Herman Melville’s Ship of State
Herman Melville’s Ship of State. William Morrisey. South Bend, Indiana. St. Augustine’s Press, 2020.
Herman Melville’s Ship of State by Professor Will Morrisey is a relatively short work (131 pages in addition to an Appendix that brings it to 147 pages) that is not only interesting but quite stimulating and provocative. After multiple readings I’m at a loss how to characterize it. On the one hand, it “feels” like a private reading with commentary of Moby-Dick—over an extended period of time, of course—with friends or students. On the other hand, it has the flavor of an “extended” Op Ed essay—especially the Introduction and Chapter 14: Concluding Thoughts. Finally, however, it appears as a book of literary criticism and interpretation with political implications and applications for political philosophy.
Structural Overview
Professor Morrisey structures his work by framing a “summary commentary” of Moby-Dick with an Introduction and Concluding Remarks. This “summary-commentary” is very interesting because one has the impression that one is reading along with Professor Morissey as he pages through the novel summarizing or quoting passages and interjecting questions or comments on its content.[1] The following Overview will enable future readers more easily to read Herman Melville’s Ship of State as they re-read Moby-Dick.[2]
Morrisey Moby-Dick
Introduction: The Democratic Dilemma
Chapter One: Moby-Dick and the “Young America.” Extracts & Chapter 1
Chapter Two: The Adventure before the Adventure. Chapters 2-13
Chapter Three: The Ship and Its Rulers Chapters 16-30
Chapter Four: The Nature of Chaos Chapters 32-42
Chapter Five: Living with Chaos Chapter 44-52
Chapter Six: Revolution Chapter 54
Chapter Seven: Whales and Whale-Hunting Chapters 55-71
Chapter Eight: Isolatoes No More Chapters 72-81
Chapter Nine: Piety and Piracy Chapters 82-92
Chapter Ten: The Business Cycle Chapters 93-101
Chapter Eleven: Ivory and Steel Chapters 102-115
Chapter Twelve: Storm Chapters 116-128
Chapter Thirteen: End of the Yarn Chapters 129-135/Epilogue
Chapter Fourteen: Concluding Thoughts
Moby-Dick chapters excluded: 14 (Nantucket), 15 (Chowder), 43 (Hark!), 53 (The Gam) from Summary Reading.
Professor Morrisey opens with a very brief reflection in the Introduction: The Democratic Dilemma that focuses on de Tocqueville’s reflections on political regimes and the prospects of democracy in the modern world of the nineteenth-century. He points out that de Tocqueville visited America bringing an outsider’s view to his study of democracy in America. Very briefly—relying upon Alexis de Tocqueville—he defines the Democratic Dilemma in the quantitative terms of Aristotle’s classification of political regimes as rule by the one, the few, or the many.[3] Fearing tyranny, de Tocqueville concerned himself with public opinion and the possibility of a tyranny of the majority. Morrisey noted that de Tocqueville was interested in the nature of democracy—especially insofar as the rule of the many could lead to a tyranny—since rule by the one and the few were no longer available given the current European political circumstances in the early nineteenth century. Of course, structurally the American Founding resolved the dilemma by establishing a republican form of government. Melville returned to America in 1844 to a changed America after his worldwide whaling adventures. Professor Morrisey then asserts (without arguing further or documenting his assertion) that Melville intended to respond to a changed America thereby implying that Melville was concerned to caution Young America (or young America?) against tyranny. Although he notes that Melville published in Young America publications, he does not cite these publications or discuss the content thereof.
The “Concluding Thoughts” of Chapter 14 is essentially an essay in which Professor Morrisey reflects broadly on tyranny and the necessity of moderation. By referencing Abraham Lincoln’s Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, in which Lincoln recognizes ambitious men who “belong to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle,” he provides an entrée to his discussion of tyranny and the necessity of moderation. The most important component of this concluding essay, I think, is Morrisey’s observations on Ahab and his emphasis on the necessity of moderation in a politics.
