{"id":810,"date":"2019-10-09T13:28:34","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T21:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralockhart.com\/WP\/?p=810"},"modified":"2019-10-09T13:28:40","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T21:28:40","slug":"inhabiting-the-ahabian-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/inhabiting-the-ahabian-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"Inhabiting the Ahabian Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Melville\u2019s initial publication of Moby Dick <\/em>was in three volumes released in London in October 1851. The text had been subjected to considerable censorship, and many manuscript changes had been made unseen by the author. In addition, Melville\u2019s Epilogue <\/em>had been lost and was not published. The Epilogue <\/em>had made it clear that Ishmael had survived. Without the Epilogue<\/em>, readers raised a chorus of protest. If there was no survivor, who was narrating the novel? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 1851, the novel was\npublished in New York with the Epilogue <\/em>intact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The error in London, whatever\nits nature, is interesting from a psychological point of view. Readers\nexperienced a complete disaster without the \u201ccomfort\u201d of a surviving narrator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we enter the Sixth Extinction, with the distinct possibility that humans will not survive, the \u201cerror\u201d edition of Moby Dick <\/em>begins to add depth to a question I posed back in 1979: What whale does America pursue? 1<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That article began as a review of Edward Edinger\u2019s Melville\u2019s Moby Dick: A Jungian Commentary. <\/em>I said at the outset that Edinger\u2019s commentary was \u201cdefinitive,\u201d meaning that nothing further need be said. Everything was clear, explained, understood. While I understood and practiced interpreting art psychologically, I was more interested in what art contributed to psychology. Edinger\u2019s analysis, while brilliant and definitive, left me feeling \u201chigh and dry.\u201d I wrote in the margin: \u2026why am I so thirsty while reading this commentary about such a story of water and passion? <\/em>I asked a lot of people about Edinger\u2019s analysis. Except for one or two, all had read Edinger but not Melville. I found this dispiriting because analysis does not excite the imagination in the way art does. What happens in your imagination while reading Moby Dick, <\/em>is the \u201cfruit\u201d of the artistic seed. That is when psyche gives birth <\/em>to images that will guide and nourish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melville\u2019s Ahab puts everyone\nin peril as he pursues revenge on Moby Dick for having injured him. If we think\nof much of the world as embodying Ahab\u2019s revenge, what does this lead to? We\ncan clearly see that profit <\/em>and power <\/em>are leading to the\ndestruction of much of life in various forms, in its mad passion for \u201cmore.\u201d If\nwe think of Moby Dick as much of the embodying much of the spirit of life, then\nif we try to \u201cdo in\u201d life, life will do us in instead. Thinking this way\nsuggests that what underlies the massive juggernaut of profit and power is an\ninjury, some form of trauma. This is no doubt why profit and power become\nsevere addictions and seemingly incurable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is at work in the world today is <\/em>incurable which is why it cannot and will not change course as it adds to the inevitable consequences of climate change, economic inequality, and a threat to life itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the London version of Moby\nDick<\/em>, there will be no Epilogue<\/em>, no survivors to tell the story of\nour demise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ad——————————————<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Russell A. Lockhart. \u201cWhat Whale Does America Pursue?\u201d Los Angeles: Psychological Perspectives<\/em>, Spring 1979. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melville\u2019s initial publication of Moby Dick was in three volumes released in London in October 1851. The text had been subjected to considerable censorship, and many manuscript changes had been made unseen by the author. In addition, Melville\u2019s Epilogue had been lost and was not published. The Epilogue had made it clear that Ishmael had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}