Derek Murphy HUBRIS in theory and practice: trusting in technology in the 21st Century THIS PAPER focuses on a rift

in understanding the concept of hubris that can be traced back to Milton s portrayal of Ahab in Moby Dick. On the one hand, students of literature around the world continue to be taught the classical interpretation that Ahab s enormous pride or hubris was a sin and that consequently his doom was inevitable. This world-view can be traced as far back as the Greek myth of Arachne or the biblical stories of Job and the Tower of Babel there are some heights to which humans were not meant to climb, and the universe will rectify imbalances by destroying those who rely on technology and their own abilities rather than accept humility (Icarus, etc). On the other hand, Captain Ahab s refusal to submit, stubborn and indomitable will in pursuing his own goals and desires, even though it would probably lead to his destruction, anticipates the tragic spirit of Nietzsche s Uberman and was influential in Camus writing The Rebel, a philosophical analysis of rebellion and revolution. Today s theorists (Zizek, Defense of Lost Causes; Badiou s four modes of truth and fidelity to a creative line of inquiry opened up by a break with tradition) may be seen as part of this tradition. To rebel, to fight and to disagree is essential to human being; in fact there may be no conscious self or moral act without it. Virtually all modern heroes (Die Hard), etc. are rebels who forsake reason and logic and continue to refuse to give up in the face of overwhelming power and this is what we expect from them: enormous pride, refusal to submit, perseverance and an iron will. But at the same time, popular culture continues to affirm the more traditional motif, that the unmitigated pursuit of advanced technology will destroy the world; an early example of this is of course Shelley s Frankenstein, but the same theme can be found in Dr. Faustus, Manfred, and more recently Kurt Vonnegut s Ice 9 and dozens of apocalyptic or science-fiction movies (the Terminator series, the Matrix movies, Tron, Planet of the Apes, iRobot) or dystopian accounts which warn how humanity s development of technology will grow out of our control and destroy us. To understand and posit a modern ethical response to the concept of hubris (as well as the motivation for doing so) this paper will focus mainly on Captain Ahab s pursuit of the White Whale, his reliance on technology rather than his faith in divinity, and attempt to justify his actions by appealing to the philosophy/cultural theory of Zizek and Badiou. The final aim of this project will be to demonstrate that the cognitive split and dissonance behind contemporary views on pride/hubris and technological development has created an ethical gap, wherein ethics and technology are viewed as unrelated freeing scientific innovators completely from moral responsibility. A more mature approach, which is also demonstrated in the figure of Ahab, would be to take full responsibility for both our moral and scientific development; the cost of this responsibility, however, is to refuse to locate the seat of morality in the site of divinity or faith in a higher power (and that, paradoxically, faith in God demands the refusal of him).

Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate. The Rebel
Part 2, The Rejection of Salvation

------------------The concept of hubris can be traced back to Greek culture and mythology. It is a reckless pride in ones own abilities that draws inevitable destruction from the gods. Thus Arachne, who considered herself the best weaver greater even than Athena was turned into a spider for her egoism, and Icarus, who flew too high to the sun, fell and drowned. In a post-Nietzschean world, however, when jealous and vindictive gods may be seen as quaint superstitions and contemporary morality spins around self-development/self-fulfillment, we may well wonder whether having too much pride is still a misguided delusion, or a mark of genius. In fact there is a long literary tradition, popularized by the romantics, of reading Melvilles Captain Ahab as a tragic hero. Even though he is called within the text itself monomaniacal, crazy, mad etc., in a theoretical sense his actions and single-mindedness make him, rather than insane, the only true philosopher and fully rational character.

Ahabs complaint is not really against Moby Dick, the white whale; instead he is reeling against what he perceives to be an unjust fate, which robs him of the freedom he desires. Although the universe is seemingly cold, cruel and uncaring, Ahab perceives some kind of deliberate force of conscious entity. He addresses this deity directly, openly telling it that resistance and defiance are its right worship: I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. The sky responds with flashes of lightning, but Ahab continues daringly defiant and refusing to cover before the displays of power:

I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can then grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling in some stunning ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self,

my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I worship thee!

Vengeance on a dumb brute! cried Starbuck,, that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with the dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous. Hark ye yet again, - the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event in the living act, the undoubted deed there, some unknown but still reasoning thing put forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there s naught behond. But tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing in it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fairplay. Who s over me? Truth has no confines. Take off thy eye! More intolerable than fiends glarings is a doltish stare.