General Assessment
In lieu of the absence in Herman Melville’s The Ship of State of direct evidence of Melville’s intention for writing Moby-Dick, I ask: Did Melville make a statement in regard to his intent in writing Moby-Dick? Melville did, in fact, struggle to write a book that would be profitable in support of his family, but gave way to a creative impulse to write an imaginative work. There is no mention, according to Charles Olson in his book Call Me Ishmael, of his intention to write a novel that would caution Americans against the possibility of tyranny. In his discussion of the genesis of Moby-Dick, Olson points out that through May of 1850, Melville tried to:
do a quick book for the market: “all my books are botches.” Into June he fought his materials: “blubber is blubber.” Then something happened. What, Mellville tells: “I somehow cling to the strange fancy, that, in all men hiddenly reside certain wondrous, occult properties—as in some plants and minerals—which by some happy but very rare accident (as bronze was discovered by the melting of the iron and brass at the burning of Corinth) may chance to be called forth here on earth.”[4]
I am left with the conclusion that the purpose of Melville’s writing Moby-Dick was not necessarily to write a novel that portrays the American political regime nor did Melville seem to intend to instruct Americans of the mid-nineteenth century. In the short term at least, Melville wrote a novel true to his imagination. The novel was not a monetary success—something that Melville had hoped for in order to support his family. The book also received a bad review from his London publisher.[5] When Melville died in 1891, the book was out-of-print.
While I do not agree with Professor Morrisey’s assertions—essentially throughout his book—that Melville intended to write Moby-Dick in order to warn Americans against the possibility of tyranny, I think that his interpretation of Moby-Dick is accurate and that the novel could have then (upon publication in 1851) as well as now be understood as a cautionary tale. Realistically speaking, however, I have to ask: when has the American public or American political elites ever heeded cautions embodied in literary symbolizations?
Finally, in terms of my General Assessment, I ask: If Moby-Dick is Melville’s Ship of State, does the novel provide an accurate analogy of a political system? Is the Pequod Melville’s Ship of State or is the whole of Moby-Dick Melville’s Ship of State? In thinking over this question, I have to conclude that since Moby-Dick is a novel that emerges from Melville’s participation in the whaling industry—a commercial enterprise after all—and since the Pequod is a component of this commercial enterprise, one is hard pressed to understand that Moby-Dick portrays a political system. The Pequod itself represents this commercial enterprise—from its outfitting, ownership, method of payment (contracting to all sailors individually a specific lay of the profit), to its goal to turn a profit, to Ahab’s nailing a doubloon to the masthead— in effect “bribing” the crew to support his own end and evidence of his disdain for his commitment to his contract. At one level, one may observe that Ahab rejected the common enterprise in the same way that a political tyrant rejects the common or public good. Finally, however, the analogy of the governance of the Pequod to the American political system fails.
If Professor Morrisey is implying by his title that the organization of a political system is the same and/or equivalent to the organization of a commercial enterprise, I think that there needs to be an explicit discussion of the relationship between the two. But since he seems to be referencing Aristotle’s forms of government early on in the Introduction and since he uses political terminology such as “democracy” and “tyranny,” I reject this idea. Still there may be a relationship.
While Moby-Dick is rooted in Melville’s whaling experiences, when he “clings to the strange fancy, that in all men hiddenly reside certain wondrous, occult properties,” the novel takes on a metaphorical-philosophical complexion that extends beyond either commercial or political dimensions.
Specific Passages and Response
I will respond briefly to three passages from Herman Melville’s Ship of State.
