Jack London
In this essay I want to make the argument that Jack
London was a feminist philosopher.
Mr. London was born in San Francisco and rose to be a
reporter of renown for the Hearst newspapers and an author. He
was also a great adventurer who covered the Russo-Japanese war,
the Boer war, and the Klondike gold rush. The Klondike made the
most lasting impression on Mr. London and he died a relatively
young man of about 45 or so years.
Of Mr. London's writing that I am familiar with, there are
several short stories about the Klondike and its inhabitants and two
novels: White Fang and Call of the Wild. The novels are narrated
from the perspective of the main characters who, in this case are
mixed dog/wolves. In the one case a dog is abducted and taken to
the Klondike for sled work and finally goes wild, while in the other a
wild dog/wolf is captured and trained for sled work and winds up in
the Santa Clara valley near the departure point for the first dog.
Mr. London is at pains to represent the mental activities of
these dogs as accurately as he is able, which is very accurately
indeed, in my opinion. He represents the effect of racial memory on
dogs and even goes so far as to describe the dog's ancestral memories
of life with a stone age man. Most will assume he is investing the
animals with too great intelligence, and more thinking ability than is
to be expected. They are both, of course, unusual animals and rise to
be leaders in their own domains.
The author is certainly a philosopher, frequently discussing
issues of life and death and vanity. He is most anxious to produce in
his readers an appreciation for the difficulties of life in the north and
how it differs from that we are used to in the more civilized and
moderate climes. The type casting of his work as children's stories is
very much misguided. They work alright as children's stories as do
fairy tales, but they are actually deep philosophy indeed, again as
are fairy tales.
Mr. London would appear to have had the experience of
some early white visitors to Africa, called by some "going native."
What happens here is intense exposure to values that run counter to
those of one's home environment and produce the realization that
these values are equally valid and more adapted to the environment
in which they occur. If the individual is also attracted to these
values and never good material for his native values, the reversal
occurs. This explains the experience of Captain Bligh and Mr.
Christian in the tragedy of the Bounty.
Mr. London's interests lie in temperatures ranging from 50
to 75 degrees below zero and deep snow; how to get from one locale
to another; how to find food; how to keep from freezing; how to keep
going when all seems lost; the confrontation between man and beast
and between beast and beast; the relations between man and beast;
the view of men, especially by dogs trained to pull sleds; the dog, an
animal capable of a high degree of civilization and also of surviving
the wild, and capable of greater loyalty than man can
comprehend.
Of course, dogs come in all of the variety that man does,
from no account curs to noble animals of heroic proportions and
these last and their interactions with man are what is of most
interest to London.
To give a flavor of Mr. London's philosophy, he points out
in his story, A Far Country, that man's ability to survive in a strange
environment will be inversely proportional to the strength with
which he holds the views acquired in the place of his origin. That it
is relatively easy to change one's habits regarding bed and board, but
the real problem arises when confronted by radically different
values. And if one is committed irrevocably to the values of
civilization, then it isn't to be expected that one can survive long
exposure to the wild. He illustrates his point by describing the
experience of two males of differing class, forced into an isolated
winter together in the far north with the result that they kill each
other for the reasons cited above.
I identify him as a feminist philosopher because the wild is
preeminently a feminine domain. It is dominated by the female of
each species and feminine values, which have as their goal survival
of the species. If environmental alteration is called for it is in the
interests of life rather than any individual species. In our masculine
environment, we assume that everything on the earth is here for our
use, and until recently never considered survival from any wider
perspective than our own. As has become clear in recent times this
is such a narrow view that it cannot be successful.
Femininity relies on relationships to assure survival, while
masculinity relies on understanding. This has the meaning that for
femininity any act is justified if it enhances the relationships it relies
on, primarily the relationship between mother and child and to a
lesser extent the sexual relationship and in decreasing order of
importance the family, group, and species.
Masculinity, on the other hand, relies on understanding
and, in the case of humans, rules are established to make
understanding of humans at least, an easier task.
This is made clear by London in his story relating the
methods by which American Indians handle the situation of too great
age. When an elder gets so old that he has become a liability to the
tribe, he is left behind with only a fire and a few sticks of wood, so
that he can prepare for death. When the fire goes out, the wolves
quickly bring his death about
Since the rise of feminism in western culture is the most
profound change that is occurring, Mr. London should be considered
our greatest author. Mark Twain is usually accorded that honor, but
while his interest was also feminism, he concentrated on its results
within the culture and without identifying the engine of change.
London never uses the word feminism, but it is inescapable for those
that understand it, that this is his subject. He is completely
preoccupied with the effects that the wild, feminist north have on
civilized masculinist immigrants.
Greatness as an author should be applied not to those that
entertain us, but to those that explain or make understandable to us
the nature of changes in life that are affecting us all. Mr. London
does this very well. He holds back nothing and uses a remarkable
grasp of English to represent life in the Yukon; the tragedy of the
unprepared; the folly of vanity; the implacability of the northern
winter; the remarkable tenacity of life in brutal circumstances; the
varieties of men exposed by harsh circumstances; the impact of
western culture on the aboriginals, and especially the dog, perhaps
the most civilized creature inhabiting the unconscious feminist world.
He presents American Indians in a very sympathetic light a long
time before that became fashionable. He places before us the
question: Why does a sickness like western civilization overcome a
highly adapted and graceful and well adjusted native population?
His answer: The Law. My answer: numbers and the attraction of
gold.
Civilization has its own highly effective method of
motivating its members to any task it chooses. It provides material
goods to any that will successfully rise to the challenge. We wished
the land to be populated so that we could control it, Alaska provided
the raw material needed and western civilization provided the
goods.
The sickness of our culture is clearly described by Mr.
London, especially in his story about an Indian that concluded that
the only honorable way to react to the invasion was to kill as many
whites as possible. Eventually, the invaders were so many he
reasoned that his reaction was vain. By which he meant to say that
while he couldn't understand what it might be, there had to be a
profoundly important reason for the destruction of his culture. This
reaction exemplifies Mr. London's characterization of obedient
natives and rebellious invaders. By which he means obedient to and
rebellious against nature.
I would say there is a modest failure to understand in that.
I believe there is no way except obedience, in the long term. An
individual can rebel, of course, but not a species.