Is he crazy ? The novel s tragic ending seems to indicate that the ship and crew was ruined because of (the hero s?) sin or flaw. But I will posit that Ahab never makes a mistake in reasoning or understanding. The presumed misunderstanding is that he can defy God/the natural order of things/fate without consequence, making the presumed lesson of the story that mankind needs to learn its place and should absolutely forgo self-reliance, self-confidence, investigative curiosity and scientific understanding. And these issues were certainly at the forfront of social thinking in the 19th century, with the rise of modernism (?) and the industrial revolution (?). However rather than confirming this traditionalist ideology, Melville may have in fact been challenging it using the crazy character to rail openly against the injustice of an omnipresent but ever-removed reality. Ahab seems acutely aware both of his surroundings (his nautical skills and ability are never lessened, and far exceed those of his crew) and his own mental state even revealing that he could be sane if he wanted to, but will not:

"What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, Sir." "So it is, so it is; if we get it." "I was speaking of the oil in the hold, Sir." "And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it leak! Im all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and thats a far worse plight than the Pequods, man. Yet I dont stop to plug my leak; for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in this lifes howling gale?" (109.6-9) He argues that being mad is the only rational response to misery, and that In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou shouldst go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How canst thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou canst not go mad? (113.4) And although one might claim that Ahab is simply the evil/insane character and his ravings should be ignored, even Ishmael the unbiased narrator admits to having no allegiances:
Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i. e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage; owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

To some extent, Melville is rallying against the Transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau; Captain Ahab seems to prefigure Nietzsche s will-to-power with one crucial difference: while for Nietzsche s nihilism, God is Dead (and thus we are ultimately responsible for seizing control of our own lives), for Captain Ahab God is real and yet must still be defied.

Aha! Thoreau was wrong in his conception of nature. Only on land--on solid ground-- does nature appear simply benign, beautiful and enlightening. On the ocean, man encounters the truer face of nature-- wondrous, but also threatening & terrifying. Authentic heroism charges out into the mystery: "...in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!"

The Whale is the Leviathan. The great beast; the image of "the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!" Moby Dick is the sublime whiteness or purity of a mysterious universe that at once inspires awe in human beings, and challenges our ability to exist. Ahab cannot stand the offense he has received from Moby Dick. He cannot humble himself before the immeasurable power of the Universe: "Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred White Whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. " In the context of the story's symbolism, Ahab could never succeed. http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=170409

Thus Henry Murray could say to the assembled Melvilleans at Williamstown in 1951 as they celebrated the centenary of Moby-Dick, Some may wonder how it was that Melville, a fundamentally good, affectionate, noble, idealistic, and reverential man, should have felt impelled to write a wicked book. Why did he aggress so furiously against Western orthodoxy, as furiously as Byron, or Shelley, or any other Satanic writer who preceded him, as furiously as Nietzsche or the most radical of his successors in our day? Hunting Captain Ahab: psychological warfare and the Melville revival (450) http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=i0AsRZRwYjEC&pg=PA628&lpg=PA628&dq=Captain+ahab+nietzs che&source=bl&ots=v5G7baGltZ&sig=1Q7GYL17b5e5auLyYMITMURTHCg&hl=zh-TW&sa=X&ei=HYjT925LcOYiAfK3pH6BA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Captain%20ahab%20nietzsche&f=false

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The new possibility that Melville hoped for, therefore, is a life that steers happily between two dangers: the monotheistic aspiration to universal validity, which leads to a culture of fanaticism and self-deceit, and the atheistic descent into nihilism, which leads to a culture of purposelessness and angst. To give a name to Melvilles new possibility a name with an appropriately rich range of historical resonances we could call it polytheism. Not every life is

worth living from the polytheistic point of view there are lots of lives that dont inspire ones admiration. But there are nevertheless many different lives of worth, and there is no single principle or source or meaning in virtue of which one properly admires them all. Melville himself seems to have recognized that the presence of many gods many distinct and incommensurate good ways of life was a possibility our own American culture could and should be aiming at. The death of God therefore, in Melvilles inspiring picture, leads not to a culture overtaken by meaninglessness but to a culture directed by a rich sense for many new possible and incommensurate meanings. Such a nation would have to be highly cultured and poetical, according to Melville. It would have to take seriously, in other words, its sense of itself as having grown out of a rich history that needs to be preserved and celebrated, but also a history that needs to be re-appropriated for an even richer future. Indeed, Melvilles own novel could be the founding text for such a culture. Though the details of that story will have to wait for another day, I can at least leave you with Melvilles own cryptic, but inspirational comment on this possibility. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation, he writes: Shall lure back to their birthright, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; on the now unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted to Joves high seat, the great Sperm Whale shall lord it.
Sean D. Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/navigating-past-nihilism/?hp ALL THINGS SHINING