I. In the first[6], Professor Morrisey addresses and comments upon Lincoln’s Lyceum address. He writes:
When “the lawless in spirit” become “lawless in practice,” law-abiding citizens will lose their trust in the government intended to secure their liberty and equal rights. If such citizens lose their attachment to the ruling institutions of a republican regime, then “the capability of a people to govern themselves” must come into question. This will give an opportunity to the supremely ambitious men who arise in every generation, men who “belong to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle,” men who “disdain the beaten path” of their ancestors to seek glory on any ground other than that taken by men who have gone before them. Only if citizens trust one another, and trust the government they have constituted and perpetuated, can such potential tyrants be defeated. (122)
Response: Agreed. But what if “the lion” or “the eagle” contributes to—and even encourages the loss of “attachment to the ruling institutions of a republican regime”? What if “the lion” or “the eagle” seeks glory (understood as wealth or power) and disdains the path taken by those who established the regime as a constitutional system. What if “the lion” or “the eagle” disdains the idea of limited government that sought to check the evil effects of power and establish the “natural” rights of liberty and equality? What if “the lion” or “the eagle” pursues his own personal revenge, a la Ahab, against not only nature but the universe?
Professor Morrisey continues:
To reestablish or strengthen that trust only reason can furnish new pillars for “the temple of liberty.” Those materials can then “be molded into general intelligence, sound morality and, in particular, a reverence for the constitution and the law”—for what Lincoln does not hesitate to call a “political religion.” (122)
Response: What is the nature of this reason that restrains? Is it simply the capacity to reason? Or is it something greater and more transcendent? If Melville throws religion—Judaism and Christianity—as well as philosophy out the window, wherein lies the persuasive power to educate for sound morality and “a reverence for the constitution and the law”?
“The old pillars of the temple [of liberty],” Morrisey writes:
were the Founders; the new pillars can only be men and women who emulate them, whose ambition finds its model not in an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon but in George Washington, that supremely self-governing statesman who has earned his status as first in war and first in peace among a people who intend to govern themselves, first of all by ruling their own passions. (122)
Response: Did the Founders really intend for our rulers to “first of all [rule] their own passions”? Or, as we learn from the writers of The Federalist Papers that they in fact recognized the rapacious-ambitious nature of human beings and that the preservation of liberty was indeed “possible” if “ambition was made to counteract ambition, if the interest of the man were connected with the constitutional power of the place”? If men were angels, etc. Moreover, where does the will to govern one’s passions originate? Is this a “natural” quality of “the lion” or “the eagle”? I suspect not. Are human beings educable? Can we learn that to live in society and even to govern in a society, we must learn to moderate our passions? The Federalist, it seems, did not think this?
II. In the second passage, Morrisey continues to reflect on Lincoln’s caution by focusing on Ahab. He writes:
Ahab represents nothing if not the family of the lion or the tribe of the (sea)-eagle. As such, he leaves himself morally vulnerable to having his captain’s hat stolen by another eagle. Aboard the Pequod, no human being effectively opposes him, as Starbuck dithers, the crew alternately trembles and cheers, and Bulkington stays below deck. With Moby-Dick, however, (123) Melville opposes him, readying his readers to recognize and oppose him, too. To the mighty man, the might-makes-right man, Melville opposes the mighty book. A mighty book needs a mighty theme, Ishmael tells us. But mere might against might will not suffice. Don’t merely ‘enlarge’ your mind, Ishmael tells us. “Subtilize it.” Make it more discerning, more reasonable. The way to reasonableness isn’t some ‘system’ of thought, philosophic or religious, but moderation of the soul’s passions. Tempering passions gives the mind a chance to think instead of only feeling. Ahab suggests that he who feels most intensely, whose feeling overwhelm other less coruscant souls, rightly rules them with a minimum of ‘back-talk.’ Melville writes to make citizens more thoughtful, more likely (among other things) to recognize an Ahab as a tyrant, as a person who may “have his humanities” but will not permit himself to be ruled by them, will not rule others by them, and thereby compromises the humanity of those he rules. (124)
Response: The curious thing about the foregoing is Professor Morrisey’s conflation of the two passages from Moby-Dick, to wit:
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all. —Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind? Subtilize it.[7]
And
Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behoves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. . . .
