Fwd: Not P but Moby-Dick (16)

[Joseph Tracy]

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.
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> 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.



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>> 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!”
>> 
>> 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.
>> 
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>>> 
>>> 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"?
>>>>> --
>>>>> 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
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