WEBVTT

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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of superhero Ethics. In the movie Star

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Trek First Contact, there's a moment
where Captain Jean Luc Picard has gotten so

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focused, so obsessed with defeating the
borg and not caring about what it does

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to anyone around him, that one
of the other characters calls him out by

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calling him Ahab and saying I don't
know the exact words, but basically alluding

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to, you know, you've got
to get that whale. I have never

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read Moby Dick. A lot of
people have never read Moby Dick, but

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most of us probably got that illusion
because it's one of the most popular and

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well known literary allusions in American literature. Captain Ahab as the representative of the

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obsessed person who has to focus on
his goal, has to capture his white

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whale, no matter what the consequences. Well, during this time of the

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strike, were moving a field from
a lot of movies and TV, and

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a good friend of mine Ak,
who I met through a podcast we did

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together for Queer Ascendency on Disability in
Star Wars, mentioned that they're a huge

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Mobe Dick fan, and I thought, you know what, this is the

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time to talk about Moby Dick.
So it'll be me an Aka right after

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this commercial break that I really hope
is not from any of the Struck companies.

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Welcome back. This is Matthew host
Aka. I'm so glad to have

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you on here, your first time
guests. So why don't you introduce yourself

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a little bit and talk about yourself
and kind of the stuff you do that's

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relevant to fandom and your particular interest
and yeah, let's just start with you

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and your interesting fan background. Yeah. Absolutely. My name is Aka or

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Ilda. I am a big time
nerd and philosophy major who recently graduated college.

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I am somewhat of a content creator. I make a little bit of

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content on TikTok as well as on
Instagram, mostly surrounding the fantasy genre D

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and D. Lots of D and
D content, a decent amount of Star

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Wars content, and a lot of
disability content. I have Taylor's Danlow syndrome.

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I'm a wheelchair user, and I
love talking about disability in places people

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don't often look for it. So
I wrote my thesis on Moby Dick.

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When we were kind of talking about
ideas for this episode and themes and stuff

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and we were talking about disable characters. My discord name, which is a

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hab came up, and I think
they have is a great character whose disabilities,

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often overlooked or trivialized, is non
relevant part of his certain narrative.

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So yeah, I'm hear to talking
about that. Yeah, it's funny.

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So I'm going to confess first of
all, that I had not read Moby

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Dick before you and I started talking
about this. There was exactly one version

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of American literature you could take on
my high school where you didn't have to

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read Moby Dick, and I took
it. And then when you and I

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started talking about this, I thought, let's see if I can read the

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book in like the four days before
we record. So instead, like I

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said, I decided, let me
go back and have a high school experience

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of Moby Dick. So I just
read the cliff notes, which they apparently

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are called spark notes. Never heard
of them before, but they did chapter

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by chapter analysis, So I'm going
to have some knowledge. But I think

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in some ways actually it's good because
I want to be a representative for probably

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a lot of our fans who either
haven't read the book or maybe read it

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in high school some time ago,
or maybe just bys their way through high

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school without having read it. Absolutely, I'm glad you've mentioned the disability because

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I want to start there, because
I will say again the thing that i've

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the things that I knew about the
book going in were it was very much

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about whaling, and it was about
New England whaling, specifically in the early

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part, earlier in mid nineteenth century. That like a lot of other books

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at that time, I'm looking at
you, Victor Hugo and lay miss lay

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Miserabla, that it was a book
that has had a plot, but also

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the author slash narrator would often say, oh, and now that we caught

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one of these whales, let me
give you three chapters of philosophical meanderings on

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the nature of existence through the eyes
of this particular experience we've just had.

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And I knew that, as I
said, it was about this obsessive character

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who had to and would putting the
rest of his crew in great danger.

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Spoilers, as I learned, everyone
dies except for well, the whale doesn't

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die, and our narrator doesn't die, but everybody else does. One of

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the things that struck me was I
am a person who had He's not only

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disabled, I'm an amputee. I
have lost I have lost my leg.

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I've spent a lot of time talking
to people about my thoughts on disability representation

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in media, and particularly prosthetic use
in media. No one has ever said

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to me, have you ever thought
about reading Moby Dick because one of the

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main characters has a prosthetic leg.
I know, it's absolutely crazy, and

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I think the so Moby Dick,
like as a canonical work, is literally

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everywhere, and it's you know,
Starbucks. The brand is named after a

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character in Moby Dick, and it's
it's everywhere in our in our culture as

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American. UM. I was gonna
say, not only is the brand,

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but I hadn't realized this until I
read the spark notes. The character's Starbuck

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is a like a person on the
ship who was constantly questioning the captain,

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which is exactly what the character in
UM Battlestar Galactica is both the old new

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version. So anyway, that was
another cool thing. Yeah, No,

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you're absolutely right. And the book
has been analyzed. It's a dozen times

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and we're one hundreds of times,
and it's been called everything from you know,

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a revolutionary work in queer theory,
to you know, environmental studies,

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to like conceptions about realism and racism, and people have done all this really

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deep dive for talking about various allegorical
and elements of the book. And I

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do think that genuinely, Ahab's disability
is pretty overlooked, despite the fact that

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he is not only an ampute,
but he also has some very visible besides

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the amputation, scarring and like physical
deformities that I think are mentioned briefly in

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the book in terms of his aspect. But he is a character who is

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entirely defined by his disability, not
just disabled, which is I think even

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rarer to see in media, because
a lot of times disabled characters are oh,

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this character is disabled and how does
that affect their life? But Ahab

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and the entire process of him becoming
obsessed with the whale, the entire driving

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point of the plot of the book, and a lot of the kind of

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moral elements in the book is that
a have loss is like and when where

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he lost, specifically the last time
he attempted to catch and kill Moby Dick

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and Mobe back yep yep, sobe
he's a whaler born and raised, you

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know, been on whale his whole
life. It's like, you know,

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in the last sixty years he sent
maybe four years on shore. He was

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hunting a whale. This whale takes
his leg, and uh, he says,

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Okay, I need revenge. And
it's not really about revenge. It's

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about struggling with his disability and struggling
with what it means to like lose a

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body part in that way. And
he really like turns it into a metaphysical

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and existential question, which is my
entire world is gone as a disabled person,

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Like I'm not an ampute, but
I did pretty abruptly, over the

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course of you know, a couple
of months to a year in like late

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high school, early college, lose
my legs or the use of them almost

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like, you know, pretty largely. Like I he's a wheelchair every day

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and I used to be like an
athlete, and it is a world changing

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event to become disabled. And I
think that that's the thing about Ah that

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at least to me, makes him
such a compelling character now in terms of

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fability. Yeah, I really had
the same experience. I mean, I

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also relate to him because I have
wrestled with not obsessiveness the way in terms

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of like it's thought in terms of
obsessive compulsive disorder, which I think is

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a term is applied far too broadly. It's a very specific condition, but

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in terms of that single minded focus
of a goal where you start to lose

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sight of the consequences, and something
I've definitely wrestled with much more in my

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younger years. I hopefully I've mostly
defeated it now. But also, yeah,

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when I, like you, I
lost my leg very suddenly. I

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was hit by a train and woke
up the next morning and was told that

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my leg had been amputated. I
didn't even have a moment of like,

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you know, choosing or like being
told. I just woke up and my

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leg was gone. And today,
you know, prosthetic technology is pretty darn

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good today, and I would say
it's advanced even quite you know, in

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the twenty years since I've had my
prosthetic leg, it's advanced quite a lot.

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It was real bad at the time
that this was going on, and

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in a moment of both like you
know, we'll get at the whole idea

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we'll later talk about. Like the
animal rights part of thinking about think a

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very important part absolutely, But putting
that aside of what I'm about to say,

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I have to say, there's something
kind of badass to me about the

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fact that he loses his leg because
of a whale and then has a prosthetic

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leg made from whale, Like that
is just the ultimate, Like fum,

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he's such a metal character through and
through and like people don't think about literary

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classics is being that way. But
yeah, absolutely so why do you think

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it is that this side of the
character? And I'm gonna have you on

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at a later point to talk about
disability and digitally the media, so I

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don't want to go too deep on
this particular topic, but I think it's

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a good place to start. Why
do you think it is that his disability

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is so often never mentioned, or
if it is not, it might be

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just that, you know, you
think of him as like one of the

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pirate or you know, whaling people
who's got a peg leg, because that's

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now kind of a trope, but
it's never really thought of as part of

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his character. I think there's probably
a couple of things. I think.

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For one, um, it's not
it's not mentioned a ton in the book.

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It's mentioned pretty intensely in like his
introduction, um, like, there's

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a there's a chapter that's just titled
Ahab and when he's introduced, it's mentioned

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very prominently. It's mentioned later in
the book when he loses his peg leg

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that is made of wellbone and have
to have a replace. It's mentioned when

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he meets an other whaling captain who
lost his arm to Mobe Dick and they

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kind of like have a little bit
about their prosthetics. So that's one part.

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And it's a very dense, very
sick book with a lot going on,

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so it's you need to overlook any
individual piece. I also think at

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the time it was written, you
know, whaling accidents were common and voting

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accidents were common, and it was
not disability culture was not the same for

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particularly very masculine sort of jobs,
where it was like very valeriant and kind

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of like romanticized in a lot of
ways, but also just incredibly brutal and

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low class in a lot of ways. And so you know, yeah,

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you're on a whale boat and you
lose your arm, you lose your legs,

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you lose a couple of fingers,
you lose some toes, you lose

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your hearing, Like, oh well, people die, like in the grand

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scheme of things, that's just kind
of how it was and so and you

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know, in like eighteen fifty book
was written like how good was your medical

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care? How like where people really
thinking about it in the same way,

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And the answer is no. But
also I think it gets brushed off because

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people like to me as a disabled
person reading the chapter where it's explained like

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ay have used to be like he
was in he was a mean captain,

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but he was like competent and chane
and flirt and like he was a good

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whaler, like he was a captain
already, and then he loosed his leg

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and then he goes mad in the
like three months journey that it takes the

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boat to get back to shore because
him, him and his amplicated leg,

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which is you know, amplication in
that like on a whale shift, your

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carpenter was your medic. So it's
a brutal process, the painful process.

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You're not like who knows we're going
to live. He like laid in the

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hammock and went crazy. And this
project gets described and people are like,

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oh, okay, like you know, something happened. He went nuts.

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He wants revenge, but like unless
he's experienced like trauma or disability. The

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meaning of that is easy to kind
of Oh yeah, it's a checkbox for

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a plot point that you don't think
about it as like immediate and proximal and

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the connection between those things being like
very clear. I also just think that

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there's a lot of like when Ahab
later starts ranching and raving about this whale,

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he does so in a pre philosophical
way that I think is easy to

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overlook, and like when I read
this in high school, I did not

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at all catch any of it,
Like it all flew over my head,

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and I didn't, like I really
thought it had just wanted revenge on the

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whale. And if you look a
little deeper into the book, it's actually

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that Ahab thinks the whale is like
the personification of all evil and everything outside

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of his control, and if he
kills the whale, he will He's like

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fighting God to regain control over his
own personhood and life, which is like

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way different than wanting revenge for being
wronged and also way closer to the struggle

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of like disability and feeling like you've
lost yourself and control of your life and

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control of your surrounding, or that
there's some cruel, benevolent being, like

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what did I need to deserve this? Like those are way more like immediately

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recognizable to a disabled person. Very
much, so very much. And there's

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a couple of things I want to
say there. One is that it is

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very clear to me, and the
research kind of pays this out. Melville

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spent a lot of time researching this
book. You know, a lot of

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people will be like, oh,
I've heard of whalers once or twice.

