Uncle Remus or Herman Melville & 9/11

[Carrol Cox]

A year ago I proposed the tarbaby as an image of the possible fate of
the U.S. War on Terror. I did not know that Edward Said and others had
already proposed (as mentioned in the current issue of the LRB) a more
powerful analogy: 9/11 and its perpetrators as the Moby Dick, U.S.
imperialism as Ahab. "America [has embarked] unchecked on another heroic
venture: a worldwide geological survey for whatever still has the power
to cross or terrify her, followed by massive excavations and
uprootings." May that heroic venture be as disastrous as was Ahab's.

Carrol