One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make faint with their out-reaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.[8]
Note that both of the passages from Moby-Dick occur in chapters focusing on cetology. Therefore, I think, to imply (or assume) that “the mighty book” reveals Melville’s primary purpose in writing the novel to be political is misleading. For me, the more likely interpretation of this second passage from Chapter 104, coupled with Melville’s “strange fancy,” indicates that Moby-Dick is a philosophical novel. Additionally, I think that the two sections of the novel that precede the 135 chapters and Epilogue—entitled “Etymology” and “Extracts” (“Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian”)—expand the scope of the novel beyond a specifically localized focus to a universal one and thereby contribute to a philosophical context for the story that Ishmael survives to tell.
III. Morrisey writes:
Unlike Richard [III], however, [Ahab] burns with ambitions beyond absolute rule; unlike subsequent tyrants , he has no ideological ambitions. Ahab’s ambitions are spiritual-metaphysical. He rejects all that is “above” him, navigating only by the “horizontal,” what is around him. In this he partakes of democracy even as he tyrannizes. . . . (128)
Response: Certainly it is accurate to argue that Ahab belongs to Lincoln’s “the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle”—a predatory group—and that his ambitions were spiritual-metaphysical. We might even argue that Ahab was a metaphysical rebel as analyzed in Camus’s L’Homme Revolté, but to say that he was not an ideologue, I think, ignores the fact that his rejection of all authority[9]—religious, spiritual and scientific—lies at the heart of modern ideological-revolutionary movements. Moreover, as Professor Morrisey notes, Ahab knows and is consciously aware of his spiritual nature while rebelling despite this awareness. Additionally, Ahab’s recognition of his “humanities” leads me to observe that Ahab is existentially in bad faith (Sartre) and that his headlong pursuit of the white whale demonstrates his refusal to apperceive reality (Heimito von Doderer’s Apperzeptions-verweigerung)—a reality that is both horizontal and vertical, i.e., “all that is ‘above’” him. Ahab is finally a nihilist for the results of his “spiritual-metaphysical” ambitions is not only his own death but also the deaths of his crew and the destruction of the Pequod’s enterprise.
Concluding Observations and Thoughts
If we accept Professor Morrisey’s interpretation that Moby-Dick represents Melville’s attempt to warn about the vicissitudes of nature and the possibility of tyranny—and I do—then Moby-Dick may contribute to a national conversation aimed at attempting to resolve the current crisis of our political system. In fact, I think that the current situation affords Americans the opportunity to address the nature of the public interest—rooted in the public philosophy as formulated by Walter Lippmann. In The Public Philosophy, he defines the Public Interest as: “what men would choose if they thought rationally and acted disinterestedly and benevolently.”
Focusing a national discussion on “the public interest” also permits us to recognize the other component of Aristotle’s classification of forms of government (not really addressed by Professor Morrisey), i.e., the object of rule in addition to the number of rulers. For Aristotle, the one, the few, and the many can rule in either their own self interest or in the interest of the whole.[10]
Just as Young/young America could neither know (perhaps) nor heed the warning symbolized in Moby-Dick, I fear that our generation may also fail to heed the warning; we know so much and still we fail to “subtilize the mind” in response to Ishmael’s advice. “Is it not curious,” Ishmael asks:
that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all. —Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind? Subtilize it.[11]
As Moby-Dick stands, survives, and endures, it is perhaps a warning; it need not be that Melville intended consciously to warn Young/young America, but that out of his experience combined with the work of his imagination it constituted (and constitutes even today) a warning. Herman Melville did not know (or at least admit) that he was intentionally writing a warning for finally he wanted to write a book out of his imagination clinging to his “strange fancy.”