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I think I must know what's going
on. No, he researched it.

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He learned all about whaling. He
learned about whales and the science of it

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and the processes of it. And
in the course of doing it, he

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talked to a lot of sailors,
including people who had lost their limbs.

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And I think it's very intentional.
Therefore, the caveat that I want to

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add that I think is important to
mention, especially the way you were talking

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about it, especially because as you
brought up he goes, you know,

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mentally quite unstable, as do a
number of other characters. I think,

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and again I haven't read the book, but there were some trigger parts,

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particularly about the mental things that happened
to him and other characters that I did

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like read those chapters. I think
this is a fantastic representation of physical disability.

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As someone who also has a number
of mental disabilities, I think it's

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a pretty poor representation of that was
to be pretty clear. And I don't

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say that as like, oh,
that's the reason not to read the book.

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I say this is a book written
in eighteen forty where the understanding of

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mental illness was completely alien. So
when we talk about that, I think,

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I just think that's worth mentioning because
we're focusing on this book is like

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a good work of disability. Well, I think good, Yeah, I

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was gonna say I'm not even.
I'm not even or that I would say

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it's a good or a great representation
of physical disability, because Ahab, at

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the end of the day is still
vilified and demonized in a lot of way

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that you know, the white ivory
leg is playing into, especially when the

215
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theme of the book is that the
white whale, it's whiteness itself is like

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a it's like a market evil,
and that's extended to Ahab. Bias is

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prosthetic and like all of those things
are really not good and there's a lot

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that they although doing in terms of
mental health that's like also not ideal.

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I think, well, okay,
the mental health and maybe Dike also gets

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overlooked because the opening lines of the
book, I don't know if you looked

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at them, but Ishmael gets on
like decides to go whaling because you suicidal,

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and so like the kind of mental
health themes of the book are not

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like they start from a really weird
place, which is treating mental health in

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a completely foreign way to the way
that we treat mental health today. And

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there's a lot because you know,
makes me tilt my head, it makes

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me narratively question things. But on
the other hand, I feel like there

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are elements of the mental health aspects
and characters that I see that are not

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necessarily good a representation in terms of
where they sit narratively in the story.

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But if you take them in isolation, are also peculiarly accurate representations in certain

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instances, and like they were taken
out of the narrative and just looked at

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independently, would maybe be fine.
And their problem is the whole they're playing

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in the narrative or the way that
they're overlooks. So quickly, and so

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it's like something that I've struggled.
I mean, I've read this book of

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bajillion times. Like I said,
I wrote my thesis on it. And

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so they are like, particularly with
Ahab and particularly with smart Book, and

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the ynamics between the two of them
and A have like very actively struggling against

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the you know what what Melville calls
is like mottomaniac quest for the whale.

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Like people call Ahab mad or they
call him insane, and I really,

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like I call mad just in terms
of using the literary kind of title.

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But I really don't. I really
don't know if Ahab is an Ahab as

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a character other characters who certainly have
probably things going on that are more actually

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akin to mental disability or mental illness, but I don't. I often have

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gone back and forth on like is
Ahab actually like that? Like what?

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And I'm not I'm not a doctor, but yeah, Like I don't,

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like we call I have mad,
but I think it's an exaggeration. And

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I think that every step of the
way in the book we see that Ahab

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does have like a a very like
traditionally classically like quote unquote well functioning like

248
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mind and he's making really well thought
out decisions, and it's not actually like

249
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whatever it had is struggling with is
existential, not so much in a way

250
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that's like, yeah, you could
say he has depression, you could say

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he has whatever else going on,
but it's so much broader than that,

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which is something that I, as
a person who struggle with a lot of

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mental disabilities, like, fine,
um, yeah, I'm to be clear.

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For one thing, I'm mostly thinking
of Pip in terms of the way.

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But but I think, like you're
right, I think Melville, I

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think, does have some accurate understandings
of the way having your world fundamentally upset

257
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and the way it happens, both
in the like the physical manifestation of it

258
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is losing his leg, but also
it's the idea of you know, humans

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hunt whales, hum hunt whales in
this case, because part of the idea

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is that Moby Dick like poise with
them and like goes after the boat like

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the whale them, and so yeah, I kind of my point is more

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just I think this is in part
because he probably had access to a lot

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of people who had physical disabilities at
this point in time. Yeah, you

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wouldn't go and talk to someone who
had mental disabilities because either they never never

265
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knew they had, or they may
sanitarium. Right, And so I think

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words like crazy and mad are thrown
around a lot, and I would say,

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I think you're right. I think
I think there's something fundamentally lazy about

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saying, oh, this character is
crazy and therefore we don't have to ascribe

269
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any rationality to them, because in
truth, most people who have mental disabilities

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of some kind, from the you
know, very functional to the like unable

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to really connect with others because they're
experiencing reality fundamentally different than everybody else.

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There is a rationality to it.
It just often starts from very different first

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causes or you know, whatever it
is. Or again, they're dealing with

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the reality fundamally different than our own
or whatever it is. And so yeah,

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I think, yeah, I think
with both Ahab and Pip, they

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experience things that are so different from
whatever what they have always thought they should

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experience that their mental functioning starts to
go in directions that the rest of us

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think are fundamentally not okay with.
In some cases good reason. But yeah,

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to just call it mad as though
that means like, oh, he

280
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might come out with you know,
a teapot on his head tomorrow is not

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accurate. I'm wondering, like because
because I have thoughts about the like like

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the portrayal of Ahab, and I
spent more time with the character of Ahab.

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But I'm wondering when, like when
you're talking about the portrayal of Pip,

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what things kind of stood out for
you, because I want to try

285
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and like it stick in that kind
of rown. Well, let me give

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00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:03.839
my understanding of a thirty second version
of Pip again for those who don't know,

287
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Ahab is the captain. Ishmael is
our narrator, and he's a fascinating

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character in his own Pip is a
young black boy. The treatment of race

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is very interesting in these books,
and we'll get more into that. But

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I think there's supposed to be some
indicate he has a Southern accent. I

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think it's supposed to be some indication
that he's an escaped slave or a freed

292
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slave, or maybe he's the child
of freed slaves. Certainly this, you

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know, all this is happening in
the boats are all launching from New England,

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which was at that point really a
hotbat of abolitionisms. There were a

295
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lot of escaped slaves there. But
he's a young boy who is like he's

296
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supposed to be like eleven or twelve, and he's kind of he's the cabin

297
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boy on the ship, but he's
definitely looked down on by everybody, both

298
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because of his age and because he's
black. And he has real trouble following

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orders empire because he's eleven. And
yeah, as they get into the portion

300
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of the book where they're actually hunting
whales, you learned an awful lot about

301
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how that process works and that you
know, this is long before harpoon guns.

302
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This is when you had to like
you had the main whaling boat and

303
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then basically kind of rowboats would go
out with someone would throw a harpoon and

304
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then there'd be line attached and the
other person would have to like help.

305
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And he's in one of those boats
and he screws something up and so they

306
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have to let go of the whale
because he screws up because he's terrified when

307
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the whale comes to get him,
and in the course of that he's thrown

308
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overboard and he's rescued by one of
the mates who are through the only white

309
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people on the ship well left.
They talk about that in a bit,

310
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and the person who rescues him,
Stubs, is kind of angry with him

311
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and says, look, if you
do that again, I'm going to leave

312
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you behind. I'm not going to
make I'm not going to rescue you.

313
00:23:55.960 --> 00:24:00.599
That situation comes up again, he
again panics eleven year old boy, and

314
00:24:00.839 --> 00:24:04.960
he panicked and screws things up for
the other whalers and they just leave him

315
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:10.400
behind. They leave him in the
water too while they go and try to

316
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finish off the whale, and he
is rescued later. And as I understand

317
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it, basically like something in his
mind cracks because of that, because he

318
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just has in his mind he has
died, and it's the experience of almost

319
00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:26.839
drowning was also the experience of being
left behind by the people. And then

320
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as Ahab becomes more and more kind
of off kilter, him and Pitt become

321
00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:36.640
closer and closer, and he often
kind of talks about Pip being the one

322
00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:40.960
who understands him, so that that's
kind of my understanding again from the spark

323
00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:44.319
notes, Yeah, but I did
read a couple of Spiller chapters too.

324
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How how much do you think that
fits who doesn't fit with well, I

325
00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:52.960
think that's basically perfectly accurate. And
I think both Pip and Ahab like are

326
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:56.160
described as crazy or described as in
sane or described as mad, and I

327
00:24:56.200 --> 00:25:03.359
think those words are used. And
so yeah, pit pit falls overboard,

328
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:06.640
and I think the phrase and I
could be wrong, I'd have to go

329
00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:10.960
look, but the phrase uses like
his body survived, but his soul was

330
00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:15.400
drowned, Like he's waiting in the
water for hours, which is like impressive.

331
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:19.000
Like it's a very long time that
he gets left behind because they're they're

332
00:25:19.079 --> 00:25:22.039
hunting whales and you have you have
to follow the whales, like the whales

333
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:26.279
are running like and so it's a
very long time before he gets picked up.

334
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:30.240
And when he gets picked up,
it's not just that Ahab is closer

335
00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:34.279
to him or or like feels like
he understands them. It's that Ahab thinks

336
00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:41.480
that Pitt is now like some sort
of like that there's some real be cleaning

337
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:45.559
that Pitts has access to that other
people can't reach. And there's a lot

338
00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:52.359
that kind of goes into all of
that, and and the words badness,

339
00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:57.079
the words insanity, the word crazy
are thrown, but really, what is

340
00:25:57.200 --> 00:26:06.279
portrayed is that both of them have
been through extremely traumatic experiences and bond in

341
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:12.359
a silence over the kind of like
camaraderie of that traumatic experience, and it

342
00:26:12.599 --> 00:26:18.519
has relation with like like relationship with
Pip is. I mean, it's uncomfortable

343
00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:21.960
by nature of Pips being an eleven
year old boy and a Have being like

344
00:26:22.039 --> 00:26:27.440
a six year old man like,
but like a Have almost elevates like this

345
00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:33.799
really traumatic experience that like obviously does
mess Pip up mentions like it like eleven

346
00:26:33.920 --> 00:26:37.599
year old being in that situation.
Regardless, they're going to have some serious

347
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:42.319
like trauma coming out of that,
but like elevates Pip kind of to the

348
00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:47.160
status on the ship that he didn't
have before. And so it's almost like

349
00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:53.960
a weird like like a baptism for
Pip that he like is now a part

350
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:56.960
of the crew and a part of
these men and he's been through it and

351
00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:00.799
he knows what it is and he
sees the true nature of the world,

352
00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:07.079
and a habs like aw, look
at this and yeah. In terms of

353
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:14.759
the mental health kind of dynamics going
on there, Noneville is very clear kind

354
00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:18.799
of at every step of the way
that like whatever is going on with Ahab,

355
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:21.720
he's not lost any of his intellect, and like he says that very

356
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:25.680
clearly, Like he says very clearly
that like Ahab, you know, quote

357
00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:27.079
unquote goes mad, but he means
it's none of his intellect, which is

358
00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:33.799
like part of the horrifying part is
that he's smart enough to know like exactly

359
00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:36.720
what he needs to be doing.
He's in touch enough with the world that

360
00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:41.240
he's like making these decisions. And
Pip, you know, Pip is eleven,

361
00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:45.599
So Pip doesn't have that intellect in
the same way. And so a

362
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:51.680
Hab kind of like touchs him as
pure or like I don't know somehow,

363
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:56.759
like I don't I'm honestly thinking about
this now and like I'm making connections and

364
00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:00.480
things. But like a have the
tess with the white whale and admissional ultimate

365
00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.440
is long right about how the blankness
of the whale is what so horrifying about

366
00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:07.240
him but also so cool because it's
like it's the thing without color. It's

367
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:11.680
so like ultimiliar with Taoism. It's
like the undercarved block. It's like the

368
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:15.480
ultimate unknown blankly, and Pip kind
of like becomes that for Ahab, but

369
00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:19.240
in a positive sense. Like personified
in a person in an ally. I

370
00:28:19.319 --> 00:28:22.720
mean, as I said, we're
going to talk more about how race is

371
00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:26.200
portrayed in this Yeah, But I
do think in that regard, the fact

372
00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:29.960
that Pip is black and has described
as fairly dark skinned is very important because

373
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.720
he is also that that if if
Moby Dick is the epitome of evil through

374
00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:41.640
his whiteness, then in the blackness
and I we'll talk more about the racial

375
00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:42.880
stuff and to be sure, but
I think that's definitely a part of it.

