Our Great White Whales and the Lighting of the World

It's easy to see why Herman Melville's classic 19th century novel is so widely taught -- even in mostly abbreviated forms for contemporary readers.

The metaphor of the monstrous white whale that is the peg-legged whaling captain's obsession is an allegory on multiple levels for the culture of natural resource extraction and wealth accumulation White male colonizers brought to North America.

The Seaman's Beth-El in New Bedford,
made famous in the 1957 film
Moby Dick, dir. by John Houston

The magnificent mammals remain large in our imaginations, and continue to cause controversy in our waters, where nearly two centuries after the heyday of whaling in 1850 they remain endangered -- and as a culture we continue to play out our guilt and remorse upon their bodies.

I grew up up river from the Mystic Seaport -- home to the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaleship in the world -- racing the seine boats used by the harpoon teams. And still, until a recent trip to New Bedford, MA, I never understood the role of the whaling industry in U.S. culture.

Whaling preceded petroleum. It brought "first light" to people for whom the earth's first light was not enough -- unlike North America's east coast indigenous peoples, the Wabanaki and the Wampanoag, who were both named as those who greeted the first light. 

As with petroleum, whale oil made the ship owners wealthy and the whalers themselves not.

As with petroleum, that wealth and the near extinction of a species (sperm whales) was and continues to be fueled by our desire for (literal) "creature comforts."

300,000 whales were hunted by sail in the century roughly spanning the late 1700's to the end of the 19th century. But in the 20th century alone, with the introduction of diesel-powered engines, millions more were killed, with the total estimated at almost 2.9 million by the time international law and treaties ended the international hunts in the 1990's.

Now our nation is scrambling to reverse the damage wrought by the whaling industry.

Now our nation is thinking about ways to slow the damage wrought to our planet by the petroleum industry.

Now we need to think about the ways our demands as consumers for a certain "quality of life" is driving our world to extinction.

New Bedford is just one of many places that can enlighten us.

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