Chapter 5 - Value

Summary

Obscure Human Fidelity

The reading of Jeffers developed thus far has left us with the following questions to consider in this final chapter: What sorts of values might emerge in adopting and practicing an inhumanist approach to life and death? Further, what sorts of changes does inhumanism entail at the level of the individual and at the level of the collective? I begin this chapter with an examination of two of Jeffers's early narratives, “Roan Stallion” and “The Tower Beyond Tragedy” in order to highlight the difficulties involved in adopting and sustaining an inhumanist perspective. I then turn to an examination of other writings by Jeffers that highlight the importance of ongoing practices of self-transformation and the role they play in transforming all-too-human subjectivities in a more inhumanist direction. Finally, I discuss how an inhumanist philosophy allows for a fresh reconsideration of the stakes of collective and political life.

Jeffers's early narrative poem “Roan Stallion” illustrates the risks and difficulties involved in contesting anthropocentric introversion. The action of the poem centers around California, a young woman of mixed race, who is married to an abusive and heavy-drinking immigrant from Holland named Johnny. Living on an isolated ranch, California does her best to care for her daughter, Christine, while Johnny is often gone from the ranch and off gambling. The titular animal of the piece refers to a horse that Johnny brings home one day as part of his winnings. The strong and beautiful horse represents for both California and Johnny something like a portal to a life outside their introverted existence on the ranch, but this “outside” is understood in different ways by the two characters. Johnny's goal is to use the stallion for breeding and to make money for personal economic gain and social standing, whereas California is drawn to the horse's overwhelming power, beauty, and independence, traits that allow her to glimpse a life beyond the restrictive limits of her relationship with Johnny.

Both characters exhibit quasi-zoophilic passions for the stallion, but again the form and end their respective affects take are starkly different. When Johnny arranges to have the stallion breed with a mare, he and the horsemen watch the mating, with Johnny afterward crudely joking with the mare's owner that “to-morrow evening / I show her how the red fellow act, the big fellow” (CP 1, 188; SP, 124).