An off-putting title, I know, but Ishmael continues to amaze with his ironic witticisms. Here's one for you:
"But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory!"
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Kindle Version, Location 2132-42.
Whaling must not have been very pretty. According to Ishmael it is a scorned profession, even during Melville's time. Think about those awe-inspiring, mysterious creatures being harpooned to a bloody death, hauled into bay and then chopped into bits for their blubber and meat. For the average civilian it must have been like watching a unicorn getting their horn sawed off to make baby diapers. Alright, perhaps not that bad, but you get the point. Not sure that you get the point?
Okay, the point is what we consume speaks more loudly than the things we supposedly denounce. Don't like oil spills? Don't like pollution? So what? Am I sounding preachy? I don't mean to be. Consuming resources, like it or not, is a part of human life. But being human also means that we can do the following: We can consume less. We can consume responsibly. We can be less hypocritical about our choices. These are all things you've heard before (I hope). Interestingly, these are things I wasn't planning on learning from Moby Dick. Thanks for reading.
2 comments:
I haven't read Moby Dick, but I feel like I have after reading multiple versions of two different seminar papers Neal wrote about it. It is interesting to hear bits of what you take from it -- you are reading it through a different lens than Neal. I find that I am increasingly impressed the book because it is so FULL of insights/thoughts/philosophies/important ideas. This was definitely an interesting observation. My fallback is simply to consume less because 1) I hate shopping anyway and 2) the amount of research (and varied opinions) about consuming responsibly is just dizzying to me.
For the record, I think there's a lot more to Moby Dick than environmentalism or other items of interest to liberals. Although I did come across a quote last night that totally had affirmative action's back.
It has been chock full of lots of insights, I've truly been enjoying it. I miss you!!!
Post a Comment