I stopped reading Moby Dick for a bit. Think I will read a couple chapters over my days off. Haven't really sunk my heart into it. I find the writing a struggle. Too many words. Guess I didn't know what to expect. I was sorta hoping it would be an Old Man And The Sea sorta thing.

Was not expecting this comment Robert......

Robert Tulip wrote: The two great threats to our planet, global warming and nuclear bombs, are primarily promoted by Christian civilizations. Just look at the Republican Party in the USA.

What's up with the blame game? Man kind is what it is.

Damafino wrote:Man kind is what it is.

Some chapters in Moby Dick are rivetting, and others are hard to read. I would recommend skipping a chapter if you find it dull. That is fairly easy since there are many digressions, such as the explanation of the different species of whale.

Melville is very critical of Christianity. A background theme in Moby Dick is Melville's critique of the assumption that western civilization is superior to primitive savagery in every respect. Melville's depiction of the humanity of Queequeq would be very confronting for those raised with strongly racist prejudices. Part of his aim in the book is to promote more humanity among those who are in a dominant position. I think there are also hints of an ecological awareness, but that is less clear.

This recognition of human similarities and differences raises a serious problem of how we assess the merits of different cultures. Just saying everyone is equally responsible for the problems of the world may seem politically correct, but it ignores reality. Some people are more responsible than others. For example, the USA is estimated to have 8613 nuclear bombs (source), while Chad has none. The USA emits about 17.5 tons of CO2 per person every year, while Chad emits about zero (source).

My personal view is that the most advanced countries have got the world into quite a dangerous situation, and bear the main responsibility for solving global problems, through a clear eyed discussion of responsibilities. That may drift the discussion a bit away from Moby Dick, but I think it remains relevant in the sense that Melville is describing the first global industrial enterprise, so we should look at how global industry has grown beyond what he could imagine, and how it has some continuity with what he describes.

Your comment that mankind is to blame reminds me of a comment from the philosopher GWF Hegel, that everyone is equal just as in the night all cows are equally black. Things only seem the same when they are not carefully analyzed.

I agree with you both. Some groups are more blameworthy than others for specific wrongs, but in general it's not feasible to assign this blame based on some attribute you perceive. It would be a form of the genetic fallacy (ant's favorite) to claim that nuclear weapons or global warming-denial proceed from Christianity. How to then explain the existence of both in non-Christian countries? Not to mention, if you blame Christianity for nuclear weapons, you'd then have to credit it for modern science--can't have it both ways.

But getting back to the book, some authors clearly are in the social criticism mode, such as Upton Sinclair and Theodore Dreiser. Is Melville also aiming at social criticism? I see some statements of humanism, such as defending Quegeeg as just as worthy of regard an any other person, but so far that's all I see. We'll get further into this matter of religion, I'm sure, but even if Melville was to criticize certain Christians or their actions, that would not amount to a criticism of Christianity.

The line so far in Moby Dick that I thought was most cutting about Christianity was at the end of Chapter Two, where Melville suggests a modern Dives - the rich man who the Bible says will go to hell - would be president of a temperance society, where he "only drinks the tepid tears of orphans."

The implication for Melville's view of Christianity is that the religious teetotallers present a surface show of moralism while their actual conduct is indifferent to suffering, that Christians are hypocrites. Melville completely inverts conventional Christian images of who is good and who is evil, by suggesting the puritanical whalers - with the Quaker link to temperance well understood - are akin to Dives. Perhaps that leaves the whale anthropomorphised as poor Lazarus, who "lies stranded on the curbstone" warming his hands before the laughing cold of the aurora. This use of the term 'stranded' for Lazarus does bring the whale to mind, since stranding is a common occurrence for whales, not for humans.

The process of collecting tepid tears, quite a poetic image, rivals the difficulty of the harpooning and try works used to collect money from the blubber of the whale.

We are steadily on the march towards the dock, where the good Christian Puritan joint stock owners of the Pequod come in for some further description.

Melville reflects and extends the same moral point the Bible made with the story of Lazarus and Dives, so his use of it seems anything but anti-Christian to me. Anyway, Melville's criticism of religion could easily be seen as standing up for a true form he believes is being abused. It's like criticizing country; it doesn't mean, except to bigoted people, that one is condemning what the country stands for.

You are pointing out that Christianity itself is paradoxically anti-Christian.

Jesus condemned the pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, as 'whited sepulchres', tombs with a nice coat of paint containing rotting bones within. (Matt 23:27)But evangelicalism claims to have learned the lessons from the Bible, and not to be guilty of such hypocrisy. So when Melville says the leading Christian sects are more similar to Dives than Lazarus, he is arguing that Christianity as a dominant institutional religion is on a path to hell.

Your comparison with patriotism is apt. People can say they love America so feel obliged to criticise Americans, to be true to the principles of truth, justice and the cult of Superman. Melville seems to be saying he loves Jesus so feels obliged to criticise the hypocritical followers of Jesus who kill whales for gold.

DWill wrote:I haven't sorted out this business with the 'stoves' and 'staves' or the perspective of the oysters. I just get the message that Ishmael is saying that the non-corporeal part of himself is the real part. Maybe it's true that Ishmael roughly voices Melville's own feelings. Melville is supposed by some to be something of a mystic.

Ishmael speaks of belonging to a protestant group (I think he said Presbyterian) and he mentions that he was in a dark or 'brown" mood. Could Melville be referring to his interest in mysticism and questioning if he should leave the path of an established faith?

"Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs." The jackal Anubis is Egyptian God of embalmment. And yet, the jackal reminds us of the vulture, a disgusting animal scavenging among corpses.

Vultures are not disgusting. They are amazing, funny and full of personality. Very intelligent birds, you will find the only thing they can't do is talk.

They are the undertakers in mountainous and stoney places - because they get rid of the corpses when there is no soil to bury them or when there is no one around to burn them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2aJC7G ... re=related

Vultures were once very common and played a very important ecological role in
India by cleaning up livestock carcasses. During the past 15 years, they have
declined by more than 97% and are now regarded as critically endangered
species. It was thought that an unidentified avian disease was responsible but this
was not the case. Two BirdLife Partners, The Bombay Natural History Society and
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds together confirmed the decline was
caused by a veterinary drug called diclofenac, widely administered to cattle.
Vultures feeding on carcasses with residues of diclofenac quickly die from kidney
failure and dehydration. The decline in vultures has lead to a huge increase in the
population of feral dogs which is causing a problem for villagers and has increased the risk of spread by Rabies
and Anthrax.
Diclofenac, a veterinary drug for livestock responsible for 97% decline in vultures


“Asia’s vultures are in severe crisis and funds are urgently needed to support captive breeding schemes to prevent their extinction,” —Richard Grimmett, Head of BirdLife’s Asia Division

Interesting. I read that chapter quickly. Will re-read it now.

Penelope wrote:Vultures are not disgusting. They are amazing, funny and full of personality. Very intelligent birds, you will find the only thing they can't do is talk.

yes, good point. But still, having a bald head in order to be able to stick it in rotten bellies displays an iron constitution that the squeamish find distasteful.
There are some abattoiresque lines in Moby Dick with equal capacity to heave the belly.

The context here is that 'faith feeds among tombs', that religion has a morbid obsession with death, with the emotional desire for eternal life after death somewhat like scavenging.

The tragedy of the vultures of India illustrates that people do not care about things they think are disgusting, but this can have major unforseen consequences.

Melville refers to Moby Dick as a murderous monster. This attitude probably contributed to the social acceptance of whaling. There are many examples of people demonising things they wish to destroy.