For further discussion of the analogical imagination, see G. E. R. Lloyd's 1966 book Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought (Cambridge University Press).
However, as Edinger explains, Starbuck's response "is eminently reasonable, the typical reply of common sense and expediency. But precisely in its expedient reasonableness lies its weakness. The urgencies that fire men's souls are rarely matters of material expediency. The most ruthless dictators gain their power by making what can only be called, no matter how perverse, a spiritual appeal. They awaken in their followers the dynamism of an archetypal image, an ideal. Once awakened, such an image has tremendous power. It generates the capacity to sacrifice personal and material well-being to a sometimes astonishing degree, for it conveys a sense of nobility, a way of life that transcends the ego and its personal desires and creates a devotion to a supra-personal purpose. Such a process is always operating in mass movements. Although, because they function through unconscious dynamisms, such movements are almost always disastrous, nevertheless the source of their energy is spiritual. Because they appeal to a psychic value, not a material one, they can be opposed only by spiritual means. The appeal to market value is never enough to deal with an activated archetype" (page 73).
For an example of an author who does not understand how spiritual values work to motivate people and can trump the values of the market place, see Thomas Frank's widely read 2004 book What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (New York: Henry Holt).
Edinger also says, "Ahab is able to sway his hearers so easily because he activates a latent archetypal pattern, the conflict of human consciousness against evil and the powers of darkness. When activated, such an image can release tremendous energies. Whether these energies work for good or ill depends on the quality and extent of human consciousness that mediates them [e.g., Tweety's]. History's greatest atrocities have been perpetrated by men [and women] in the unconscious grip of this archetype. Ahab, possessed by this mythological motivation and its unconscious power, magically infects the less-developed personalities of his crew" - but not Starbuck at first (page 73).
When a contemporary politician appeals to the conflict against evil and the powers of darkness, he or she is usually described as having a Manichaean worldview. The Persian prophet Mani (c.216-274 CE) espoused the doctrine and worldview that became known as Manichaeism.
For further discussion of contemporary Manichaean political thought, see Alan Wolfe's 2011 book Political Evil: What It Is and How to Combat It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf). But also see Edinger's 2002 book Archetype of the Apocalypse: Divine Vengeance, Terrorism, and the End of the World, 2nd ed. (Chicago and LaSalle: Open Court Publishing; 1st ed., 1999).
However, in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:38-48, the historical Jesus is portrayed as preaching a different kind of message - a message summed up in the expression "turn the other cheek." When we take this message to heart, we are not likely to activate the latent archetypal pattern that Edinger describes Captain Ahab as activating in his crew.
Let's hope that former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in the upcoming 2020 election, does not make the kind of uninspiring mistake Starbuck makes in going up against Ahab. But can Biden be inspiring without invoking the same kind of archetypal pattern that Tweety invokes to fire up his most ardent supporters?
Edinger says, "We can see why Starbuck's appeal to reasonable expediency is inadequate. Faced with a spiritual challenge, he has no adequate spiritual response. After his appeal to the values of the marketplace fails, he tries again. 'To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.' Now he is meeting Ahab on his own ground, the spirit. The reply, though, is still insufficient. Ahab carries more power because, however wrong he is, his conviction rests on greater life experience. He sees deeper than Starbuck. He has experienced the psychic meaning hidden in the outer world, and he expresses it:
"'All visible objects, man [and woman], are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event - in the living act, the undoubted deed - there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask' (p. 178, chap. 36)" (page 74).
Edinger says, "Ahab has gone too deep for Starbuck. The latter cannot equal his psychological experience and hence is mastered. . . . Thus, rational consciousness acknowledges its impotence, and the autonomous complex personified by Ahab rushes toward its resolution" (page 74).
Later, Edinger says, "In [Melville's] Clarel, written many years later, he says,
"'Speak not evil of the evil:
"'Evil and good they braided play
"'Into one cord'" (page 139).
I know, I know, Rolfe's words about "Speak not evil of the evil" do not at first blush sound like a paraphrase of the famous words about turning the other cheek, but it strikes me that they are, in effect, such a paraphrase. In Edinger's terminology, if we "Speak not evil of the evil," then we will thereby sidestep activating the latent archetypal pattern that Captain Ahab activates in his crew. Nevertheless, we will be able to stand firm against the evil, but without activating the archetypal pattern in ourselves.
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