376
00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:45.160
Two good things though. I just
wanted to add from what you were

377
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:49.640
just saying. First of all,
if part of your wondering how Pips survived

378
00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:52.440
in the water for some time,
it may be because you made the same

379
00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:56.240
assumption I did, which is that
this is whaling in the North Atlantic,

380
00:28:56.759 --> 00:28:57.720
you know, because that's what we
tend to think of, is that,

381
00:28:57.720 --> 00:29:00.799
and there certainly was a lot of
whale done there. That's not true.

382
00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:07.759
This book takes place the start,
it starts and ends in Nantucket, but

383
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:11.960
most of the book takes place in
the South Seas, like they go the

384
00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:15.359
stay around the bottom of Africa,
and the most of the book and what's

385
00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:18.119
now like Java and Indonesia and stuff, so that what would be werem enough

386
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:22.000
frame resurvived the whole time. That
blew my mind the idea that people wereing

387
00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:25.359
all dif from England to there,
especially because if we learned, they're just

388
00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:30.240
doing this for oil, like they're
leaving the carcasses almost entirely left behind.

389
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:33.839
The Other thing, though, is
I think it is where we kind of

390
00:29:33.880 --> 00:29:37.400
wrap up the mental stuff and the
physical and kind of move on some other

391
00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:42.759
things where I think it's worth mentioning. In kind of an odd foreshadow in

392
00:29:42.839 --> 00:29:48.200
my life before I lost my leg, I was working in a disability rights

393
00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:53.119
law firm and one of our client
groups was often people who were mentally you

394
00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:57.519
know, had mental issues and we're
seen by others as mentally ill. This

395
00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:03.960
was in the early to late nineteen
nineties, and often there would be lawsuits

396
00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:07.079
brought by their family or others of
like they have to be medicated, they

397
00:30:07.160 --> 00:30:11.000
have to force them to be normal, and we were trying to really push

398
00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:14.119
back against that. And one of
the definitions that we used that is now

399
00:30:15.359 --> 00:30:21.440
I think fairly commonly used is that
the only point at which mental issues becomes

400
00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:25.960
something that I don't say that you
know, obviously we want to help everybody

401
00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:30.559
to have the mental health that they
want to have. That the only point

402
00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:34.440
at which mental illness becomes a significant
problem where intervention might be needed, even

403
00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:38.240
if they're not wanting it, and
even then it's very dicey, is when

404
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:44.160
they're actually posing a harm to others. And that I think that's one of

405
00:30:44.200 --> 00:30:47.200
the things that I think that's I
think a way that we can talk of

406
00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:52.720
at Ahab becoming a villain here is
that for him. It like I think

407
00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:55.359
if if if at the end of
the book he was like, I'm going

408
00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:59.680
to go off on my whaling boat
and on my little dinghy and go to

409
00:30:59.799 --> 00:31:03.359
hunt will be dick and you all
go safe, it's a fundamentally different book.

410
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:07.720
It's that like Picard was doing in
First Contact. I think that's such

411
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:11.680
a brilliant analogy for it. He's
putting everyone else in danger and as it

412
00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:18.119
turns out, leads everyone else to
their death despite us people great, no,

413
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:19.240
and yeah, I was gonna say, and And the thing is that

414
00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:23.799
he was like very optively and very
clearly warned by both people who are on

415
00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.880
his ship and people from other ships
who encountered as well. Yeah, and

416
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:33.079
I think that's the I think that's
where you can start to say, like,

417
00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:37.200
that's when you know, when when
your mental focus on something, when

418
00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:40.960
your trauma is causing you to do
harm to others or to lead others into

419
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:44.559
harm, then yeah, I think
it's it's it's really worth like looking at

420
00:31:44.599 --> 00:31:48.160
that as a problem. And I'll
say because of that, like you said,

421
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:52.640
I think some of the some of
the feelings that Ahab goes through are

422
00:31:52.799 --> 00:31:56.240
things that most people I don't say
most, but that many people who have

423
00:31:56.279 --> 00:32:00.079
been disabled, especially many people have
had it, as you said, a

424
00:32:00.119 --> 00:32:02.759
traumatic way, and certainly for me, as a fellow ampute I really related

425
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:07.240
to the thing is I don't go
to the places they have goes. And

426
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:12.920
it is one reason why I think
it is so significant that we get introduced

427
00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:17.319
to another character who has also an
amputee, because you know, I think

428
00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:22.480
one of the things that offends a
problem is when a piece of fiction can

429
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:23.519
kind of be like, oh,
yeah, if you have mental trauma,

430
00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:25.960
you're going to turn into a serial
killer, You're going to turn into a

431
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:31.119
super villain or something like that.
And having another character who has had their

432
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:35.920
understanding of their self, of their
body, of their place in the world

433
00:32:36.039 --> 00:32:42.039
so fundamentally changed because they lost a
limb from Moby Dick. I'm very pointed

434
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:45.519
they doesn't have the experience to me
that made it feel so much better,

435
00:32:45.839 --> 00:32:51.680
because it's Melville clearly saying I'm not
saying that everybody who loses a limb is

436
00:32:51.720 --> 00:32:54.119
going to go in this direction,
but that if you lose that, it

437
00:32:54.359 --> 00:33:00.200
is losing a limb that caused was
a big part of at least causing him.

438
00:33:00.440 --> 00:33:02.200
I think Ahab in particular, to
go in this direction, it makes

439
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:06.319
you a particular story instead of a
general one. Yep. And I think

440
00:33:06.680 --> 00:33:09.680
that you know, we don't see
the other um. The character that you're

441
00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:14.720
referring to is named Captain Boomer,
and he's the captain of the ship that

442
00:33:15.079 --> 00:33:16.920
the pe quad runs into right towards
kind of the end of the book.

443
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:22.000
And it really, like I mean, so we see mental illness in several

444
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:27.319
other characters who are all not causing
harm to others in the way that A

445
00:33:27.480 --> 00:33:31.759
habits and managing your mental illness and
in more responsible ways, although not necessarily

446
00:33:31.799 --> 00:33:36.400
all responsible ways. But we see
a pretty broad day versity, like again

447
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:42.079
starting with Israel in chapter one.
But Captain Boomer is like this. He's

448
00:33:42.119 --> 00:33:45.079
described as jill bill and happy and
he's really just glad to have a scase

449
00:33:45.160 --> 00:33:47.119
within place. And he kind of
cracks a joke about his arm and Ahab's

450
00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:51.720
legs and he's not I'm sorry,
my cat is like running around causing chaos.

451
00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:58.400
But he uh yeah, he really
poses like a really solid dichotomy,

452
00:33:58.440 --> 00:34:01.119
and he's one of the kind of
last line that's like he really warrants a

453
00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:05.400
have. He's like, hey,
going after this whale, like you and

454
00:34:05.480 --> 00:34:07.480
I both lost a limb, Like
you both know, like going after this

455
00:34:07.639 --> 00:34:12.159
whale. Like if you keep assets, it's madness. And I think,

456
00:34:13.159 --> 00:34:15.519
I don't know. There's something I
think that is that I appreciate in that,

457
00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:23.119
which is that like the just like
regardless of trauma, regardless of mental

458
00:34:23.199 --> 00:34:29.480
disability, regardless of physical disability,
like you're responsible for your actions. And

459
00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:32.400
obviously there are people who are experiencing
the world in a variety of ways,

460
00:34:32.679 --> 00:34:38.159
but as as a person again a
bunch of different disabilities, including mental disabilities

461
00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:44.559
in trauma and all that stuff,
like really being reminded that like a habit

462
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:47.280
is a tragic character because he has
suffered and because he's been through all of

463
00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:52.559
this, but like he is choices
and obviously not all, not all disabled

464
00:34:52.920 --> 00:34:57.280
people and not all people with mental
disabilities are habits capacities to make those choices

465
00:34:57.280 --> 00:35:01.320
like that is a privilege. But
he is making choices, and we are

466
00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:07.960
reminded that he is making choices,
and not that his passage being chosen for

467
00:35:07.159 --> 00:35:12.480
him by his disability, which I
think is very nice. Definitely, And

468
00:35:12.559 --> 00:35:14.519
I would say one last thing about
that, and I want to move on.

469
00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:17.800
I remember when I lost my leg. I work with physical therapists.

470
00:35:17.800 --> 00:35:21.760
I also worked with occupational therapists who
really tried to help me figure out,

471
00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:24.320
Okay, your body is different.
What are some tips and tricks and things?

472
00:35:24.440 --> 00:35:28.800
And I figured out some of my
own since then. And there's it's

473
00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:31.320
a throwaway thing in the book,
but one of the things that Ahab realized.

474
00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:36.079
You know, a ship is moving
all the time, and even today,

475
00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:37.519
you know, I don't have an
ankle, so it's very hard to

476
00:35:37.599 --> 00:35:40.360
make the adjustments that allow me to
stay in a place, and with a

477
00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:45.599
peg leg it would be far,
far worse. I can't actually say a

478
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:49.000
friend made me a peg leg for
a pirate costume, so I have actually

479
00:35:49.039 --> 00:35:51.920
walked on a peg leg too,
I know how hard they are. And

480
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:55.079
so what a have does is he
drills a hole in the deck near where

481
00:35:55.079 --> 00:36:00.360
the captain should stand so that he
can keep his leg balanced in whole.

482
00:36:00.400 --> 00:36:05.320
So beautiful moment. Yeah, I
agree. Okay, So next, let's

483
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:07.800
talk about I think one another of
the really big issues that again I think

484
00:36:07.800 --> 00:36:12.519
sometimes gets alluded to a little bit
but not talked about very often, which

485
00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:15.400
is the way race and religion and
those differences are talked about in the book.