Ishmael, who fears Ahab, who knows that Ahabs passion will destroy his men, sides with Ahab nonetheless. And so do we. We cannot resist. So enthusiasm, being filled with the god, is perhaps not so easy to domesticate.
http://allthingsshiningbook.wordpress.com/

Melville s Influence on CAMUS Though Melville clearly plays with the loss of faith and reactions to suffering which led to Nietzschean nihilism, a more clear link can be established between Melville and Albert Camus Calls moby dick one of truly absurd works in The myth of sisyphus

Albert Camus cites Melville (explicitly over Kafka) as one of his key influences in a personal letter to Liselotte Dieckmann printed in the French Review in 1998.

He admired Sartre's gift's as a novelist, but did not find his two sides, philosophy and storytelling, both equally convincing. In an essay written in 1952 he praises Melville's Billy Budd. Melville, according to Camus, "never cut himself off from flesh or nature, which are barely perceptible in Kafka's work." http://kirjasto.sci.fi/acamus.htm

http://www.jstor.org/pss/398858

Camus on Kafka and Melville: An Unpublished Letter James F. Jones, Jr. The French Review Vol. 71, No. 4 (Mar., 1998), pp. 645-650 (article consists of 6 pages)
Problematic rebel: Melville, Dostoievsky, Kafka, Camus [by] Maurice Friedman

From the moment that man submits God to moral judgement, he kills Him in his own heart. And then what is the basis of morality? God is denied in the name of justice, but can the idea of justice be understood without the idea of God? At this point are we not in the realm of absurdity? Absurdity is the concept that Nietzsche meets face to face. In order to be able to dismiss it, he pushes it to extremes: morality is the ultimate aspect of God, which must be destroyed before reconstruction can begin. Then God no longer exists and is no longer responsible for our existence; man must resolve to act, in order to exist. (the rebel) by Anthony
Bower

Even revolution, revolution in particular, is repugnant to this rebel. To be a revolutionary, one must continue to believe in something, even where there is nothing in which to believe.

We deny God, we deny the responsibility of God, it is only thus that we will deliver the world. With Nietzsche, nihilism seems to become prophetic. We know that Nietzsche was publicly envious of Stendhal s epigram: The only excuse for God is that he does not exist.

By this subterfuge, the divinity of man is finally introduced. The rebel, who at first denies God, finally aspires to replace Him. But Nietzsche s message is that the rebel can only become God by renouncing every form of rebellion, even the type of rebellion that produces gods to chastise humanity. If there is a God, how can one tolerate not being God oneself? There is, in fact, a god namely, the world. To participate in its divinity, all that is necessary is to consent. No longer to pray, but to give one s blessing, and the earth will abound in men-gods.

The unity of the world, which was not achieved with God, will henceforth be attempted in defiance of God.

existentialism [eksi-stench- l-izm], a current in European philosophy distinguished by its emphasis on lived human existence. Although it had an important precursor in the Danish theologian So/ren Kierkegaard in the 1840s, its impact was fully felt only in the mid-20th century in France and Germany: the German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers prepared some of the ground in the 1920s and 1930s for the more influential work of Jean-Paul Sartre and the other French existentialists including Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In terms of its literary impact, the thought of Sartre has been the most significant, presented in novels (notably La Nause (Nausea), 1938) and plays (including Les Mouches (The Flies), 1943) as well as in the major philosophical work L'tre et le nant (Being and Nothingness), 1943). Sartrean existentialism, as distinct from the Christian existentialism derived from Kierkegaard, is an atheist philosophy of human freedom conceived in terms of individual responsibility and authenticity. Its fundamental premise, that existence precedes essence , implies that we as human beings have no given essence or nature but must forge our own values and meanings in an inherently meaningless or absurd world of existence. Obliged to make our own choices, we can either confront the anguish (or Angst) of this responsibility, or evade it by claiming obedience to

some determining convention or duty, thus acting in bad faith . Paradoxically, we are condemned to be free . Similar themes can be found in the novels and essays of Camus; both authors felt that the absurdity of existence could be redeemed through the individual's decision to become engag ( committed ) within social and political causes opposing fascism and imperialism.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/existentialism#ixzz1kmsxZQLR

