Ishmael's Curation And Survival

In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab has one motivation that drives the entire story. He is solely focused on finding and killing the white whale and nothing deters him from that goal. Ishmael, on the other hand, does everything he can to curate as much information about whaling, the sea, and the ship as he can. Ishmael is open minded to the technology of his day and his book is packed with information that is not necessarily needed for the story he was trying to tell. Chapters like Cetology, The Cabin-Table, The Whiteness of the Wale, The Whale as a Dish, and many others are examples of Ishmael's curation. He took the information and organized it so that he could explain it more clearly to others.

Ishmael represents us in the modern age. The more information we are able to curate, whether in our own lines or on the internet, the more we will be able to adapt and survive the changing world. Because Ishmael was always looking for different knowledge and exploring that knowledge the best he could (comparing whales to the printing press, etc) he survived the whale attack. His knowledge may not have always been 100% accurate, but that follows along with what we are dealing with in the digital age. Almost the instant something is published or printed, that thing is out of date and behind on the times. Many classes won't let you use a source if it is over 5 years old, simply because so much would have changed during that time.

Ishmael didn't have the internet to check his facts, but he did have social proofing. Moby Dick is filled with stories from other sailors that Ishmael picked up along the way. He checked with the people around him to see if there was a desire for his knowledge and there was. He shared his stories and they shared theirs around the table at a bar years after The Pequod sank. Ishmael's curation of knowledge is an example of what we should be doing now in the digital age. His willingness to adapt and his desire for more knowledge is what kept him alive when everyone else on the ship was left to die. Ahab's one track mind on what it meant to be a whaler is what caused his demise. He believed that whales were supposed to die, and the misery inflicted on him by Moby Dick was enough of a crime to pursue him throughout the entire ocean. Ishmael saw whaling as a way to expound his knowledge of the world, to learn more about the magnificent creatures that he saw so often and to admire them rather than just hope for their deaths. Ishmael's way of learning expounded and went deeper than Ahab's was able to, even though Ahab's way was the more traditional one.

If we only go down one path in our education than we will sink just like Ahab did. We have to expand our minds to explore every facet of this world and marvel at it, even as we curate and try to make sense of it. To do otherwise will only mean that our information will go out of date and be of no use to anyone. Just like Ahab.