Moby Dick

For this post, I would like to discuss the relative importance of being politically correct (talking in an unbigoted manner) compared to *acting* in an unbigoted manner. Ishmael provides a fascinating look into this question, for he makes blatantly racist remarks about so-called savages, but at the same time exhibits a remarkable respect and admiration for his friend, Queequeg. For example, Ishmael reveals his disgust for savage culture as early as Chapter 3, in which he stumbles upon “…a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears,” causing him to wonder “what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking , horrifying implement.” And yet just a few pages later he states that “a man can be honest in any sort of skin” and “For all [Queequeg’s] tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.” Astoundingly, Ishmael even compares Queequeg to George Washington!

Therein lies the problem: How are we to reconcile the fact that this white man damns his cannibal compatriot out of one side of his mouth, and then compares him to George Washington and Socrates out of the other?

I would argue that, when denoting someone as racist or not, the superficial judgements and ignorant labels (“savage”) one uses hold far less import than one’s actual behavior toward others. That is, I would never call Ishmael a racist *person* simply because he was brought up in an environment in which he was taught that certain bigoted terms are acceptable. Even today friends will make jokes about everything from each other’s physical stature to their place of birth to their ethnicity without a second thought. I would be far more offended by a friend’s subtle remark about how my Jewishness must mean I’m stingy than if a different friend jokingly calling me something as ostensibly anti-Semitic as “damn Jew”. Political correctness be damned! It’s the sentiment that counts!

So, one may count up the scores of times Ishmael uses the term cannibal to refer to island peoples, but these add up to naught next to the number of times he praises Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo for their strength of character and unfailing performances in the face of danger. After all, when the “bumpkin” in Chapter 13 falls overboard, it is the recently-derided Queequeg who dives in after him to save his life. As a result, “all hands voted Queequeg a noble trump” and Ishmael immediately makes a silent vow to stick to Queequeg “like a barnacle”. Whatever unfortunate attitudes Ishmael was raised with, he clearly cares more about the content of an individual’s character than the color of their skin.

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, copyright fictionwise ebooks.  (hence no page numbers)

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