In effect, the absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent silence of the universe. Sartre, in his review adds: The absurd resides neither in man nor in the world, if you consider each separately. But since man s main characteristic is being in the world, the absurd is an inseparable part of the human condition. It arises from the human demand for clarity and transcendence vs. a cosmos that offers nothing of the kind Camus: 3 possible philosophical responses to this predicament. 2 of them are evasions; the third is a proper solution. 1: physical suicide. If we decide that a life without purpose or meaning is not worth living, we can choose to kill ourselves. Camus rejects this choice as cowardly. It is repudiation or renunciation of life, not true revolt. 2: the religious solution: positing a transcendent world of solace and meaning beyond the Absurd. Camus calls this solution philosophical suicide and rejects it as obviously evasive and fraudulent. This is to annihilate reason, as fatal and self-destructive as physical suicide. Instead of removing herself from the absurd confrontation of self and world like the physical suicide, the religious believer removes the offending world, replacing it, via a kind of metaphysical abracadabra, with a more agreeable alternative.

3 (authentic solution) : accept absurdity, embrace it, and keep living. Since the absurd is unavoidable, a defining part of the human condition, the proper response is full, courageous acceptance. Life, he says, can be lived all the better if it has no meaning. The example of this option of spiritual courage and metaphysical revolt is the mythical Sisyphus of Camus philosophical essay. Doomed to eternal labor at his rock, fully conscious of the essential hopelessness of his plight, Sisyphus still pushes on.

In doing so he becomes a superb icon of the spirit of revolt and of the human condition.

To rise each day to fight a battle you cannot win, and to do this with wit, grace, compassion for others, with even a sense of mission, is to face the Absurd in a spirit of true heroism(great quote! Source it)

In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus traces it in specific characters of literature (Don Juan, Ivan Karamazov) and in character types (the Actor, the Conqueror), all of whom are a version or manifestation of Sisyphus, the archetypal absurd hero. A related notion of the absurd appears in Kierkegaard s Fear and Trembling and Repetition. For Kierkegaard, the absurd describes not an essential human condition, but the nature of religious faith a paradoxical state in which matters of will that are objectively impossible can nevertheless be ultimately true. There can be little doubt that Kierkegaard s knight of faith is an important predecessor of Camus Sisyphus: both figures perform impossible and endlessly agonizing tasks, which they nevertheless confidently and even cheerfully pursue. In the knight s quixotic defiance and solipsism, Camus found a model for his own ideal of heroic affirmation and philosophical revolt. What is revolt? It is the Sisyphean spirit of defiance to the Absurd. More technically, it is a spirit of opposition against any perceived unfairness, oppression, or indignity in the human condition. Rebellion in Camus sense begins with a recognition of boundaries, of limits that define one s essential selfhood and thus must not be infringed as when the slave stands up to his master and says in effect thus far, and no further, shall I be commanded. Camus shows that an act of conscientious revolt is ultimately far more than a gesture or an act of solitary protest. The rebel defends a common good more important than his own destiny and that there are rights more important than himself. He acts in the name of certain values which are still indeterminate but which he feels are common to himself and to all men. (The Rebel, 15-16.) True revolt is not just for the self but in solidarity with and out of compassion for others.

And for this reason, revolt too has its limits. If it begins with and involves a recognition of human community and a common human dignity, it cannot treat others as if they were lacking in that dignity or not a part of that community. In the end, Camus philosophy of revolt echoes Kantian ethics with its prohibition against treating human beings as means and its ideal of the human community as a kingdom of ends. Different rationale. Camus teaches us the lesson that a serious thinker can still face the modern world (with a full understanding of its contradictions, injustices, brutal flaws, and absurdities) with hardly a grain of hope, yet utterly without cynicism. Like Samuel Beckett. Reading Camus, we find the words justice, freedom, humanity, and dignity used, without apology or embarrassment

Cruickshank, John. Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

SO: Tie Moby Dick in with Camus revolt; a violent response to uncaring universe for the good of humanitarian ethics, confidence in own abilities. But then: Is revolution really possible at all given Foucalt s bioethics, etc. how is revolution even possible?