486
00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:21.760
Because my understanding is it is being
written by a white man in New

487
00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:24.719
England in the eighteen forties who has
a lot of the prejudices and things like

488
00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:28.719
that. But as I said,
New England at that point was a very

489
00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:31.960
abolitionist society. There was a lot
of it, you know, for the

490
00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:37.639
time attempts to move towards better racial
awareness. It seems like the book is

491
00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:40.719
really trying to take a step in
that direction too. Talk to us somewhat

492
00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:45.159
about how race is treated in the
book. Yeah, I will start by

493
00:36:45.239 --> 00:36:51.440
saying that there are definitely some insensitive
racial moments. There is a lot of

494
00:36:51.639 --> 00:36:54.840
insensitive racial language, and that,
you know, something that needs to be

495
00:36:55.559 --> 00:37:01.760
acknowledged and considered and condemned. That
being said, I think there I have

496
00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:06.000
read more literature about race and MOBI
dick kind I have about disability in Mobi

497
00:37:06.039 --> 00:37:08.800
Dick. I think just because of
um the popularity of it in the more

498
00:37:08.840 --> 00:37:15.599
recent years. And there are some
really cool things going on with like race

499
00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:20.960
and colonialism and religion in Mobi Dick
that are what hey ahead of their time.

500
00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:27.039
Um. And it really starts when
a sorry, when Ishmael, our

501
00:37:27.119 --> 00:37:31.760
main character meets his companions, who
is his companions of the entire book who

502
00:37:31.960 --> 00:37:37.400
there's also like a lot of like
queer stuff going on there. Um creek

503
00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:40.679
Leg and cleek Leg is uh you
know, um, I believe he's a

504
00:37:40.679 --> 00:37:45.719
Polynesian islander, but he's indigenous.
He was like a prince he like got

505
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:51.920
thrown out of whatever kind of group
he was in or with or like his

506
00:37:52.119 --> 00:37:55.119
his indigenous land. And the story
there is really zig but he's a whaler

507
00:37:55.239 --> 00:38:01.239
now and Ishmael meets him because they
have to share a bed in an inn,

508
00:38:01.440 --> 00:38:07.400
which is like really funny as it's
groth in general. But and they

509
00:38:07.480 --> 00:38:13.119
become best friends. An Ishmael who
is like you know, born and raised

510
00:38:13.199 --> 00:38:16.159
Christian, but doesn't seem to particularly
have any strong feelings about religion one where

511
00:38:16.159 --> 00:38:20.840
another from the get go says like, it's better to share a bed with

512
00:38:20.960 --> 00:38:23.119
like a sober cannibal than it is
to share a bed with a drunk Christian.

513
00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:28.480
And because quikleg is established, is
like he's selling heads, like shrunken

514
00:38:28.719 --> 00:38:34.280
human heads on when they the night
they meet. And so Ishmael's cason quik

515
00:38:34.320 --> 00:38:37.320
Weg is like, well, a
good person's a good person, like you

516
00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:40.880
know, he says they're a bad
Yeah, so Isnael. Kind Of his

517
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:45.199
take is that there are bad Christians, there are bad white people. There

518
00:38:45.239 --> 00:38:49.960
are like misbehaved people all over the
place, and so when you find good

519
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:52.760
people, like treat good people to
people. And now obviously there's like issues

520
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:58.000
with color blindness and all of that
stuff going on. But the other thing

521
00:38:58.159 --> 00:39:00.480
is that on whale boats and at
sea, and this is true kind of

522
00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:07.320
before, you know, before the
eighteen fifties, but there was always a

523
00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:10.880
little bit of a wiggle room out
at sea in terms of a lot of

524
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:15.639
things that were considered culturally normative.
And obviously there were boats and ships and

525
00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:20.800
entire shipping practices that were incredibly problematic
in a ba jillion different ways, but

526
00:39:22.119 --> 00:39:27.400
whaling culture was very much we need
to kill whales, and killing whales is

527
00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:35.679
the absolutely near impossible feat, like
and to go out for four years and

528
00:39:35.880 --> 00:39:40.440
kill as many whales as you can
is incredibly difficult. And you don't get

529
00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:46.119
the privilege of caring if the person
next to you is, you know,

530
00:39:46.480 --> 00:39:49.840
from the same background as you,
the same race as to you, the

531
00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:54.880
same religion as you. And Melville
does a good job of also not going

532
00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:00.639
like complete color blindness or completely radar
is very clear or about the racial dynamics

533
00:40:00.639 --> 00:40:05.599
on the ship, which is the
three mates are white and the three harpooneers

534
00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:10.920
are people of color. But there's
some really interesting things that Ishmael Slash Melville

535
00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:19.639
takes real time to explain that I
think, like really make clear Melville's intentions

536
00:40:19.880 --> 00:40:25.199
about race and religion and colonialism.
And this is a kind of a weird

537
00:40:25.960 --> 00:40:30.079
fact that a lot of people don't
know, but original copies of Mobe Day

538
00:40:30.119 --> 00:40:32.960
were actually rejected by publishers who are
being too anti to colonialists, too anti

539
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:39.840
missionary issues, republic or whatever.
And so one of the things that I

540
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:45.000
think is one of my favorite,
like moments in the book that really clued

541
00:40:45.039 --> 00:40:52.639
me into something intentional going on with
race A s the whiteness of is Ishmael

542
00:40:52.719 --> 00:41:01.840
takes time to specifically tell us that
the harpooneers um used to be the primary

543
00:41:01.960 --> 00:41:06.880
person you went to on a ship, like the mates were secondary to harponiers

544
00:41:06.920 --> 00:41:09.920
on whaling ships for a really long
time, because the harpooniers are the ones

545
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.199
throwing the harpoons in the whale ships, in the small boats, and they're

546
00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:19.079
making the kill shops, and they
are the most important persons in the like

547
00:41:19.280 --> 00:41:22.119
in the Final Hunting Whale, and
and Israel was like, yeah, so

548
00:41:23.239 --> 00:41:28.880
you know, we have these first
mates and in recent times being recent being

549
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:31.960
like the eighteen fifties, like in
builds, which I don't exactly know how

550
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:39.360
long before it was, but the
harpooniers held higher rank, were respected more

551
00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:45.599
clearly than the than the mate.
And it's only recently that we've started like

552
00:41:45.239 --> 00:41:52.800
acknowledging the hierarchy of even the captain
over the head harponiers. And that being

553
00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:54.400
said, in the heat of the
moment in the chase of the whale,

554
00:41:55.599 --> 00:42:00.880
your first mates are in charge right
up and kill you are on top of

555
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:02.960
the whale, at which point it
is the harpaniers, because they are the

556
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:06.159
ones with the expertise, they are
the ones with the skill, They are

557
00:42:06.199 --> 00:42:08.760
the ones who know how to do
this in this game longer, they know

558
00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:15.159
this like they know it better.
They're more a dept. And the harpooneers.

559
00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:19.559
The three harpen yers on the boat
are quick Lag, Tashtego, and

560
00:42:19.679 --> 00:42:27.920
Degou. And I so Quiklag is
I believe Polynesian islander. Tashtego is African.

561
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:32.639
I think no, that's Degu okay, because Dagu Dagu, I believe

562
00:42:32.840 --> 00:42:39.440
was formerly a slave, right formally
a slave. And I think Tashtego is

563
00:42:39.480 --> 00:42:44.840
also indigenous to Americas that I do
not remember the phone there. And so

564
00:42:45.119 --> 00:42:51.760
all three of them, um honestly, are very prominently featured in the book,

565
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:59.199
and there's a lot of instances where
Ishmael very specifically compares them to their

566
00:42:59.639 --> 00:43:02.280
first mate counterparts, because every individual
small whaling boat when they go out in

567
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:08.960
the rowboat, is one harpooneer,
one mate, And every time he does,

568
00:43:09.280 --> 00:43:15.719
he's making them like a mockery of
the mates and their right and competence

569
00:43:15.760 --> 00:43:21.000
and their clumsiness and their arrogance and
like how it's so funny to watch Stubb

570
00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:25.719
order around Dago, who's like this
this very tall, very muscular, very

571
00:43:25.840 --> 00:43:30.800
like strong and competent black man,
who, like Ishmael describes, is very

572
00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:37.320
beautiful, and like Stubb is the
short, like literally stubby, like fat

573
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:45.199
white man who like is like describes
it's just straight mean and not very pleasant

574
00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:50.639
to be around. And you know, over and over and over again,

575
00:43:51.079 --> 00:43:57.920
Ishmael emphasizes that, like this dynamic
is just like odd and backwards, and

576
00:43:58.719 --> 00:44:05.840
mates are are like there, but
are they really necessary? And they're the

577
00:44:05.880 --> 00:44:12.079
ones causing a lot of problems and
like being like they are the difficult ones

578
00:44:12.199 --> 00:44:15.840
on this otherwise relatively harmonious ships.
And at the end of the day,

579
00:44:16.519 --> 00:44:23.239
Tashego is the one who when the
ship is thinking, like is the last

580
00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:31.039
person kind of standing like like flying
a flag. Yeah, and yeah,

581
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:37.440
there's like there's a lot to unpack
in terms of those three characters alone that

582
00:44:37.559 --> 00:44:38.840
we can, I guess just start
there. I mean, one of the

583
00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:43.920
first things I noticed, and I
think from what I understood this is subtler

584
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:46.000
than some of the specific race stuff, but I think it's definitely there.

585
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:52.119
Part of the sort of anti colonial
of the message is the book. It

586
00:44:52.199 --> 00:44:59.480
winds up therefore being about that these
indigenous people are hunting the whales that are

587
00:44:59.679 --> 00:45:04.639
in they are like native areas,
you know, so and and like again,

588
00:45:04.679 --> 00:45:06.519
not to say that all the South
Seas are the same. It's a

589
00:45:06.559 --> 00:45:10.119
bunch of different countries and different you
know, kingdoms and individual groups. But

590
00:45:10.239 --> 00:45:15.519
still it's it's their part of the
world. But in order to do that,

591
00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:19.320
they have to travel all the way
around the world to get to America

592
00:45:20.440 --> 00:45:24.000
and then under an American ruled boat, go back to their own home waters

593
00:45:24.760 --> 00:45:29.400
to hunt the animals that live in
those home waters, to then go all

594
00:45:29.480 --> 00:45:32.599
the way back to the Americas to
sell the thing that they got there and

595
00:45:32.719 --> 00:45:36.360
then maybe get it and they'll get
a cut of it, with the white

596
00:45:36.360 --> 00:45:37.800
people getting a higher cut. And
so that all alone, I think are

597
00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:44.039
very striking, you know, bit
about the way white you know, colonialism

598
00:45:44.280 --> 00:45:47.679
stucks out their resources from an area. Yeah, but also go ahead,

599
00:45:50.199 --> 00:45:53.760
go ahead and fish. Yeah.
But then also I was really struck by

600
00:45:53.960 --> 00:45:59.760
the so much of the way Ishmael
and Quikway get to know each other.

