Russia Madness on the Eve of Destruction: Hegemony Trumps Survival
Apr 4, 2018 What will historians say a century from now, if they still exist? That the most intelligent known species in the universe lost its mind.
How a 19th-Century Whaleship Can Save the ‘White Working Class’
Oct 18, 2017 The story of the Essex—rooted in racialized ignorance and fear—offers a valuable lesson in survival for contemporary America.
Melville, Capitalism and Slavery
Aug 3, 2014 A new history of the events behind Herman Melville's 1855 novella "Benito Cereno" takes up the question of how slavery shaped the "psychic and imaginative" dimensions of contemporary capitalism, rather than merely the "social or financial" aspects.
The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies (VIDEO)
Apr 14, 2014 In "Moby Dick," Herman Melville makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle.
The Two Faces of Empire
Jan 27, 2014 The captain ready to drive himself and all around him to ruin in the hunt for a white whale has been used as an exemplar of unhinged American power. But what’s really frightening is our soberest politicians, scholars, journalists, professionals, and managers, men and women who enable the wars, devastate the planet, and rationalize the atrocities.
The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies
Jan 27, 2014 Chris Hedges takes a page from "Moby Dick" in this speech, in which he sketches out a cautionary tale about the American character and, by extension, the ultimate fate of the human race. Chris Hedges takes a page from "Moby Dick" in this speech, in part a cautionary tale about the American character and, by extension, a broader warning about the fate of the human race.
Chris Hedges: Flee Society’s Dazzling and Deadly Fantasies
Jul 21, 2013 The American people's collective inability to overcome commercial illusion and confront the grim realities of the economic and environmental crises means they will remain slaves to fiction and its apocalyptic outcomes, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges told Paul Jay on The Real News Network's new show, "Reality Asserts Itself."
Chris Hedges and Herman Melville Assault the Fruits of ‘Enlightenment’
Jul 20, 2013 A description of the lives of Polynesian islanders in Melville's book "Typee" shows that the inhumanities of capitalism visible today and constantly attacked by Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges were plainly recognized in American literature of the mid-19th century.
We Are All Aboard the Pequod
Jul 8, 2013 Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick" is a portrait of the American character, and like the crew of Ahab's ship we are complicit in self-annihilation.
