An article by Matthew Bruen, titled 'How the Whalers of Moby Dick Could Help Put Humans on Mars' (originally published by Aeon and republished by The Wire), compares the whaling industry of the 18th and 19th centuries to space exploration in the 21st - the latter focused on human habitation of Mars. Bruen compares life onboard ships in the ocean with that of the confined space of space shuttles adrift in vacuum.
An article by Matthew Bruen, titled 'How the Whalers of Moby Dick Could Help Put Humans on Mars' (originally published by Aeon and republished by The Wire), compares the whaling industry of the 18th and 19th centuries to space exploration in the 21st - the latter focused on human habitation of Mars. Bruen compares life onboard ships in the ocean with that of the confined space of space shuttles adrift in vacuum. He states that the timeframe for a human expedition to Mars and back is roughly equal to the whaling enterprise, each of which lasted two to four years.
Both whalers and astronauts are engaged in occupations fraught with risks and adventure that require professional competence and camaraderie to tide over crises that might emerge at any moment. Referring to Moby Dick, the iconic novel by Hermann Melville, the article states, "Through determination, daring and an intense focus on a shared goal, the first human beings will step on the Red Planet and join Ishmael's exclusive fraternity."
There are two issues that define the whaling expeditions of the 18th and 19th centuries that we need to pay attention to, and both of which have ramifications for the present. First, the whaling expedition is an extension of the notion of the 'frontier', which forms part of a larger process involving the national identity, history and popular culture of the US. Second, the human/nonhuman interaction specific to whaling ties up the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial through similar other nonhuman species such as primates and microbes, which are part of the 'multi-species' era that is the present.
Many frontiers
The defining moment of American exceptionalism has been the idea of the 'frontier'. The whaling expeditions were an extension of the frontier on land, into rivers and finally to the seas and oceans. The 'frontier' has been celebrated in American literature as what distinguishes the quintessential American trait of the early Pilgrim Fathers who came to settle the continent.
Popularised by Frederick Jackson Turner's essay, 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History' (1893), the frontier thesis proposed the following: The idea of progress and development in America was marked by a continuous expansion to claim more lands through peaceful settlement with the Indians, unlike the Spaniards in the south. This form of settler colonialism culminated in a specific American character defined by individualism, the democratic impulse and the ability to take risks.
The stock images that appear in popular culture that reflect the frontier culture are the log cabin, cowboys and the indigenous peoples, who are somehow missing in Turner's account of the taming of the wilderness. This academic essay on the frontier had its counterpart in a more popular stage version performed by William 'Bill' Cody at almost the same time. In Cody's account, the Indians who have to be conquered dominate the narrative. Often, his performance would end with a reenactment of the battle of Bighorn that led to the defeat of the American army (led by George Custer) at the hand of the Indian tribes. The ever-expanding frontier came at the displacement and annihilation of the native Indian populations, alongside that of the Mexicans and African Americans.
It is this idea of the frontier that informed the whaling expeditions of the 18th and 19th centuries, when terra firma yielded to the high seas and oceans. Bruen glosses over the violence and issues of race, class, gender, nation and warfare that underwrote the whaling expeditions and the frontier ethos that informed it. It is best illustrated in Moby Dick through Ahab's obsession with the white whale. It is not a coincidence that the whale is white, a reflection of the displaced racism inherent in the body politic of the American nation.
The 'tribal', 'black' and 'oriental' characters, or the racial other(s), that make the underclass in the industrial labor of whaling are not yet part of the social contract of the new Leviathan that American espouses to be. As opposed to the Quaker God fearing civilised owners of the Pequod - the ship that Ahab commands - the harpooners like Tashtego, Queequeg, Fedallah, Pip, and Dagoo are characterised through blackness, primitivism, savagery and cannibalism, all marked by a homoerotic masculine camaraderie. Tashtego, who spots the illusive white whale first, is of tribal blood, the last of his tribe and a 'noble savage'. Pip the black boy who becomes Ahab's companion is raving mad after an episode of being left alone in a boat in the ocean. His madness enables him to make prophecies. The tattooed Queequeg was a prince from the South Pacific islands. Fedallah the private harpooner of Ahab is a Parsee 'oriental'. Dagoo is an African moor.