601
00:46:00.599 --> 00:46:06.400
It's Ishmael gets to be the audience
amazm Our character of He does see him

602
00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:09.360
as a savage, see him as
a cannibal, you know, because those

603
00:46:09.400 --> 00:46:14.679
are the myths that that have been
taught to him, and that through through

604
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:19.039
the course of the book that has
changed pretty fundamentally. And I think a

605
00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:22.320
very good example of a similar kind
of story is offer any who's one who's

606
00:46:22.320 --> 00:46:29.199
read Hawk Finn. The dynamic between
Hawk and Jim is very similar. Like

607
00:46:29.400 --> 00:46:36.400
in both books, both Mark Twain
and Herman Melville are trying to write anti

608
00:46:36.519 --> 00:46:39.079
racism books, their creatures of their
times. They both use a lot of

609
00:46:39.159 --> 00:46:44.559
racist language that today we would find
very problematic. But it's a very similar

610
00:46:44.639 --> 00:46:47.679
kind of story. And in a
moment that I found that was both both

611
00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:52.719
touching but also I think showed the
limits of Melville's cultural knowledge, which again

612
00:46:52.840 --> 00:47:02.159
is understandable. He describes Ishmael combing
across quick Way during a time of religious

613
00:47:02.159 --> 00:47:07.920
ceremony for him for him, and
there are elements of it that feel very

614
00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:14.079
Islamic and which does make some sense. Indonesia some other parts of the South

615
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:19.559
Seas were Islamic countries going back to
the you know times early after Muhammad himself.

616
00:47:20.320 --> 00:47:24.679
Someone ten centuries or more but also
he's worshiping an idol, but also

617
00:47:24.760 --> 00:47:29.159
the time is called something that sounds
a lot like what we they would hear

618
00:47:29.159 --> 00:47:37.480
as Ramadan, and it I didn't
I don't know to what extent Melville thought

619
00:47:38.039 --> 00:47:42.559
that the people of the South Seas
had practiced religions or they maybe it'd had

620
00:47:42.599 --> 00:47:45.280
some contact with Muslims, and so
some of that had bled in because idol

621
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:50.599
worship is very very very very very
much not Islamic, or if that was

622
00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:54.280
him sort of trying to say,
here are things that foreign religions would have

623
00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:59.119
because he didn't understand Islam. But
either way, it is still a very

624
00:47:59.119 --> 00:48:04.280
beautiful moment of Ishmael coming because I
think religion and race are very tied into

625
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:07.719
each other, and Ishmael coming to
understand like, no, this is a

626
00:48:07.880 --> 00:48:09.960
ritual that is important to him and
even wanting to kind of, you know,

627
00:48:10.199 --> 00:48:17.639
observe it. And I so in
that like kind of scene, sweet

628
00:48:17.679 --> 00:48:22.800
Legg is praying to a little like
idol who's called Yojo or yo Yo.

629
00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:25.719
I've heard it pronounced a variety of
ways, but I don't know if it's

630
00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:31.360
an actual figure or not, Like
I haven't done enough research into that at

631
00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:36.719
all, but yeah, Ishmael seems
him praying, and you know, originally

632
00:48:36.880 --> 00:48:38.039
is like maybe I'll try and disturb
him, and then just left him be.

633
00:48:38.199 --> 00:48:40.880
And it's worried about him because he's
sitting in a in a kind of

634
00:48:40.880 --> 00:48:45.199
a side position for many, many
hours. And Ishmael expresses like that he's

635
00:48:45.199 --> 00:48:46.320
worried, but then he's like,
yes, it's a peculiar would be like

636
00:48:46.400 --> 00:48:51.239
we do wed, thank too.
And then Queeklag is like, well I

637
00:48:51.400 --> 00:48:53.880
prayed and basically like I was told
you were the ones who needs to pick

638
00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:57.559
what boat we are about to get
on, And so Ishmael goes and to

639
00:48:57.679 --> 00:49:01.880
look at the boat to pick one, and Israel then encounters a character named

640
00:49:01.960 --> 00:49:07.079
Elijah, who, like the prophet
Elijah, who like kind of proscides to

641
00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:10.719
Ishmael about which boat he should pick. And so it's a really interesting like

642
00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:15.840
both of these two characters of these
two different religious backgrounds are still are receiving

643
00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:22.519
some sort of like divine or or
religious intervention or whatever that's like pushing them

644
00:49:22.559 --> 00:49:25.840
in the same direction and with each
other. And then later in the book,

645
00:49:27.760 --> 00:49:31.920
Ishmael like both brings Cueakwag to church
with him, but also like praise

646
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:37.920
with cueekwag, and there's a lot
of religion mixing that happens on the boat.

647
00:49:39.239 --> 00:49:43.239
Yeah, And I think it's all
very intentional. And I think,

648
00:49:43.519 --> 00:49:45.840
um, here was an area.
I mean, as a someone who's really

649
00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:52.199
studied Christian history, I know that
the time this is taking place New England

650
00:49:52.239 --> 00:49:55.360
in the eighteen fifties are the book
is probably in eighteen fifty one. This

651
00:49:55.599 --> 00:50:00.039
is during one of the I think
it's called the Second Great Awakening with it

652
00:50:00.239 --> 00:50:05.639
was incredible religiosity, you know,
and it was anti slavery a lot of

653
00:50:05.679 --> 00:50:08.519
the especially in New England, but
it was also very strict on like who

654
00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:12.559
is going to heaven, who is
going to Hell? And and things like

655
00:50:12.639 --> 00:50:19.679
that, and a great deal of
religious uh you knows, similar into parts

656
00:50:19.719 --> 00:50:23.000
of this country today, but to
an extent that was not seen in most

657
00:50:23.079 --> 00:50:30.000
parts of American history. And I
think one of the themes at least that

658
00:50:30.039 --> 00:50:31.360
I really got out of. And
again tell me if I'm wrong, you

659
00:50:31.480 --> 00:50:35.280
have one more direct experience in the
book than I do, But is that

660
00:50:35.360 --> 00:50:40.360
one of the ideas is like okay, nice even lines that separate religions and

661
00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:45.719
that let people go to religion on
Sunday morning for an hour or two and

662
00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:50.840
have these experiences. That all works
in New England in the nice safe area,

663
00:50:51.400 --> 00:50:54.639
but that when you were in this
sort of primordial battle with nature in

664
00:50:54.760 --> 00:50:59.719
the midst of the ocean, and
there's typhoons and there's uh, you know,

665
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:02.599
storms, and there's electricity in the
air, and there's a primordial force

666
00:51:02.679 --> 00:51:06.280
of evil, as one of them
sees it, at least in the force

667
00:51:06.320 --> 00:51:08.719
of this whale. Religion is now
kind of any portant a storm, and

668
00:51:08.800 --> 00:51:13.880
it's kind of like all these different
things can have meaning because we are just

669
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:17.800
tiny and insignificant at the hands of
God or the gods or whatever it is.

670
00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:22.719
And yeah, just the last thing
on that you mentioned Elijah being a

671
00:51:22.840 --> 00:51:27.679
very religious name, Ishmael is a
very religious name, ya. Yeah.

672
00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:34.639
And and they hab and specifically Ishmael
is the son of Abraham who is cast

673
00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:37.800
out for those who don't remember our
you know, never paid attention because he

674
00:51:37.840 --> 00:51:39.199
doesn't need to if you don't don't
care about it. But in the book

675
00:51:39.239 --> 00:51:45.119
of Genesis, when when he has
Abraham has a has a child with his

676
00:51:45.280 --> 00:51:49.599
slave, with his wife's slave,
really and it's non consensual, and all

677
00:51:49.679 --> 00:51:52.639
we can talk about that Ishmael is
born, but then later he's given a

678
00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:57.519
true son because he makes this covenant
with God, and so Ishmael has cast

679
00:51:57.559 --> 00:52:00.840
aside and I think so him representing
the figure because they did it a while

680
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:05.360
ago. Ishramael was suicidal and he
kind of goes on this ship because the

681
00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:07.880
ship is kind of a it's basically
a boat of the damned. It's where

682
00:52:08.639 --> 00:52:13.679
everyone kind of thinks they're already dead
to some expense. Yep, yeah,

683
00:52:13.800 --> 00:52:19.320
and I think you know the like
early on, Ishmael talks about and just

684
00:52:19.480 --> 00:52:22.480
in terms of work and capitalism,
he talked like the universal sumps pass all

685
00:52:22.519 --> 00:52:25.320
around, which like everybody's basically screwed
in one way or another. Everybody's going

686
00:52:25.360 --> 00:52:30.159
to have their problems, and everybody's
going to get basically the beating. And

687
00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:34.599
then later in the book there's a
chapter titled fast Fish and Loose Fish,

688
00:52:34.639 --> 00:52:38.960
which has really really clear like anti
colonial, anti imperialism through lines, but

689
00:52:39.039 --> 00:52:45.559
also pretty strong like unifying narrative also
about like religion and culture, which is

690
00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:52.599
that man. Okay, So when
you're whiling, there were specific tags Pacific

691
00:52:52.639 --> 00:52:55.280
carpoons used to mark whales, which
was basically we are in pursuit of this

692
00:52:55.440 --> 00:53:00.039
whale do not capture, and that
was called a fast fish, and a

693
00:53:00.199 --> 00:53:04.320
lusus was an unmarked whale, so
a whale that was like up for grabs.

694
00:53:04.920 --> 00:53:07.159
And he talks about kind of this
process of marking, in this process

695
00:53:07.199 --> 00:53:13.639
of claiming property that is like unclaimable
or like like how can you claim it

696
00:53:13.719 --> 00:53:15.719
if you haven't yet caught it?
And then you know, and what if

697
00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:21.159
the whale shakes the harpoon like that
happens, And then he basically says,

698
00:53:21.199 --> 00:53:25.400
well, aren't we all just loose
fish and fast fish too? Like are

699
00:53:25.480 --> 00:53:31.320
we not all just like property waiting
to be claimed? Like and and it's

700
00:53:31.400 --> 00:53:38.559
really clear about like yeah, in
in all of this, there's no like

701
00:53:38.760 --> 00:53:43.119
all of us are going to get
got by somebody. And the question is

702
00:53:43.239 --> 00:53:49.480
to what degree? And and Dracus, who is a philosopher, Herbert Dracus

703
00:53:49.880 --> 00:53:52.639
does a did a really long lecture
on Ruby Deck and he called Ishmael not

704
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:58.400
a polytheist, but a poly religionist, and so saying, like part of

705
00:53:58.480 --> 00:54:02.079
one of the main themes of the
book ismail exploring not just dabbling in like

706
00:54:02.239 --> 00:54:07.360
multiple gods, but genuinely dabbling in
multiple religions and like full religious sets of

707
00:54:07.440 --> 00:54:13.960
practices and finding out what that means
for him. And you know, there

708
00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:19.039
are there's a lot of philosophy to
unpack in him doing that. But I

709
00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:24.079
think it did do quite a bit
to say, you know, regardless of

710
00:54:24.199 --> 00:54:30.159
religion, regardless of race, regardless
of background, these snap judgments that we're

711
00:54:30.199 --> 00:54:37.480
making about people are really not good
and realistically like the snap judgments you're making

712
00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:40.440
about these people who have been conquered, these people who have been claimed,

713
00:54:40.480 --> 00:54:45.000
these people who have been you who
are fast fish like your next like you

714
00:54:45.079 --> 00:54:50.079
know, yeah, yeah. And
I think there's a couple of points there.

