Law, Force, and Resistance to Disorder

Responding to Weisberg: “We should be careful to heed the words that Melville wrote, and not privilege over the text extrinsic evidence of the controlling law from the period in which the events of Billy Budd occur. Melville was writing fiction, not history” (66).

“Vere is the most fully realized character in the story, perhaps the only character in whose place we might imagine standing. Vere, in all his human complexity, accordingly may be seen as representative” (68).

Citing Solove, another legal scholar: “There is little evidence in the text to indicate that Vere bore ill-will toward Billy. There is no suggestion that Vere is malicious or evil. The text suggests that Vere likes Billy Budd and does not bear a secret animus toward him; Vere is in “agony” when he leaves the meeting with Billy Budd” (68).

“Solove suggests wartime necessity may explain Vere’s decision” (68).

Solove: “Billy is sacrificed for the greater good; such utilitarian action “is not merely a primitive right, but in fact a ritual we routinely perform when we feel insecure and powerless”” (69).

“Insurrection and mutiny are . . . the extreme physical manifestations of disorder in the world of Billy Budd” (69).

“Vere appears to believe that prevention of large-scale disorder requires the prevention of small-scale disorder. In Vere’s view, disorder may spring from quotidian matters” (70).

Vere’s “affection for a state of equilibrium, in which life on board the ship functions predictably under his command, reflects a fundamental fear of disruption” (70).

“Claggart is an instrument of Vere’s authority; he understands perhaps more comprehensively than Vere himself the importance his captain has placed on order” (70).

“Though Vere finds something about Claggart distasteful, he must support his master-at-arms nonetheless, because Claggart supports order belowdecks, where insurrection—and therefore instability—is more likely to surface” (70-71).

“Vere has warm feelings toward Billy; indeed, Vere seems to regard Billy like a son. Yet, whatever fondness Vere may feel for Billy must fall in the face of the possibility of disorder. . . . So anxious about this possibility is Vere that he acts with the speed of instinct” (71).

“Vere’s decisions resemble those of a despot, as opposed to a legally accountable chief executive—much less an impartial jurist” (72).

“In echoing Billy, the crew expresses respect for the outcome of the very process that we know Vere subverted, but that which they seem to believe was fair and right” (74).

Looking at Bush v. Gore, there is both a “resort to force” and the “decisionmaker’s apprehension of disorder” (77). In resolving the presidential election, only “the price of the Court’s choice will be for history to reveal fully” (78).

“So far as Vere was concerned, allowing Claggart’s death to go immediately unpunished would simply have sown the seeds of disorder, both physical and metaphysical” (78).

“Vere sought nothing more nor less than closure” (78).

“Vere had an abiding need for equipoise, and so one death had to be met with another, regardless of the reasons for the first” (81).

“Billy died so that Vere could re-establish control over his ship-board community” (81).

“The example of Captain Vere reminds us of the costs associated with resisting the forces of entropy single-mindedly” (82).