I remembered that saw the message man against nature and also remember the insane religious captain..yes, the book is a prediction of our world today.

I really think that I wasn't ready for it--not enough context. And already I was hating male novelists...for they truly were fixated in a horrible world that earth mothers could not bear to contemplate, where women and children meant nothing, and the mighty male beat his chest.

Ishmael the narrator meets Queequeg, a tattooed Polynesian guy from a cannibal tribe who celebrates Ramadan and a form of paganism (worships a phallic idol). They "lie together" one night as husband and wife. There is a ton of other gay stuff going on in the book.

And a good symbolic comparison

is the face of the ship's command and so the crew is still in a state of confusion.

won't show their face until it is too late to get off the ship.

Interesting.

And I (re)learned a ton about Moby Dick that I either forgot over the years or just didn't know. Wow.

not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.- Abbie Hoffman

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." - Frank Zappa

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. -Abbie Hoffman

Another from MLK that needs to be said over and over again since we are constantly told 'it's the law, they did nothing illegal, someone who knew the ramifications of 'laws' that are used against the people:

MLK: Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal

. . . The term 'prophet,' even in its biblical usage, is often misunderstood to be one who foretells the future. But that is not primarily the role of a prophet. A prophet calls out the surrounding culture on what is happening, right then and there, in their midst.

Indeed, Hedges is a great writer. I would add that he is also one of the great thinkers of our time.

And did the words, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country" ever ring truer?

Queen's "The Prophet Song"

That was an excellent essay worthy of a Gore Vidal.
Thanks for posting.

and always looked forward to his essays either in the NYR of Books or The Nation. He was knowledgeable, a writer of fine prose, and funny.

was done, nor will anything be done, to punish criminal bankers who forged documents to throw AMERICANS out of their HOMES.

This evil did not stir Obama to righteous action.

For starters.

"But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself."

In a sea of obfuscation that quote explains so much.

This is us, I'm afraid.

I would use this to show my students the relevance of literature to our times.

Oddly enough, just last night at a small gathering we discussed the symbolism of Moby Dick at length. How ironic to wake up this morning and find this piece posted at DU. We did not touch on this interpretation, but it is a characteristic of great literature that it is applicable to a wide variety of human situations.


Cher

Melville also dabbled in the occult and prophecy. Consider this description of a playbill from Chapter 1, Loomings, of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. (Bush in 2000)

"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL." (Harpooning of the WTC)

"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."

http://www.classicreader.com/book/309/1/

And he came from the 1%.

When will TPTB see him as a catalyst for pushback?

TPTB are aware there is no need to bother with the Hedges of this world, until the number of people he influences reaches a certain point. Or perhaps a certain organized mass.
What they determine to be that point I have no idea.
But..I do know that the mask from V for Vendetta is now in use worldwide, and THAT really bothers TPTB.

Just to be on the safe side, I have all of Hedge's writings.
Maybe his books will be banned one day, never know.

Fan-fucking-tastic!

What if that was the sig line on everyone's post for a month?????
Think Agent Mike would have apoplexy?

do not wish to face it. Every word he spoke in that paragraph is the truth.

And the best writers who have a clear vision of how things really are, are the chroniclers of history, no matter how they are viewed during their own lifetimes.

Hedges' writings will be remembered long after his anonymous critics are long forgotten. I doubt he has any hope of changing things simply by recording the facts he is uniquely qualified to analyze. But he is recording them for posterity.

"Historically the truth has always sounded like hyperbole to those who do not wish to face it. Every word he spoke in that paragraph is the truth."

...hyperbole is hyperbole. Claiming hyperbole is the "truth," doesn't make it so.

for comprehension. Nice post.

Personally I think you're too kind. As far as I can see Hedges is a straight-up GOP propagandist for whom truth is secondary to message. Passing himself off as a "progressive" of any stripe takes a lot of heavy lifting from what amounts to a network of dubious media fellow travelers.

Just fyi, you aren't making the poster you're applauding look better.

I was awed by the Huxley vs. Orwell dilemma. Thought, and still do, think it totally apt. Whenever I can, I do bring up (both) analogies with regard to the yin and yang of Huxley/Orwell.

