Big Heads, Big Ideas

The above are some basic notes, like those I would put on the white board of my classroom, were you and I lucky enough to be in a classroom with a whiteboard.  The concern the heart of one of the great arcs of Moby-Dick, what I call the Whale Head Arc.

Back in chapter 24, "The Advocate," which was not a chapter I assigned, but which still, of course, by virtue of being in this book contains words of great merit, Ishmael makes this  outlandish claim:

And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. 

In what way could whaling serve as the equivalent of a university? The answer lies in what, aside from many forms of "socializing" or "networking," is DONE in a university, indeed, in why it's CALLED a "university."  One is supposed to "ponder the universe."  It's a place of big ideas and long, deep thoughts.  If we see it that way, ANY PLACE can become a university if only one's mind is open.

We see Ishmael resolve free will, fate, and chance while weaving a mat with Queequeg.  We see him come to a sort of peace with the idea of mortality as he sits among the ropes of the whale boat.  And we see him, first prompted to this contemplation by Ahab's addressing the severed head of a sperm whale (I know, right?), work towards reconciling a paradigmatic split between the view of Plato and the view of the Stoics.

Ahab sets this in motion--"Speak, thou vast and venerable head"--in chapter 70, "The Sphynx."  What does he want from the sperm whale?  Why would the sperm whale know this?  He wants to know what he's always wanted to know, what we all wouldn't mind knowing: why do bad things happen to good people?  Why would the whale know this?  Because the whale dives deep and has seen things which no man or woman possibly can.

Ahab further sets this in motion when, at the suggestion of Fedallah, he orders Stubb and the crew to kill a right whale.

Now.  Scroll up.

The right whale is sort of a big sea lawn mower.  It's a baleen whale, a surface feeder, a gatherer.  It accepts what is there.  This can be equated with the Stoic philosophy of accepting fate. 

The sperm whale is the largest predator ever on Earth.  It is a toothed whale, a deep diver, a hunter.  It seeks the ideal in the depths.  This can be equated with the Platonic philosophy of (see the immediately previously posted blog) not accepting the shadow of reality, but rather seeking the ideal.

Ishmael, in chapter 73, "Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk over Him," takes the ideas a step further.

In good time, Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right. 

You have, I am sure, encountered John Locke before, probably in American History in his idea of the Social Contract presented in his Treatise on Government."   Locke also wrote "On Human Understanding" in which he proposed that we are all born "blank slates" and the the world imprints upon us and creates our consciousness.  Clearly this is true.

You may also have come across Immanuel Kant as well, the philospher behind Romanticism.  In his work "Critique of Pure Reason" he points to the limits of empiricism and claims that the deepest and most important truths are beyond their limits but rather lie in the realm of both experience and intuition.  He believes that we all have a consciousness and that we create our world with it.  Clearly this also is true.

We hoist both of these ideas on board and they weigh us down.  There is more on this when Ishmael starts regarding the eye placement of the sperm whale and how it would present two distinct pictures which the whale's mind must meld into one.  Fascinating stuff.  Imagine, he suggest that your eyes are where your ears are and how the world would then appear.

The contrast of philosophies continues in chapter 75, "The Right Whale's Head--Contrasted View":

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.


This concerns the subtle difference in the ways Stoics and Platonists view death.  Stoics accept death as inevitable.  Platonists refuse to fear the unknown and are therefore indifferent to their demise.

A few years ago, reading chapter 99, "The Doubloon," I started thinking about characters as embodiments of of different aspects of these two philosophies.  It's a fun little thought exercise, but you can see (scroll up to the top, and then scroll back down) the ways these things line up.

Just some thoughts.