The Sea Wolf And The Oppressed Oppressor

 

Many decades before Ayn Rand developed her theory of selfishness as a virtue, Jack London had already debunked it in his novel, The Sea Wolf. More than that, The Sea Wolf was an attack on Social Darwinism and Nietzscheism, which were popular at the time. The idea that success and survival were built on strength and will alone. Wolf Larson was a man not only of tremendous strength but also great intellect. More than that, he was a man unafraid to use his strengths in order to be supreme ruler of his ship.

 The story begins with a civilized man who is merely taking a ferry across the bay from Oakland to visit a friend in San Francisco. When the ferry sinks in a collision in the fog, he is dragged out into the ocean and is rescued by the Ghost, the ship upon which Wolf Larson rules as a dictator rules a nation.

 Wolf Larson is the oppressor of all his crew. But dominance is a trait which is taught, so that the stronger of those being dominated by the alpha-male, Wolf, mirror his behavior towards the less strong. Thus, at the bottom of the rung there exists one who is bullied by all, the cook Thomas Mugridge. That is, of course, until the rescued and refined main character, Humphry Van Weydon, is brought aboard.

 Humphry is given the demeaning nickname “Hump”, and now sits at the bottom of the ship’s food chain. And rather than getting any sympathy from or solidarity with Mugridge, he is treated as poorly by Mugridge as Mugridge is treated by everybody else.

 I have sadly experienced people like Mugridge myself. There are those who look in their small ways to use the cruelty they've been taught on others even less capable of defending themselves. So often it is the kind person, the person not used to living in a cruel environment, who become the victim of such people. They become victims not because they are weaker but because they assume that treating one such as he with kindness might help him become a better person.

 I swear to you that I have known people who perceive the kindness shown by others as weakness. Do a favor for someone such as he and he will think he has found an easy touch and will seek to exploit you. He will show you no respect so long as you try to treat him fairly. He will not back off until you demonstrate the only thing he knows as real: strength.

 Sadly, there are many people who are victims of power who become like lesser models of their victimizer. People among oppressed classes, nations, genders, or races who mirror the very thing they should most despise. Aboard the Ghost, cruelty is the lesson taught by Wolf Larson and the lesson learned by his crew.

 “Hump” has come from a different environment, one which is more civilized and less obviously oppressive. Being aboard the Ghost, he is forced to fight for his own rights and dignity, but he does not lose his ideals. He believes viscerally that this is not the way to run a ship.

 This is the only sane reaction to such cruelty, a cruelty that has echoed through Twentieth Century in the guise of fascism and imperialism. We’ve seen societies based on strength, cruelty, and violence. Such ways of organizing either a ship or a society have always been opposed by those seeking justice, whether it be through mutiny or political revolution. Unfortunately, the lesson of cruelty has been learned too well among some belonging to the oppressed class. And while they might support a revolution that will get rid of their oppressor, they are not doing it to achieve justice. They are doing it so that they might get the upper hand over others where before they were powerless.

 In The Sea Wolf, Wolf Larson is unable to live in the world he has shaped for himself and unwilling to imagine another world is possible. He has created a philosophy where cruelty is necessary and strength is the only thing that can shape the world. But inwardly, despite his immense physical and mental strength, he is being destroyed by incapacitating headaches and the very ugliness of his own convictions.

Mugridge and Wolf Larson are eventually killed by the cruel world they cannot escape. Hump has also been forced to contend with the cruelty of the “real” world, the law of struggle, of tooth and claw, and is made stronger as a result. But he refuses to believe it is the only reality possible, and so survives it. 

 Jack London was no stranger to the struggle for life. He was an adventurer in an age of adventurers, exploring a better part of the world the way the underclass does, by hard labor and great courage and endurance. But while he went to the Arctic in search of gold and worked as a crewmember on ships that sailed the oceans, while he saw the cruelty to be found in nature and in man, while he knew what it took to survive distanced from civilization, he maintained a vision of a better world possible.

 We need to be able to maintain a foothold in both camps if we are to build a world that is not ruled by the likes of a Wolf Larson. We need to envision a nobler world while being able to survive in the harsh world as it exists today. To do this we will have to engage with the Mugridges and force them to respect us, because if we do nothing they will eat away at the world we long to create. Because they are incapable of or unwilling to see a world that is not just some smaller version of Wolf Larson’s. I see them today in various groups that talk about building a better society. While they rail against those who oppress them, you clearly see them mirroring the very behavior they say they oppose. They are the ones saying you must fight fire with fire. And while they are not quite emboldened enough yet to use actual violence, they will use whatever tools they have at their disposal to maintain their own personal positions of power and security.

 I see it too in people who were once oppressed who, having the opportunity to rule over others, are little better than their former oppressors.

The problem with a Mugridge is that they live entirely within the world shaped by the Wolf Larsons. They will never shake free of it, and while they may say they are fighting oppression, they are doing so only to free themselves from it, not eradicate it. Such a mindset can never lead to a more just society, it will only change who will be the oppressor and who the oppressed.

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