715
00:54:50.159 --> 00:54:53.639
One to kind of religious thing.
You know, my own branch of

716
00:54:53.719 --> 00:54:58.159
Christianity shares a lot in common and
shares a lot of historical roots with what

717
00:54:58.360 --> 00:55:02.639
would eventually become you Terianism and Universalism, which were two different schools that then

718
00:55:02.800 --> 00:55:07.960
kind of merged together. And Universalism
is very much a product of New England

719
00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:12.920
philosophy and it comes much later,
but a lot of the early Universalists look

720
00:55:13.039 --> 00:55:15.639
to Melville as one of their kind
of inspirations and that this book is one

721
00:55:15.639 --> 00:55:21.559
of the ideas of what eventually becomes
Universalism. The other thing is I think

722
00:55:21.599 --> 00:55:24.239
all that idea of like that we're
all kind of property in some way and

723
00:55:24.519 --> 00:55:31.000
all this stuff very intentionally. He's
writing this in a book in which there

724
00:55:31.039 --> 00:55:37.559
are characters who are functioning as free
characters and people on this boat who would

725
00:55:37.599 --> 00:55:42.280
be regarded as property by half of
the country that Melville is writing this book

726
00:55:42.280 --> 00:55:45.079
in. And I think that again, it's a you know, it's when

727
00:55:45.159 --> 00:55:49.039
we say it's a comment on slavery, we don't mean like this is someone

728
00:55:49.159 --> 00:55:52.239
looking back and saying slavery was wrong. He's writing this in eighteen fifty,

729
00:55:52.639 --> 00:55:59.840
when the eighteen fifty Compromises is happening, and the tension that is building to

730
00:55:59.880 --> 00:56:02.960
the Civil War is very much there. Um. I think this has written

731
00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:08.559
a couple of years after Uncle Tom's
Cabin, but it is seem very kind

732
00:56:08.559 --> 00:56:13.639
of similar as like another book that
has read that is written in part to

733
00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:19.039
make people angry that slavery exists.
Yeah, And I think the other thing

734
00:56:19.159 --> 00:56:24.559
is that Melville in a lot of
really subtle ways, and there are perks

735
00:56:24.599 --> 00:56:28.119
and drawbacks to this, Like there
are a lot of different strategies when we

736
00:56:28.199 --> 00:56:35.760
talk about liberatory politics and modes of
like conveying messages about various things and reaching

737
00:56:35.800 --> 00:56:38.119
audiences, and Mobe Dick was not
particularly popular when it was published. But

738
00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:44.880
like, I think Melville in a
lot of his subtler strategy and a lot

739
00:56:44.920 --> 00:56:50.039
of his strategy that is to say, right, because Queklegg cannot read um,

740
00:56:50.400 --> 00:56:55.000
and so you know he doesn't he
doesn't. You know, there's a

741
00:56:55.079 --> 00:56:58.280
there's a world in which he could
say, oh, look at this like

742
00:56:58.480 --> 00:57:01.360
quote unquote savage who can read,
who is so intellectualized to blah blah blah

743
00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:06.480
blah blah. But instead of writing
that character, which might you know,

744
00:57:06.760 --> 00:57:08.639
people didn't didn't have access to education
in the same way in that day and

745
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:12.880
time, especially not if you were
a person of color, and especially not

746
00:57:13.039 --> 00:57:16.280
if you, like, were not
wealthy. He writes a character who cannot

747
00:57:16.360 --> 00:57:25.039
read and then exposes very clearly like
the virtue in his position, regardless of

748
00:57:27.039 --> 00:57:34.239
the presence or the lack of presence
of traditionally like white values through like through

749
00:57:35.199 --> 00:57:39.199
these subversive any ways. Like when
Ishmael and Queakwag go into a church and

750
00:57:39.280 --> 00:57:45.239
I'm listening to a sermon, Queakwag
remarks that everybody is looking around at all

751
00:57:45.280 --> 00:57:47.440
these plaques on the walls that have
the names of dead sailors who die at

752
00:57:47.480 --> 00:57:51.159
sea. Because you can't give them
tombstones, you give them a plaque in

753
00:57:51.199 --> 00:57:54.679
the church. And he says everyone's
like distracted by these plaques except for Quekweg

754
00:57:54.760 --> 00:57:59.480
because quek Weg can't read. So
Quekwlag is just intently focused on like the

755
00:57:59.559 --> 00:58:04.800
actual content of the sermon and and
the service, and like remarks that like

756
00:58:04.920 --> 00:58:07.599
there's a there's a value in that, and like, hey, like look

757
00:58:07.599 --> 00:58:14.320
at this really, like it's not
it's not about the skills acquired so much

758
00:58:14.440 --> 00:58:21.239
as like the content of people's genuine
existence. And that's like a strategy that

759
00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:25.679
I think is I don't know,
I think really powerful in a lot of

760
00:58:25.760 --> 00:58:30.679
ways, because he's not saying we
need to turn all of these people who

761
00:58:30.760 --> 00:58:32.840
are not like us into us,
which I think is a thing that,

762
00:58:34.039 --> 00:58:37.400
at least in terms of disability and
disability rights activism, is often like a

763
00:58:37.639 --> 00:58:40.199
rabbit whole people down turned down to, which is like, oh, we

764
00:58:40.280 --> 00:58:44.719
need to make you know, disabled
people more like able people by providing them

765
00:58:44.800 --> 00:58:49.519
with like biotic bionic bodies so they
can walk. And it's like you could

766
00:58:49.559 --> 00:58:53.440
also just make them successible and so
instead of you know, trying Ishmael trying

767
00:58:53.440 --> 00:58:57.159
to be like, oh, look
at how much like white people. These

768
00:58:57.480 --> 00:59:00.880
these non white people are Ishmael looking
at them and saying, oh, look

769
00:59:00.880 --> 00:59:06.440
at this other culture and look at
the values of it in places I would

770
00:59:06.480 --> 00:59:10.840
not have expected, which I think
is really cool and does have judgments and

771
00:59:10.880 --> 00:59:17.440
he does have you know, racist
comments or assumption and you know, there

772
00:59:17.480 --> 00:59:22.599
are ingrained things that Melville misses as
well. But yeah, there's so much

773
00:59:22.639 --> 00:59:24.440
more we can talk about, and
I want to make sure this doesn't go

774
00:59:24.519 --> 00:59:28.000
too long. And so there's a
two last topics I'm going to touch on,

775
00:59:28.119 --> 00:59:30.760
and one I think we can do
fairly briefly, but I want to

776
00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:32.880
hear you talk about it a bit, because you've mentioned already talk about queerness

777
00:59:34.119 --> 00:59:40.800
in this and I think it is
very important anytime we talk about h you

778
00:59:40.880 --> 00:59:49.199
know, homosexual homoroticism, themes in
works that are not from today, you

779
00:59:49.280 --> 00:59:52.400
know, whether we're talking about something
from the nineteenth century or you know,

780
00:59:52.480 --> 00:59:55.480
going back to the Bible or anything
in between or before, to remember that

781
00:59:55.599 --> 01:00:02.639
the understandings that we have of set, truality and gender are both scientifically,

782
01:00:02.760 --> 01:00:08.079
philosophically erotically everything fundamentally different from today, So we're not trying to read that

783
01:00:08.159 --> 01:00:10.400
back in. But given all that
which I'm true, you know even better

784
01:00:10.440 --> 01:00:15.159
than I do, talk to us
about queerness and queer understandings of this book.

785
01:00:15.960 --> 01:00:20.960
Yeah, I think there are definitely
a lot of queer readings of this

786
01:00:21.039 --> 01:00:25.800
book. It's that in a lot
of ways, I I have like complicated

787
01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:30.079
relationships with queer reading of this book
because a lot of the queer readings come

788
01:00:30.079 --> 01:00:35.000
out of Ishmael and quick kluged relationships
and kind of their tenderness with one another

789
01:00:35.159 --> 01:00:40.760
and their closeness and their relationship their
friendship. And then the other pair that

790
01:00:40.840 --> 01:00:45.000
it's often talked about regularly is Starbuck
is the first mate and Ahab the captain.

791
01:00:45.880 --> 01:00:49.280
And you know, people read these
characters are square, and there's a

792
01:00:49.320 --> 01:00:52.280
lot of really positive readings of these
characters is queer. And there are also

793
01:00:52.679 --> 01:00:54.920
I think a lot of positive readings
of these characters as platonic friends that are

794
01:00:55.039 --> 01:01:00.239
demonstrating positive masculinity and platonic ways.
And I think both of those readings are

795
01:01:00.360 --> 01:01:06.519
valuable. And so I did you
give a bit of context here that there

796
01:01:06.599 --> 01:01:10.239
are things that they go through that
they talk about as marriage ceremonies between Quick

797
01:01:10.280 --> 01:01:13.639
Gray and that. That one is
used in the book, But as you

798
01:01:13.719 --> 01:01:19.519
said, it's a clearly the book
is talking about what happens among men when

799
01:01:19.559 --> 01:01:22.960
they're cotally separated from the world of
women. Yeah, I don't. I

800
01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:25.559
don't think there's anything explicitly sexual in
the book, but it's not that kind

801
01:01:25.559 --> 01:01:30.639
of level, so yeah, can
yeah, there's nothing. Yeah, there's

802
01:01:30.679 --> 01:01:34.079
nothing explicitly sexual in the book.
The from the very first night that quek

803
01:01:34.119 --> 01:01:37.039
Leg and Ishmael meet, you know, they're like Ishmael way suffle in the

804
01:01:37.079 --> 01:01:39.519
morning, it's like, oh,
he was cuddling me as though I was

805
01:01:39.599 --> 01:01:43.400
his wife. Like they're basically spooning. Um. And then they like have

806
01:01:43.519 --> 01:01:45.159
a couple of nights when they're sharing
this bed in and they're very close,

807
01:01:45.159 --> 01:01:52.880
and then they share like hammocks later
and like Sarah like it's in the modern

808
01:01:52.920 --> 01:01:55.719
age. It's really hard to read
that and be like, huh, like

809
01:01:55.920 --> 01:02:00.760
what's going on there? Um.
And the same as through some of the

810
01:02:00.840 --> 01:02:04.360
closeness that Starbuck and Ahab show,
like Ahab in the very end when he

811
01:02:04.440 --> 01:02:07.679
knows he's going on to chase this
whale for the third day in a row

812
01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:12.320
after injuring himself and losing his prosthetic
and injuring it as people like, tells

813
01:02:12.360 --> 01:02:15.159
Starbucks to stay behind because he loves
and cared about Starbucks. And again it's

814
01:02:15.199 --> 01:02:20.840
like hard to to not read that
in a way that is, you know,

815
01:02:21.239 --> 01:02:25.239
questioning whether there's a romantic sort of
element there. And Belville never does

816
01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:32.000
anything incredibly explicit, however, I
think which are real. It should also

817
01:02:32.079 --> 01:02:38.000
be said publishing a book in very
Christian New England eighteen would not be if

818
01:02:38.039 --> 01:02:44.400
there's any explicit content, it's not
happening, So it doesn't mean right right.