ZIZEK< Badiou

For Lacan, there is no ethical act proper without taking the risk of . A momentary suspension of the big Other , of the socio-symbolic network that guarantees the subject s identity: an authentic act occurs only when the subject risks a gesture that is no longer covered up by the big Other (Zizek, qtd. Feldner 110) Common revenge, and interrupt his joy in our confusion, and our joy upraise in his disturbance (2:371)

Rebellion (Foucault): Discourses of Power Power is everywhere, and it produces resistance. It is almost impossible to escape from Power. First, to obtain the exercise of power at the lowest possible cost (economically, by the low expenditure it involves; politically, by its discretion, its low exteriorization, its relative invisibility, the little resistance it arouses); secondly, to bring the effects of this power into their maximum intensity and to extend them as far as possible, without either failure or interval; thirdly, to link this economic growth of power with the output of the apparatuese (educational, military, industrial, or medical) within which it is exercised; in short, to increase the docility and the utility of all the elements of the system (discipline and power, 218, foucalt).

The point of Foucalt is that these functions of power should be aggressively resisted whenever and wherever they are found nealon 37 the ethical act is not to blindly follow the dictates of power, but to SEEK a way out In short, critics seem to have agreed that Foucalt s midcareer work constituted a dead-end, a totalizing cage, an omnipresent panopticon with no possibility for any subjective or collective resistance. Nealon, 3. However, Foucault also said that power produces resistance. His problem then became that of accounting for the source of such resistance. If the subject right down to his intimate desires, actions and thoughts is constituted by power, then how can it be a source of independent resistance?For such a point of agency to exist, Foucault needs some space that has not been completely constituted by power, or a complex doctrine on the relationship between resistance and independence. However, he has nither.nealon, 4. Badiou, infinite thought. In short, resistance becomes a sham even where it exists, it is taken into account in advance; indeed, merely serves to incite new and more subtle processes of oppression kripss,95

In short, resistance becomes a sham even where it exists, it is taken into account in advance; indeed, merely serves to incite new and more subtle processes of oppression (Kripps,95)

The demons try to set up a copy of heaven, a new kingdom, based on the hierarchy of heaven. Live to ourselves; though in this vast recess, Free, and to none acountable; preferring Hard liberty to the easy yoke of servile pomp. (2: 254-257) Satan recognizes that even this will be defeat; if God rules in heaven, they are still leaving under his domination. Satan plans to attack God s new favorite creature, who is meant to replace the fallen angels, causing a disturbance in the Power discourse.

Common revenge, and interrupt his joy in our confusion, and our joy upraise in his disturbance (2:371) Zizek sEthics of Rebellion(Terrorism / Overconformity) Experience of radical self-degradation. Free will implies the paradox of a frightful disconnection from the world, the horror of a psychotic confrontation with the radical negativity that ultimately defines the status of the subject. True revolution revolutionizes its own starting presuppositions Only an act of random, intentional violence with no objective aim can break free.

Satan becomesEvil, against himself there is something inherently terroristic in every authentic act, in its gesture of thoroughly redefining the rules of the game , inclusive of the very basic self-identity of its perpetrator a proper political act unleashes the force of negativity that shatters the very foundations of our being. (Zizek) Satan becomesevil, as an over-identification and thus act of terrorism to symbolic order.

Experience of radical self-degradation. Free will implies the paradox of a frightful disconnection from the world, the horror of a psychotic confrontation with the radical negativity that ultimately defines the status of the subject. True revolution revolutionizes its own starting presuppositions Only an act of random, intentional violence with no objective aim can break free. For Lacan, there is no ethical act proper without taking the risk of . A momentary suspension of the big Other , of the socio-symbolic network that guarantees the subject s identity: an authentic act occurs only when the subject risks a gesture that is no longer covered up by the big Other (Zizek, qtd. Feldner 110) Common revenge, and interrupt his joy in our confusion, and our joy upraise in his disturbance (2:371)

the estabhshe d "poHce" order , but in the dimension designate d b y Badio u a s that of "fidelity" to the Event : translating/inscribmg the democrati c explosion into the positive "police " order , imposing on social realit y a rt^' lasting order . Thu is the properl y "terroristic " dimension of ever y authenti c democrati c explosion: the bruta l imposition of a new order . An d thi s is why , whil e everybod y love s democrati c rebellions , the spectacular/carnivalesqu e explosions of the popula r will , anxiet y arise s whe n thi s wil l want s to persist , to institutionaliz e itself and the mor e "authentic " the rebellion, the mor e "terroristic " i s thi s institutionaliza tion.