Wow.

Just wow.

There is a point of diminishing returns.

Appreciate things that make me think.

I read Moby Dick several times in my life, but not for a long time. There have been several "interpretations" and analogies that I've agreed with, but this one by Chris Hedges takes the prize -- it is a real mind blower. The Pequod WILL sink. The only question is when, and who will remain after the last piece of that cursed vessel disappears under the surface.

"And so we plunge forward in our doomed quest to master the forces that will finally smite us. Those who see where we are going lack the fortitude to rebel. Mutiny was the only salvation for the Pequod’s crew. It is our only salvation. But moral cowardice turns us into hostages."

It is a matter of conscience.

"Ahab’s secret, private whale boat crew, which has a feral lust for blood, keeps the rest of the ship in abject submission."

Maybe the best advice is to follow the example of Ishmael, who grimly prepared for the inevitable. Ishmael's preparation of course was to build his own coffin, but that coffin ended up saving our protagonist in the end. We can learn a little from that example.

No one of us is as important as the ideals of true democracy, humanism, love for one's fellow man/woman and the continuity of the human race. We owe it to our children and/or to whoever survives the sinking of the Pequod to pass on and preserve the ideals that we know in our hearts are those worth dying for, to do our best to insure that whoever survives the sinking of the Pequod will know enough to rebuild a better and more just society.

In this episode, the great white is played by aptly-named Mr. Snowden, and mad captain Ahab is you guessed it, our demented President, coyly unnamed by Hedges, who also modestly lets you dear reader make the link between himself and the "uncommonly conscientious" Quaker from Nantucket.

Grade: D- and that's for spelling.

are morphing into 'GOP Operatives' lately? Even Amy Goodman!

I wonder if they know how much they tell is about themselves when they call someone like Chris Hedges a 'GOP Operative'! I sincerely hope no one is actually paying for any of this! Lol!

.................................

I love these threads where Liberals are thrown under the bus on a regular basis these days. But I always wonder why they put so little effort into at least trying to appear as if they know what they are talking about.

They have no need to appear knowledgeable. Their duty is to distract, lie and demonize(catapult the propaganda).

They cant handle the reality outside their bubble. They see knowledge as endangering their bubble. They must strike out with tools like ridicule and hatred because they did not sharpen their discussion skills inside the bubble where there was no need for good discussion tools.

I take back the "compassion". They would vote in a second for Christie if he changed parties. Shouting, "Hooray, he's a Democrat now!"

Y'know that place in that little room you have to go lock yourself in when you want to try to think.

When it comes to looking foolish, I'll give you an "A" - and that's for behavior.

It appears classics are now out of fashion; judging by books banned in some Public Schools.

Manifest destiny is a flawed concept. Man can not control Nature, only coexist with it.
Other notable authors of the time were Marx, Freud, Darwin, Emerson and Thoreau.
As Marx criticized unfettered Capitalism as eventually becoming predatory and devouring itself, Melville used the metaphor of sharks on a feeding frenzy eventually eating one another. That observation on an English paper in college got me the annual Trotsky Award from the professor.

"Microbes will inherit the earth?" Is this some sort of sick joke? Dear god, no wonder why we're having so many messaging problems: we don't do enough to address all the crazy hyperbole being thrown out there, and you wonder why there's still a fair number of apolitical people in Middle America who think we liberal Democrats are looney, or paranoid, etc.(which we most certainly aren't, not 99% of us anyhow!).

And the fact that he promotes Ed Snowden is a little fucking disturbing, too. Does Hedges not know of his far-rightwing RECENT past? Just 4 years ago, Snowden said that hackers oughta be shot! And yet, people support this dickhead.....

eom

Sometimes one can end up being even more wrong than they were before the reflective period. It does happen.

“O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! Not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind” (Moby Dick, Chapter 70, pp. 309).

eom

Thanks for posting.

Obama won't do, apparently.

Mobs of people are lining to get those limited spaces for the hunt to the death.
Too bad its all our deaths as well.
Oh well. At least they get to enjoy the ride. All aboard!