Melville is remarkable in stitching together composite elements of Africa, Polynesia, Islamic, Christian, and Native American cultures, which made the whaling industry a global enterprise. Melville would have been aware of the abolitionist debates of the 1840s and 1850s, when he was writing Moby Dick, using a racial and ethnic underclass to evoke danger and irrational impulses, with mysteries marking oceanic expeditions.
Unto the alien
The whaling expedition has never ended. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the frontier has expanded beyond the American territory, through the military industrial complex and the numerous bases spread across the world, through which the US maintains its military supremacy. The white whale of Ahab has morphed into the Communists and, more recently, Islam. The Pequod of Moby Dick has been replaced with aircraft carriers - the new Leviathans - through which the US demonstrates its shock-and-awe strategy to bring errant nations to the book. Instead of the harpooners Queequeg and Tashtego, it has deployed tomahawk cruise missiles and Apache helicopters ironically named after the Native Indians it decimated in the 18th and 19th centuries, to wage war in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
More importantly, the notion of the frontier has transformed, going from the confines of Gaia to that of interplanetary journeys through scientific missions into space. Space is the new frontier. However, the birth of the Space Age was marked by an intense rivalry between the erstwhile USSR and the US to land on the Moon. Russia was successful in launching Sputnik, the first satellite to circumnavigate Earth. The US followed by landing humans on the moon. It was the threat of warfare between two nuclear-powered nations at the start of the Cold War in 1945 that led to the development of satellites - as well as to the cybernetic revolution that transformed the way humans communicate.
The internet was in its infancy in the DARPA military setup, whereby scientists were trying to create a secure and decentralised communication system that would survive a nuclear holocaust. With the end of the Cold War in 1989, the Russian obsession was replaced with aliens of various kinds. This was more evident in Hollywood films and popular TV shows. Star Wars was preeminent in packaging the Cold War in its popular culture avatar. The movie E.T. captured the idea of a friendly alien. No wonder the X Files had FBI investigators exploring 'alien' crimes or mysteries; the show had the tag line "The truth is out there", beckoning to worlds up and beyond. Read more
Both whalers and astronauts are engaged in occupations fraught with risks and adventure that require professional competence and camaraderie to tide over crises that might emerge at any moment. Referring to Moby Dick, the iconic novel by Hermann Melville, the article states, "Through determination, daring and an intense focus on a shared goal, the first human beings will step on the Red Planet and join Ishmael's exclusive fraternity."
There are two issues that define the whaling expeditions of the 18th and 19th centuries that we need to pay attention to, and both of which have ramifications for the present. First, the whaling expedition is an extension of the notion of the 'frontier', which forms part of a larger process involving the national identity, history and popular culture of the US. Second, the human/nonhuman interaction specific to whaling ties up the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial through similar other nonhuman species such as primates and microbes, which are part of the 'multi-species' era that is the present.
Many frontiers
The defining moment of American exceptionalism has been the idea of the 'frontier'. The whaling expeditions were an extension of the frontier on land, into rivers and finally to the seas and oceans. The 'frontier' has been celebrated in American literature as what distinguishes the quintessential American trait of the early Pilgrim Fathers who came to settle the continent.
Popularised by Frederick Jackson Turner's essay, 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History' (1893), the frontier thesis proposed the following: The idea of progress and development in America was marked by a continuous expansion to claim more lands through peaceful settlement with the Indians, unlike the Spaniards in the south. This form of settler colonialism culminated in a specific American character defined by individualism, the democratic impulse and the ability to take risks.