SO Ahab is the ultimate rebel not by, as in Nietzsche, living without God and simply taking on the mantle of self-direction; but as someone whobelieves in God and still refuses him, thy right worship is defiance ; obviously bound to self- destruction but doing it anyway because a) either the whale is just a whale, there is no God, fate, destiny, supernatural, and if so he should be able to go kill it or b) if there is a God and the whale is somehow divinely protected, and if Ahab was doomed to be crippled, doomed to

be angry and vengeful, doomed to be exactly what he is with no free will or choice, then God is manipuliating him like a puppet, serving him a cold dish of despair and tragedy and demanding that he eat it. It is against this potential nemesis that Ahab rebels

pentant ex-radical s renounc e thei r reforming ways . However , Shelle y doe s her e something that a conservative woul d neve r hav e done: in the centra l par t of the book, she move s a step further an d directl y give s a voic e to the monste r himsel f wh o i s allowe d to tel l the story from hi s own perspective . Thi s step expresse s the Hberal attitude of freedom of speec h at its mos t radical : everyone' s point of view should be heard . In Franketuteln, the monste r i s not a Thing, a horribl e object no one dare s to confront ; he is i^^Ay dubjectivized. Mar y Shelle y move s inside the mind o the monste r an d ask s wha t i t i s like to be labeled, defined, oppressed, excommunicated , even physicall y distorted b y society. The ultimat e crimina l i s thu s allowe d to presen t himsel f a s the ultimat e victim. Th e monstrous murdere r reveal s himsel f to be a deepl y hur t an d desperat e individual , yearnin g for compan y an d love . S o i t i s crucia l to see in what consist s the monster' s own story. The monste r tell s us that hi s identity a s a rebel an d murdere r wa s learned , not innate . In direc t contradiction to the Burkea n tradition of the monste r a s evi l incarnate , the creatur e tell s Frankenstein : "I wa s benevolen t and good; miser y mad e me a fiend." Surprisingly , the monste r prove s to be a ver y philosophica l rebel : he explain s hi s actions in traditiona l republica n terms . He claims to hav e bee n drive n to rebellion b y the failings of the rulin g order . Hi s superior s an d protector s hav e shirke d thei r responsi bilitie s toward s him, impelling him to insurrection. Monster s rebe l not becaus e the y ar e infected b y the evil s of the godles s radica l philosophy, but becaus e the y hav e been oppressed an d misuse d b y the regnan t order . Mar y Shelley' s sourc e wa s her e he r own mother' s study . An Hutarical and Moral View of the Origin and Progresd of the French Revoiution (1794) , in whic h Mar y Wollstonecraft , after agreein g wit h the Burkea n conservative s tha t rebel s ar e monsters , resolutel y insist s tha t thes e monster s ar e social products . The y ar e not the living dead, nor ar e the y specter s arisen from the tomb of the murdere d monarchy . Rather , the y ar e the product s of oppression, misrule , an d despotism unde r the ancien rgime. Th e lowe r order s ar e drive n to rebellion, the y turn agains t thei r oppressor s in

parricida l fashion. It is her e tha t the novel come s closes t to politics : the monste r develops a radica l critique of oppression an d inequahty : "I hear d of the division of property, of Immens e wealt h an d squali d poverty; of rank , descent , an d noble blood. " He speak s in the manne r of revolutionary-er a radicals : I learne d that the possessions mos t esteemed b y you r fellow-creature s were , hig h an d unsullie d descent united with riches. A ma n migh t be respecte d wit h only one of thes e acquisitions , but withou t eithe r he wa s considered, excep t in ver y rar e occasions , a s a vagabon d an d a slave , doomed to wast e hi s power s for the profi t of the chosen few.

Th e ver y fear of progres s i s not necessaril y a conservative motif. Recal l that , in Mar y Shelley' s England , "Luddites , " gang s of desperat e workers , wer e destroyin g industria l machine s in protes t agains t the los s of job s an d the greate r exploitation that machine s mean t for them. Furthermore , feminist s rea d Frankeiutein not a s a conservative warnin g about the danger s of progress , bu t a s a proto-feminis t critique of the danger s of masculin e knowledg e an d technolog y whic h aim to dominat e the worl d an d gai n control ove r huma n life itself. Thi s fear i s stil l wit h u s today: the fear that scientist s wil l creat e a new form of life or artificial intelligenc e whic h wil l ru n out of our control an d turn agains t us . defense of lost causes)