Remember The Pequod!

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as amerchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage;this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constantsurveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in someunaccountable way-- he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, mygoing on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providencethat was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude andsolo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the billmust have run something like this:

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, theFates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others wereset down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts ingenteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces- though I cannot tell why this wasexactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see alittle into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me undervarious disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besidescajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my ownunbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

Chapter One
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville

As a species that has evolved for millions of years in hunting-and-gatheringenvironments, our adrenalin starts to run whenever we sniff a hunt. U.S.officials may not be trained in anthropology, but they understood this instinctwell enough to know that their action in Afghanistan would sell better if theyput a picture in the sights. Better a face than a group; better the name of agroup than an idea, better an idea than blind attacks. If "terror" istoo diffuse, then make it bin Laden. But bin Laden might get killed, so broadenit to Al Qaeda, no the Taliban. Once they are defeated, extend it back toTerror.

One hundred fifty years before the U.S. went hunting in Afghanistan, HermanMelville published the most famous American hunt story, a novel that might beseen today as a cautionary tale against foolish chases-Moby Dick. CaptainAhab uses the same psychological strategy as President Bush's "dead oralive" rhetoric when he announces to the crew of the Pequod that theship now has but one mission: to kill Moby Dick, the horrible White Whale whobit off his leg years before. No longer is the voyage about making money fromcommercial whaling. It is now a quest for retribution. Ahab must know that if hepresents the challenge of a hunt-especially for revenge-the men will forget whythey came along in the first place, and that their human urge for the hunt wouldtake over. The gauntlet Ahab throws down to his crew is precisely the one Bushflung upon the world: you're either with us or against us. Adrenalin seizes thecrew. They take an oath to hunt the whale. The ship sinks. Everyone dies exceptIshmael, the narrator.

The narratives bear other striking similarities. Like the United Statessuffering the loss of its towers and the people in them, Ahab's body and pridewere wounded when the White Whale "dismasted" him in its ivory jaws(Chapter 36). In a mad rage Ahab redirects his crew, which hails from all overthe world and is joined in the ship on the economic mission of hunting whalesfor profit, to a course of violent revenge, just as the United States hasredirected a group of countries already joined under its economic stewardshiponto a quest to restore its pride.

Both missions, of course, are doomed. Ahab never has a chance against MobyDick, a force of nature that most sea captains know it is not their business tomess with. Similarly, the United States has no hope in its stated goal ofeliminating terrorism. Whoever hates America can always find a way to attack it.To eradicate terrorism therefore would be to wipe out antipathy against America,a human sentiment that most leaders would recognize cannot be controlled.America's means of effecting that change-dropping bombs on innocent people inone of the world's most destitute countries-can hardly be more effective thanhaving done nothing at all.

It is obvious to the other sea captains that Ahab's hunt is lunacy. Ahab asksan English captain who has lost his arm to Moby Dick if he harpooned him thenext two times he saw him. "Didn't want to try to," the captainanswers. "Ain't one limb enough? What should I do without this otherarm?" He continues: "No more White Whales for me. [H]e's best letalone; don't you think so, Captain?"

"He is," answers Ahab. "But he will still be hunted, for allthat. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what leastallures. He's all a magnet!" (Chapter 100). The English captain then asks aPequod crewmember if Ahab is crazy.

If Ahab can be seen as the United States, and Ahab's crew as the countriesallied with the U.S. in its war, Starbuck can be seen as Pakistan and anyoneelse wrestling with the wisdom of that alliance. Starbuck, the first mate, isthe only crewmember to protest the hunt: "I came here to hunt whales,"he tells Ahab, "not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thyvengeance yield?" (Chapter 36).

To hell with money, Ahab says. "[M]y vengeance will fetch a greatpremium here!" he says, pounding his chest.

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cries Starbuck, "that simplysmote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

Starbuck is horrified by Ahab's sense of himself in relation to the naturalworld.

But Ahab's thinking springs from a bedrock ideology in America that man canand should control nature, an idea growing out of The Bible and the frontiermentality and continuing all the way up to George Bush suggesting that he caneliminate from the world all the people who hate America enough to hurt it.

Even after he protests, however, Starbuck goes along with the hunt. Starbuck,Melville wrote elsewhere, represents "the moderate man, the invaluableunderstrapper of the wicked man." In this, Starbuck is similar to all themoderate people in the world who are just going along with the BushAdministration's action because they either don't care strongly enough aboutstopping it or they're scared to stand up to the United States, since it is theskipper of the global economic ship. Moderate followers are crucial to thesuccess of any big hunt or any evil man, Melville suggests.

Under a magnifying glass, the analogy starts to fall apart, of course. Ahabmay be doomed, but at least the quarry he is hunting is the same who bit off hisleg. The United States has killed many people who have nothing to do with itsinjury. Another difference is that the U. S. has enemies who hate it, and theSeptember attack was predatory. Moby Dick is just a whale minding his ownbusiness who chews up ships in self-defense.

Why we are going along with this hunt is both harder and easier to understandthan why the crew of the Pequod goes along with Ahab. We are not in asavage environment like a ship in the middle of the ocean. We have more accessto our rational minds and thus should be able to see the absurdity of attackingAfghanistan. On the other hand, Ahab's crew wasn't injured, in the way that U.S.citizens feel violated and hurt by the September attack. For the Pequodcrew, it is a hunt for hunt's sake, and the retribution is imaginary, throughidentification with Ahab's injury. The U.S. public, on the other hand, feltinjured, and they joined the hunt with a sense of retribution. (The extent towhich the injury was imagined and the whole idea of a nation is imagined areseparate questions.) We are never so blind as when our pride is battered and wefeel compelled to save face.

Why do we embark on preposterous hunts? Clearly we haven't evolved a gene forengaging in foolish battles. That gene would have sunk with ships like the Pequod.We must also have some mechanism for self-correction, an instinct that tells usto walk away when the fight is unwise. After all, the other captains on the highseas know enough to leave Moby Dick alone. But perhaps the self-correctionmechanism walks the plank when the hunt is about saving face. A simple hunt isalluring enough. When you add revenge, the quarry becomes "all amagnet," overpowering whatever rationality we've evolved to counteract oursavage impulses. From a sociobiological perspective, the U.S. response to theSept. 11 attack suggests is either the predominance of the face-saving urgeamong humans or, more gravely, that those without good self-monitoring willeventually be selected out of the population. That is, unless the United Statessnaps out of its sense of indomitability, it may be doomed to follow the Pequodto the bottom of the indifferent sea.

William Faulkner wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 1927 that his fascinationwith Moby Dick was that it showed a man "bent on his own destructionand dragging his immediate world down with him with a despotic and utterdisregard of [its people] as individuals."

To some extent, any war necessitates a blindness to the individuality of thepeople being attacked. The U.S. would not have bombed Timothy McVeigh'sneighborhood to get him the way it bombs Afghan villages to get bin Laden. It iseasier to ignore humanity on foreign soil. But, as Faulkner points out, Ahab isdisregarding his own people in taking his ship down with him. Likewise,as hatred of America surely will intensify around the world in reaction to U.S.terrorist-hunting, Bush is taking all of us down with him.

(Brendan Cooney is a Boston-based freelance writer whohas written for salon.com, Columbia Journalism Review,National Journal and USA Today. He has a Master'sdegree in cultural anthropology. He can be reached at: itmighthavehappened@yahoo.com)