819
01:02:44.840 --> 01:02:49.840
But I think the thing that speaks
strongest towards looking at the book it

820
01:02:50.039 --> 01:02:53.360
through a queer lens or with a
queer Pavogogian theory behind it, is this

821
01:02:53.480 --> 01:02:59.679
particular chapter called the Squeeze of the
hand Um, and I won't like it.

822
01:02:59.760 --> 01:03:01.760
Well, okay, so when you
when you're hunting sperm whales, you're

823
01:03:01.800 --> 01:03:05.719
hunting them for what it's called spermi
setti, And they used to think it

824
01:03:05.800 --> 01:03:09.480
was the whale sperm, and it's
not. It's it's echolocation matter in the

825
01:03:09.599 --> 01:03:14.480
head, and so it helps them
echolocate, and it's called spermisetti, and

826
01:03:14.519 --> 01:03:16.280
it's just like or this gives me
white fluid that they scoop out, and

827
01:03:16.360 --> 01:03:21.039
then they boil it with a bunch
of other whale oil that they boil out

828
01:03:21.079 --> 01:03:24.840
of the fat, and then they
have to sit around and basically meet it

829
01:03:25.079 --> 01:03:30.440
and knee the lumps out of this. And so there's this chapter called the

830
01:03:30.559 --> 01:03:35.280
Squeeze of the Hand where Ishmael sits
down and it's squeezing sperm because it's abbreviated

831
01:03:35.320 --> 01:03:44.119
to being home firm, and has
this sort of the odd description of squeezing

832
01:03:44.280 --> 01:03:50.079
sperm alongside other men, and how
if all men could just squeeze each other's

833
01:03:50.159 --> 01:03:54.480
hands and squeeze sperm into each other's
hands, the world's problems would be solved.

834
01:03:55.920 --> 01:04:01.280
And then the immediate next chapter is
and castrating the whale and turning the

835
01:04:01.360 --> 01:04:09.400
whale's castration skin into a cassic.
So it's like it's like this whether the

836
01:04:09.519 --> 01:04:15.559
homoerotic allegory immediately followed by an image
of castration, which is just it's too

837
01:04:15.880 --> 01:04:19.280
like, there's no way that that
is a coincidence given the thought intention of

838
01:04:19.400 --> 01:04:27.119
Melville's writing, Like he asked to
have been saying something about not necessarily like

839
01:04:27.159 --> 01:04:30.519
a homosexuality or gayness, but like
queerness, like what it meant to be

840
01:04:31.239 --> 01:04:35.960
beyond the normal limits of sexuality where
there are no women. You're on a

841
01:04:36.000 --> 01:04:42.679
boat for four years minimum with a
bunch of dudes, and what are you

842
01:04:42.760 --> 01:04:45.000
going to do? And then you
know, without getting into a bunch of

843
01:04:45.079 --> 01:04:48.360
details or depths, being like,
well, there's shame that comes along with

844
01:04:48.480 --> 01:04:54.400
it. And like the immediate follow
up to saying this blatantly is the image

845
01:04:54.400 --> 01:05:00.639
of calturation and so like and he
and that image and that story and that

846
01:05:00.679 --> 01:05:06.079
allegory is like violent and not like
he talks about the creation of the cassock,

847
01:05:06.159 --> 01:05:11.079
which is like this garment that's made
from like a whale um, you

848
01:05:11.199 --> 01:05:15.079
know, but you say penis,
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's

849
01:05:15.119 --> 01:05:18.199
made from a whale penis. But
and it's like one of the sign of

850
01:05:18.280 --> 01:05:24.400
honor. And so that's also strange
because it's it's yeah, it's like this

851
01:05:24.840 --> 01:05:28.599
he's very intentionally and it's hard to
figure exactly what he's saying, but he's

852
01:05:30.039 --> 01:05:33.280
that coupled with the relationships between men
that we see in the book, it's

853
01:05:33.360 --> 01:05:40.199
hard to not think that he's saying
these things are not necessarily negative, And

854
01:05:40.559 --> 01:05:43.559
yeah, I think so if there's
nothing else, it seems that you can

855
01:05:43.639 --> 01:05:51.480
say that the characters go to a
place where the normal rules of that they're

856
01:05:51.519 --> 01:05:57.880
being firm. Lines between religion,
between race, between class all are getting

857
01:05:57.920 --> 01:06:00.480
thrown out the window. And part
of that is out of necessity, but

858
01:06:00.599 --> 01:06:05.079
part of it makes you question how
normal and why do we think that those

859
01:06:05.159 --> 01:06:10.880
rules should be. And I think
gender and sexuality are also things there.

860
01:06:11.599 --> 01:06:15.920
But writing at a time when again
it's not to say that like he's to

861
01:06:16.519 --> 01:06:21.800
put our concept of homosexuality onto that
doesn't make any sense. But certainly then

862
01:06:21.800 --> 01:06:27.880
they're asking the questions that continue to
be asked much later. Yeah, I

863
01:06:27.960 --> 01:06:30.519
want to coverage it one last thing
quickly, and then I'm going to ask

864
01:06:30.599 --> 01:06:34.079
you more about the kind of the
white whale idea and how it's become a

865
01:06:34.119 --> 01:06:39.719
metaphor. That's gonna be in our
Patreon section. But you know, Paul

866
01:06:39.760 --> 01:06:44.119
Happy is my normal co host or
frequent guests as he would prefer to,

867
01:06:44.840 --> 01:06:49.599
or frequent guests they would prefer to
be referred to. They're vegan and they're

868
01:06:49.639 --> 01:06:53.559
off. You know, I would
have loved to have them on this podcast.

869
01:06:53.639 --> 01:06:55.920
I don't think there was any way
they could have gotten through this description

870
01:06:56.840 --> 01:07:00.039
what they have not to that I
want to ask us for them, But

871
01:07:00.119 --> 01:07:03.559
they have gotten me to think about
animal rights much more so. This is

872
01:07:03.599 --> 01:07:10.480
a book in a culture where sperm
whales are seen simply as creatures that we

873
01:07:10.519 --> 01:07:13.840
can kill, even though we're being
incredibly wasteful of them. We're just taking

874
01:07:13.880 --> 01:07:17.599
the oil from them. That is
fully accepted. And it's not an animal

875
01:07:17.679 --> 01:07:21.559
rights book by any means, But
at least from the description I got,

876
01:07:21.719 --> 01:07:27.679
it did seem like Ishmael is so
taken by the beauty and the wonder and

877
01:07:27.880 --> 01:07:32.480
the intelligence of these animals, and
he does come out somewhat questioning, like

878
01:07:33.119 --> 01:07:38.360
does this really make sense for us
to be slaughtering these beasts just for one

879
01:07:38.400 --> 01:07:44.880
small part of them and then throwing
them away. Yeah. I there's actually

880
01:07:45.039 --> 01:07:48.079
full readings of Moby Dick that are
entirely committed to the book being a work

881
01:07:48.119 --> 01:07:53.480
of environmental justice and animal rights activism. And I don't know if I would

882
01:07:53.480 --> 01:08:00.400
go that far, but the descriptions
of whaling are brutal, beyond the point

883
01:08:00.480 --> 01:08:10.480
of necessity and beyond the point of
uh sentimental or Yeah, like the it's

884
01:08:10.480 --> 01:08:15.439
not meant to be sensational life like
it's it's very clearly described as a horror

885
01:08:16.119 --> 01:08:24.920
um like capital ah horror uh.
And it was like whaling as a process.

886
01:08:25.279 --> 01:08:28.640
And there are places in the world
where it happens still commercially, and

887
01:08:28.680 --> 01:08:30.399
there are places in the world where
happens for subsistence, which is different.

888
01:08:31.159 --> 01:08:38.279
But whaling in the United States,
like the whaling industry was never about subsistence,

889
01:08:38.399 --> 01:08:42.279
and it was it was about the
oil and the oil alone. Yeah,

890
01:08:42.840 --> 01:08:53.079
and they Ishmael is like horrified and
disgusted and says that pretty clearly,

891
01:08:53.359 --> 01:08:59.680
and then spends a long time talking
about how like these are intelligent creatures.

892
01:08:59.800 --> 01:09:03.319
He he ductaposes them with the sharks, which he called non intelligent. He

893
01:09:03.439 --> 01:09:08.520
pla n me get the shark with
a shovel like hand. I don't know

894
01:09:08.640 --> 01:09:11.880
how like he doesn't care as much, which is not like not necessarily the

895
01:09:11.920 --> 01:09:15.760
best take if you're talking about animal, right, but right, He's very

896
01:09:15.880 --> 01:09:17.880
clear that like, no, these
whales are smart, and these whales are

897
01:09:17.960 --> 01:09:21.840
carrying, and these whales have family
structure, and moby Dick fights back,

898
01:09:21.960 --> 01:09:26.239
like Moby Dick flits back because he
knows we're coming to kill him. And

899
01:09:28.079 --> 01:09:31.319
and that's something very important, is
that where the Ahab sees it as moby

900
01:09:31.399 --> 01:09:35.359
Dick has broken the natural order,
moby Dick should be the hunted and I'm

901
01:09:35.399 --> 01:09:42.079
the hunter. Himo recognizes, like
there's nothing evil about fighting back against the

902
01:09:42.119 --> 01:09:45.119
people who are trying to kill you. Yeah, And I think that,

903
01:09:46.279 --> 01:09:53.399
yeah, And I think it's interesting
because Ahab thinks that moby Dick is a

904
01:09:53.520 --> 01:09:57.840
personification of all that is wrong in
the natural order. Starbucks thinks that moby

905
01:09:57.880 --> 01:10:01.000
Dick is a quote dumbs route who
like, you can't be mad at at

906
01:10:01.039 --> 01:10:04.479
a tree for falling, you can't
be mad at a whale for being a

907
01:10:04.560 --> 01:10:08.720
whale. And Ishmael thinks, like, you can't be mad at a whale

908
01:10:08.760 --> 01:10:12.800
for fighting back when you're going to
kill it. And I think that's pretty

909
01:10:12.840 --> 01:10:17.159
clear. And the other thing is
that, like it's not just once that

910
01:10:17.279 --> 01:10:24.560
we see Ishmael talk about kind of
the brutality of hunting whales. It's over

911
01:10:24.680 --> 01:10:28.439
and over and we see them hunt
the whales, so we see them clean

912
01:10:28.560 --> 01:10:30.960
the whales. And cleaning whales was
like a you know, a horrible process.

913
01:10:31.000 --> 01:10:34.119
You have to basically haul the whale
to your main ship and then like

914
01:10:34.439 --> 01:10:40.920
half lifted out of the water and
then skin it and and like because it

915
01:10:41.079 --> 01:10:44.079
was about the oil, but to
get maximum oil, you want to take

916
01:10:44.199 --> 01:10:46.399
basically as much as lover off as
you can and boil it. And then

917
01:10:47.840 --> 01:10:54.680
and he talks really specifically for a
long time about kind of like the hellish

918
01:10:54.800 --> 01:10:58.840
horror that was the try pops,
which are the pots you would burn the

919
01:10:58.840 --> 01:11:02.239
whale oil in, as we call
it devilish, and then talks about the

920
01:11:02.520 --> 01:11:13.319
the atrocity that is Stub the third
mate, eating a whale steak by lamp

921
01:11:13.439 --> 01:11:16.920
light that is whale oil, Like
yeah, like how dare you eat this

922
01:11:17.159 --> 01:11:23.319
animal flesh with the like under the
light that it has provided to you?

