph Tracy]

Seems we all have a variety of emphases on this theme of technology and human will, but understand its import in very similar ways.

 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. Strange how much Ahab sounds like neo-cons to me, but 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 violence 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. 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. He is asking  on the cusp of a civil war what kind revolution do we want, the dream of Jeffersonian yoemen farmers and tradespeple, or an increasingly hierarchical empire of extraction dependent on endless warfare. 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.
  
   
> On Sep 29, 2023, at 5:40 AM, Hübschräuber via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
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> "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!”
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> The man surely is focused...
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> 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.
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>> Am 29.09.2023 um 06:55 schrieb Ian Livingston:
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>>> 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"?
>>>> --
>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l