Mariners, Renegades and Castaways

I finally finished Moby-Dick, just to be able to read Mariners, Renegades and Castaways, a well-known essay by C.L.R. James on Herman Melville and the world in which we live. I find that we sometimes limit James to just a Caribbean or colonial context, ignoring his provocative works on American life, civilization, and literature. His work on American Civilization, as well as his study of Melville, are intimately linked to 14 years of life in the US and his experience with the barbarous, unjust treatment of immigrants and political dissidents by the US government. As a man from Trinidad who had lived in Europe and engaged with the international Left even before stepping foot on US soil, he was nonetheless very much shaped by his experience in this country. After all, much of his theoretical essays and provocative work on the question of state capitalism, the role of the masses, and anti-vanguardism seem to be a product of his time in the US. 

Although much has been written about the flawed aspects of James's analysis of Ahab and Melville, there is a recurring fear of the totalitarian personality as revealed in Ahab. Reading Melville makes it quite clear, too, how the US by the mid-19th century was a distinct civilization and Melville saw something of the coming crisis of the modern world. Ishmael, the powerless intellectual, Ahab, driven by totalitarian impulse, the diverse and motley crew of a modern, global industry of whaling (and the "savage" harpooners), and the inevitable downfall wrought by obsession and the irrational pursuit of Moby Dick do suggest some merit in James's analysis of the novel. Nonetheless, his study of Melville should be read in light of a Jamesian perspective on US civilization. 

It is in the failure of the diverse, international crew of the Pequod to come together in spontaneous creativity to end their alienation and seize the means of production that unavoidably leads to the demise of the ship. The officers, such as Starbuck, are too attached to their Quaker roots and the ideology of capital to resist, while Ishmael, though ensconced in a milieu of laborers, and friend of Queequeg, remains detached. Philosophy has not yet become sufficiently proletarian. And though a spirit of camaraderie exists among the crew, including the prominence of "savages" to challenge the dominant racial ideology of the day, they lack, in spite of technical proficiency, the wherewithal to overthrow Ahab (succumbing in awe to his attempts to exhibit control of nature or the allure of the doubloon). Nonetheless, there is something quite alluring in Jamesian thought on the US, and the role of mass culture and creative impulses in revolutionary change. It's a welcome change from something like Adorno, who took a rather dismal view to US mass culture, and perhaps remained so blinded by that European conception of high culture that he was unable to see the new "socialism" fermenting. 

American Civilization

American Civilization is one of those pivotal texts of CLR James often ignored or omitted from discussion. However, upon reading it, one gains new insights with regards to how James conceived the relationship between popular movements and their leaders. It also serves as a testament to the intellectual development of the Johnson-Forest Tendency of ca. 1950. Indeed, inklings of a rejection of vanguardism and the autonomous socialist vision of James manifest in American Civilization, which also triumphs for its forward-looking conception of American popular culture, individualism, and the the threat of totalitarianism. 

Indeed, American Civilization is refreshingly bereft of most of Adorno's disdain for US popular culture, while sharing a similar concern with the danger of alienation and totalitarian Plans. Like his other works of the period, James commits himself to a rejection of Stalinism, overly centralized bureaucracies, Catholic Humanism, and the disconnect between intellectuals and workers. Instead, the separation of labor of the body and mind is increasingly unnecessary as laborers have mastered new technology and benefit from mass produced literature, arts, and production. To paraphrase another line of James, philosophy must be proletarian. 

One supposes the remaining question is, what does one make of the actual trajectory of US civilization after 1950? The miners, UAW workers, and others, supposedly responding to a collectivized individual need for control of production, may be found among wildcat strikes today. However, what happened to the new socialism? The New Left and its failure during the resurgence of the Right and neoliberalism? I cannot help but think American Civilization successfully identified the problem of alienation and its impact on US popular culture and responses to it, but perhaps James incorrectly assumed the labor movement would, through spontaneous action and the need to control production, ultimately overthrow the capitalist order. To his credit, James avoids foretelling the future, but the struggle against alienated, mechanized existence seems as pressing as ever.