"The thing I see in that first paragraph is that god’s art is insufficiently provident, that man is of insufficient strength and stature, that he needs defense, and defense of his own devising."
So as I read your words First Mate Starbuck (mind the octupus, that's our breakfast and I'm not done "pulpifying" it (found that word in a Harper's article on torture at KMart)) as a calling out from Ouranos (holding tightly onto that nasty wound his son gave him) that the "artificial" protect the "natural," though the "natural" is also artful (complicated, isn't it?). The Leviathan to protect the "natural" man. A ha! And we can see from Gargantua's example that this mighty colossus needs plenty of milk--needs an adequate wet nurse. Which brings us back, all the way back to Plato.
"When we came to this point in the argument and it was evident to everyone that the argument about the just had turned in the opposite direction, Thrasymachus, instead of answering, said, 'Tell me, Socrates, do you have a wet nurse?'"
And, pray tell, what service would a wet nurse provide to an old man?
"'Because,' he (Thrasymachus) said, 'you know she neglects your snivelling nose and doesn't give it the wiping you need, since it's her fault you do not even recognize sheep or shepherd.'" (343a Republic)
There we have it. What function do we need a wet nurse to provide to the American Colossus? Teaching him how to tell the sheep from the shepherd.
Let me get my shears, and we'll start.
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A wet nurse? Here is William Carlos Williams in the first part of Paterson, The Delineaments of the Giants:
"Paterson lies in the valley under the Passaic Falls
its spent waters forming the outline of his back. He
lies on his right side, head near the thunder
of the waters filling his dreams! Eternally asleep,
his dreams walk about the city where he persists
incognito. Butterflies settle on his stone ear.
Immortal he neither moves nor rouses and is seldom
seen, though he breaths and the subtleties of his machinations
drawing their substance from the noise of the pouring river
animate a thousand automatons. Who because they neither know their sources nor the sills of their
disappointments walk outside of their bodies aimlessly for the most part,
locked and forgot in their desires--unroused.
--Say it, no ideas but in things--"
Or, no milk but in things. But you must not hear this noise and call it spin. You must not point at a bombed building, dead children and women, and call it a river. Yes, look at the pretty river.
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