The stock images that appear in popular culture that reflect the frontier culture are the log cabin, cowboys and the indigenous peoples, who are somehow missing in Turner's account of the taming of the wilderness. This academic essay on the frontier had its counterpart in a more popular stage version performed by William 'Bill' Cody at almost the same time. In Cody's account, the Indians who have to be conquered dominate the narrative. Often, his performance would end with a reenactment of the battle of Bighorn that led to the defeat of the American army (led by George Custer) at the hand of the Indian tribes. The ever-expanding frontier came at the displacement and annihilation of the native Indian populations, alongside that of the Mexicans and African Americans.
It is this idea of the frontier that informed the whaling expeditions of the 18th and 19th centuries, when terra firma yielded to the high seas and oceans. Bruen glosses over the violence and issues of race, class, gender, nation and warfare that underwrote the whaling expeditions and the frontier ethos that informed it. It is best illustrated in Moby Dick through Ahab's obsession with the white whale. It is not a coincidence that the whale is white, a reflection of the displaced racism inherent in the body politic of the American nation.
The 'tribal', 'black' and 'oriental' characters, or the racial other(s), that make the underclass in the industrial labor of whaling are not yet part of the social contract of the new Leviathan that American espouses to be. As opposed to the Quaker God fearing civilised owners of the Pequod - the ship that Ahab commands - the harpooners like Tashtego, Queequeg, Fedallah, Pip, and Dagoo are characterised through blackness, primitivism, savagery and cannibalism, all marked by a homoerotic masculine camaraderie. Tashtego, who spots the illusive white whale first, is of tribal blood, the last of his tribe and a 'noble savage'. Pip the black boy who becomes Ahab's companion is raving mad after an episode of being left alone in a boat in the ocean. His madness enables him to make prophecies. The tattooed Queequeg was a prince from the South Pacific islands. Fedallah the private harpooner of Ahab is a Parsee 'oriental'. Dagoo is an African moor.
Melville is remarkable in stitching together composite elements of Africa, Polynesia, Islamic, Christian, and Native American cultures, which made the whaling industry a global enterprise. Melville would have been aware of the abolitionist debates of the 1840s and 1850s, when he was writing Moby Dick, using a racial and ethnic underclass to evoke danger and irrational impulses, with mysteries marking oceanic expeditions.
Unto the alien
The whaling expedition has never ended. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the frontier has expanded beyond the American territory, through the military industrial complex and the numerous bases spread across the world, through which the US maintains its military supremacy. The white whale of Ahab has morphed into the Communists and, more recently, Islam. The Pequod of Moby Dick has been replaced with aircraft carriers - the new Leviathans - through which the US demonstrates its shock-and-awe strategy to bring errant nations to the book. Instead of the harpooners Queequeg and Tashtego, it has deployed tomahawk cruise missiles and Apache helicopters ironically named after the Native Indians it decimated in the 18th and 19th centuries, to wage war in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
More importantly, the notion of the frontier has transformed, going from the confines of Gaia to that of interplanetary journeys through scientific missions into space. Space is the new frontier. However, the birth of the Space Age was marked by an intense rivalry between the erstwhile USSR and the US to land on the Moon. Russia was successful in launching Sputnik, the first satellite to circumnavigate Earth. The US followed by landing humans on the moon. It was the threat of warfare between two nuclear-powered nations at the start of the Cold War in 1945 that led to the development of satellites - as well as to the cybernetic revolution that transformed the way humans communicate.
The internet was in its infancy in the DARPA military setup, whereby scientists were trying to create a secure and decentralised communication system that would survive a nuclear holocaust. With the end of the Cold War in 1989, the Russian obsession was replaced with aliens of various kinds. This was more evident in Hollywood films and popular TV shows. Star Wars was preeminent in packaging the Cold War in its popular culture avatar. The movie E.T. captured the idea of a friendly alien. No wonder the X Files had FBI investigators exploring 'alien' crimes or mysteries; the show had the tag line "The truth is out there", beckoning to worlds up and beyond. Read more