* * * * *
Additionally, I would argue, that there seems to be confusion in the public consciousness—at least in the minds of many Americans—over an understanding of “freedom” and “tyranny.” Lippmann’s definition of the Public Interest—“what men would choose if they thought rationally and acted disinterestedly and benevolently”—after all, is written in the subjunctive tense and is dependent upon Ishmael’s subtilizing the mind. Lippmann is also helpful in his examination of this confusion over freedom because he supplies two case studies focusing on freedom of speech and the theory of property. In both studies, Lippmann emphasizes the necessity of restraint that leads to moderation. “The way to reasonableness,” Morrisey writes
isn’t some ‘system’ of thought, philosophic or religious, but moderation of the soul’s passions. Tempering passions gives the mind a chance to think instead of only feeling. Ahab suggests that he who feels most intensely, whose feeling overwhelm other less coruscant souls, rightly rules them with a minimum of ‘back-talk.’ Melville writes to make citizens more thoughtful, more likely (among other things) to recognize an Ahab as a tyrant, as a person who may “have his humanities” but will not permit himself to be ruled by them, will not rule others by them, and thereby compromises the humanity of those he rules. (124)
* * * * *
Finally, I think that Professor Morrisey’s assertion that Ahab’s tyrannizing (demagoguery?) was imbedded in the horizontal nature of democracy (see above: SPECIFIC PASSAGES AND RESPONSES, III, p. 7) calls for a deeper and broader discussion of the many (the demos) and democracy—a discussion that includes Aristotle’s good form of government, polity. Polity itself, of course, includes the demos, i.e., the many people who are part of every political system, who rule in the interest of the whole. While we admit theoretically that ambitious men who belong to “the family of the lion or the tribe of the (sea)-eagle”—would-be tyrants or authoritarians—manipulate or demagogue the many, we must also recognize that within the many there is the capacity for ruling in the interest of the whole and of recognizing demagoguery for what it is. This recognition assumes that people who are members of the demos are subject to rational persuasion but only if the public discussion includes the belief that truth is possible, that accurate information is available, and that persuasive effort from leaders who are not necessarily defined as rulers is forthcoming. Also, members of the demos must be educated enough to respond to rational discussion and persuasion. Indeed is that not what the hope embedded in our system has become in our time? It seems too obvious to point out that within the one, few, and many there are multiple human types of characters—some motivated by wealth, power, sensual gratification and some motivated by the desire to live a good life and to help make it possible for others to live good lives. And here we must confront the philosophical-political-moral question of what constitutes a good life.
We must also ask: Is there a form of government that fosters the creation of a collective condition that enables people—more than a few—to live good lives. And is it not one of the philosopher’s responsibilities to lead people to recognize what constitutes a good life. Hence we arrive at education as paideia, as formation of character. And now for the crucial question: How can this be achieved in a nation of 330 million people when our founding document was written for 13 states along the Atlantic seaboard with a population of 3,929,214?[12] This is the question we currently face, assuming of course that Moby-Dick or the Whale could be placed before a public that could “subtilize” its mind sufficiently to alert it to the possibilities of tyranny and the necessity of “auxiliary precautions.”
Notes
[1] Many of the comments or asides in the summary, however, are not always followed up in any systematic fashion. For example they are not developed in the Concluding Thoughts of the final chapter.
[2] Morrisey attaches an Appendix—“Moby-Dick in Practice: Melville’s Battle-Pieces”—that purports, seemingly, to provide support for his interpretation of Moby-Dick. Since Professor Morrisey does not incorporate his reflections in this Appendix into his Concluding Thoughts, I have chosen not to address this Appendix in my review.
[3] Note: Aristotle’s second criterion, the Object of Rule, i.e., either the self-interest(s) of the ruler(s) or the common interest of the political system, is not discussed by Morrisey.
[4] Charles Olson. Call Me Ishmael. Valmy Publishing. 2018. “Text originally published in 1947 under the same title.” Pp. 36-38.
[5] Ibid.
[6] All passages to which I respond are to be found in the final chapter: “Concluding Thoughts.”
[7]Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale. The Library of America, 1983. 1147. (Chapter 74, The Sperm Whale’s Head.)
[8] Ibid., 1279-1280. (Chapter 104, The Fossil Whale.)
[9] One is reminded of Marx’s assertion in the Preface to his dissertation: “In sooth all gods I hate.”
[10] Of course, empirically Aristotle acknowledged that most (if not all) “constitutions” were mixed forms that included more than one element as identified in his classification scheme.
[11] Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale. The Library of America, 1983. 1147. (Chapter 74, The Sperm Whale’s Head.)
[12] According to the first census.
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