923
01:11:24.159 --> 01:11:29.399
And he then extends it to like
like we don't eat geese with with goostone

924
01:11:29.760 --> 01:11:31.399
utensils, but like maybe we do, like we write with their feathers,

925
01:11:31.520 --> 01:11:38.319
and he goes on this very contemplate
is like, you know, why do

926
01:11:38.439 --> 01:11:42.600
I find this particular instance of Stub
eating the whale steak on in the whale

927
01:11:42.680 --> 01:11:46.680
light her turbine when I don't find
it that way in other instances, And

928
01:11:46.760 --> 01:11:49.479
like maybe I should, and maybe
these are things we need to be thinking

929
01:11:49.560 --> 01:11:55.479
about. And yeah, I think
that's such an important theme because part of

930
01:11:55.520 --> 01:11:58.600
what it's about is, you know, people who have very rigid views of

931
01:11:58.640 --> 01:12:03.279
the world. When those are questioned, some just rejected, some crack like

932
01:12:03.439 --> 01:12:08.560
Ahab and Pip. And then I
think Ishmael's presented as kind of the ideal

933
01:12:08.960 --> 01:12:15.439
that because what clearly the Ishmael who
was writing this book is much more educated

934
01:12:15.640 --> 01:12:17.680
than the Ishmael who was on the
boat. And I think the idea is

935
01:12:17.680 --> 01:12:21.079
supposed to be that Ishmael was so
moved by this that he was then like,

936
01:12:21.199 --> 01:12:26.000
let me learn more about all this. Yeah, two last kind of

937
01:12:26.079 --> 01:12:28.760
contextual things I want to add and
then give you the last chance to respond

938
01:12:28.760 --> 01:12:32.680
and then we'll wrap up except for
our patron. Section One is that the

939
01:12:32.840 --> 01:12:39.520
Christianity of this time was very very
anti nature. It was very much about,

940
01:12:40.039 --> 01:12:45.079
like you know, the reading of
you know, Genesis, of that

941
01:12:45.199 --> 01:12:49.800
there was this primordial, crazy,
wild nature and that God tamed it,

942
01:12:49.960 --> 01:12:56.880
and that God brought forth creation by
defeating Leviathan, a whale creature by the

943
01:12:56.920 --> 01:13:00.199
way, very significant, and that's
mentioned in some of the sermons, and

944
01:13:00.520 --> 01:13:05.920
that you know, this anti that
man is tasked by God to tame nature,

945
01:13:06.439 --> 01:13:10.479
and that part of that is to
make the animals all submit. Part

946
01:13:10.520 --> 01:13:14.399
of that is that you know,
indigenous peoples, both in the Americas themselves

947
01:13:14.640 --> 01:13:17.319
but also in the South Seas are
seen as like two, you know,

948
01:13:17.600 --> 01:13:21.920
wild and nature bound, and they
need taught to wear clothes and to worship

949
01:13:23.000 --> 01:13:28.000
Christ and to drink whiskey like civilized
people. Giving alcohol to indigenous people worked

950
01:13:28.039 --> 01:13:32.039
out so well, although very intentional
in some in many cases, to be

951
01:13:32.119 --> 01:13:38.199
sure. So that's one part of
the context. And then the other thing

952
01:13:38.359 --> 01:13:42.399
is and I think this is something
that they comment on very specifically. Whaling

953
01:13:42.760 --> 01:13:48.239
was very romanticized in the literature and
the art of the time, and Ishmael

954
01:13:48.359 --> 01:13:55.319
goes on these long rants about long
treasty is about how no artist has ever

955
01:13:55.439 --> 01:14:00.319
really fully captured what a whale really
looks like, and that the so the

956
01:14:00.359 --> 01:14:04.399
whales, and it feels at first
like a why is he doing this until

957
01:14:04.439 --> 01:14:09.880
you kind of put it all together
and realize he's trying to say, all

958
01:14:09.920 --> 01:14:14.560
of you who are romanticizing this are
wrong. You don't understand whales, you

959
01:14:14.600 --> 01:14:17.880
don't understand what really happens on a
whaling boat. Your romantic myths of this

960
01:14:18.079 --> 01:14:23.520
are all wrong, yea, yeah. And I think that there's a chapter

961
01:14:23.680 --> 01:14:29.359
that kind of summarizes those notions very
well and is like one of my favorite

962
01:14:29.399 --> 01:14:31.520
chapters of the book. It's very
early on. It's called the Lee Shore.

963
01:14:32.319 --> 01:14:36.119
A character it's like one of the
first character deaths appears in that chapter

964
01:14:36.359 --> 01:14:42.920
and it's very short. And the
gist is that Ishmaels gives this whaling or

965
01:14:43.000 --> 01:14:47.960
this like staler piece of stage advice
basically, and is like a lot of

966
01:14:48.039 --> 01:14:53.279
people think that in a storm you
want to turn towards land for safety.

967
01:14:54.119 --> 01:14:58.720
You want the same calm land.
But if you turn towards the Lee shore,

968
01:14:58.800 --> 01:15:01.720
which lee where it is like downland, and in a storm you'll be

969
01:15:01.840 --> 01:15:04.640
dashed against the rocks like you will, you will not be able to control

970
01:15:04.640 --> 01:15:08.800
your boat as you go to shore. You will die. And so the

971
01:15:08.960 --> 01:15:12.680
best thing to do in the storm
is to turn actually into the storm and

972
01:15:12.880 --> 01:15:15.880
like weather it. And so he
says it is better to be you know,

973
01:15:15.800 --> 01:15:19.479
it is better to die in the
howling infinite than to be ingloriously dashed

974
01:15:19.560 --> 01:15:24.119
upon the lee. And I think
that you know that sentiment is the is

975
01:15:24.159 --> 01:15:28.880
the really the strongest through line of
the book all and all because they have

976
01:15:29.159 --> 01:15:34.119
is running from confronting his disability and
his existential crisis, and Ishmael is running

977
01:15:34.159 --> 01:15:39.800
from you know, depression and suicidal
thoughts and right, and they're all running

978
01:15:39.880 --> 01:15:43.159
towards what seems like comfort, what
seems like the shore, which is ironic

979
01:15:43.199 --> 01:15:45.960
because it happens to be a will
boat. But rather than like turning into

980
01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:48.560
the storms, they're facing and weathering
them. And I think that's true of

981
01:15:49.279 --> 01:15:54.720
the religious kind of elements at the
time, the sentiments of colonialism and like,

982
01:15:54.760 --> 01:15:58.319
instead of fixing their own problems at
home, people were running to where

983
01:15:58.560 --> 01:16:01.039
seems like safety, where see like
fun, working like new and it was

984
01:16:01.640 --> 01:16:04.840
the cause of a lot of problems
and a lot of death. Definitely,

985
01:16:05.039 --> 01:16:09.399
definitely well, thank you so much
for being a part of this. You've

986
01:16:09.439 --> 01:16:13.279
been. I'm so glad that this
gave me an inspiration to find well read

987
01:16:13.279 --> 01:16:15.119
the spark notes. I should read
the full book sometime, but to learn

988
01:16:15.199 --> 01:16:18.199
much more about the book and its
world, and you've been such a font

989
01:16:18.239 --> 01:16:21.600
of great information and insight. I'm
definitely gonna have you back on more podcasts.

990
01:16:21.880 --> 01:16:25.800
But for those who do want to
find find you more, where can

991
01:16:25.800 --> 01:16:27.960
they find you? I know you
said you do some contact creation. I

992
01:16:28.239 --> 01:16:33.000
love your tiktoks especially. Yeah,
um, TikTok is great. My user

993
01:16:33.079 --> 01:16:39.000
name is ak Maiden and there's like
an underscore in between, and then I

994
01:16:39.119 --> 01:16:44.520
do art on Instagram. My Instagram
is Iron Kingdom and Adventures with an underscore

995
01:16:44.560 --> 01:16:47.239
between each word nice. And we'll
have a link to that. In the

996
01:16:47.279 --> 01:16:50.720
show notes, of course, you
can find all the ways to make contact

997
01:16:50.760 --> 01:16:54.640
with us. I know I've been
bad about feedback. We're gonna do a

998
01:16:54.680 --> 01:16:59.239
feedback episode soon. Uh and then
at starting going forward, when should I

999
01:16:59.279 --> 01:17:02.359
include feedback in every episode? I
have a kind of a backlog of episode,

1000
01:17:02.359 --> 01:17:04.239
so I promised that, But then
it's gonna be a little while.

1001
01:17:04.279 --> 01:17:06.560
But I promise you we're gonna get
to them, and then I'm gonna be

1002
01:17:06.720 --> 01:17:10.840
much more on top of having feedback
regularly, I'm trying to try for at

1003
01:17:10.920 --> 01:17:15.119
least every second episode or every third
episode at the bare minimum. And of

1004
01:17:15.199 --> 01:17:17.359
course, but on our part,
on our website, the Ethical Panta dot

1005
01:17:17.359 --> 01:17:20.319
com, you can find all the
ways to contact us email, Twitter,

1006
01:17:20.479 --> 01:17:24.760
TikTok, etc. You can also
find information about our patreon. Um,

1007
01:17:25.359 --> 01:17:28.640
you know, I'll be honest,
I had a lot of Ahsoko was something

1008
01:17:28.680 --> 01:17:31.359
I was really looking forward to trying
to capitalize on it. Every time there's

1009
01:17:31.359 --> 01:17:33.600
a Star Wars show, my numbers
go way up, and I really had

1010
01:17:33.640 --> 01:17:38.680
a whole like a plan of publicizing
and advance. I'm putting all that on

1011
01:17:38.760 --> 01:17:41.560
hold, And you know, I'm
not asking you to make up that.

1012
01:17:42.039 --> 01:17:45.680
I am choosing to make that sacrifice
because I think in capitalism sometimes you got

1013
01:17:45.760 --> 01:17:49.319
to put your own self interest ahead
behind what is a larger group needs.

1014
01:17:49.359 --> 01:17:53.720
And I'm going to support the strike, but if you think this might this

1015
01:17:53.760 --> 01:17:56.680
would definitely be a great time to
support the Patreon if that's something you feel

1016
01:17:56.680 --> 01:17:59.600
about. It's only a couple of
bucks a month, and for that you

1017
01:17:59.720 --> 01:18:03.600
get add free episodes, you get
the bonus content, and during the strike,

1018
01:18:03.760 --> 01:18:06.479
twenty five percent off everything I make
on Patreon. I'm going to be

1019
01:18:06.560 --> 01:18:12.159
donating to the strike funds that are
helping keep people afloat. We know that

1020
01:18:12.239 --> 01:18:16.399
the producers literally want to starve out
the writers and the actors. These funds

1021
01:18:16.439 --> 01:18:19.920
help make that help stop that happening. Donate directly to them if you can,

1022
01:18:20.239 --> 01:18:24.359
but also know that some of the
Patreon money that you're able to give

1023
01:18:24.760 --> 01:18:27.479
is going to go directly to that, so on half of both of us.

1024
01:18:27.600 --> 01:18:30.000
Thank you all so much for listening. We have spoken