Cannibalism at Sea: Right or Wrong?

Review by Bill Doughty––

Cannibalism is a grisly relic of the ancient past with a few notable modern exceptions. How could it possibly be relevant today?

Adam Cohen shows the relevance in his remarkable, insightful, and disgusting book, “The Captain’s Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial that Changed Legal History” (Author’s Equity, 2025).

The book, dedicated “To all the cabin boys, both literal and otherwise,” opens with an introduction of the main characters and a bloody scene:

“On September 6, 1884, a German sailing ship pulled into the harbor in Falmouth, England, and deposited three emaciated men who had been to hell and back. Captain Thomas Dudley, first mate Edwin Stephens, and able seaman Edward Brooks had survived a shipwreck in the South Atlantic and drifted for weeks on the open sea in a flimsy wooden life-boat. They were eventually rescued, and now that they were safely home, they had a shocking story to tell.

In the lifeboat, the three men-and Richard Parker, their seventeen-year-old cabin boy-had no food or water. They were wasting away, their stomachs empty, their mouths parched, and their tongues turning black. In time, Dudley made a grim decision: They would kill the cabin boy so they could survive on his flesh and blood.

Dudley stabbed Parker to death while Stephens looked on, ready to help. Brooks, the conscientious objector of the group, opposed the killing and refused to participate. Once the deed was done, all three men eagerly drank the cabin boy's blood and feasted on his flesh. This grim food supply kept the three survivors alive for a few crucial days, until the German ship, which happened to be sailing by, stopped and took them on board.”

The three survivors thought they would be welcomed back in England with open arms.

After all, “the Custom of the Sea” allowed for shipwrecked sailors to draw lots and sacrifice one so the others could survive. But Captain Dudley (at right) with First Mate Stephens’s approval, murdered the young cabin boy without his consent and without drawing lots. They faced trial for murder.

Dudley was a devout Anglican who had taken the boy under his tutelage. With his prayer books, he had vowed to help Richard Parker become a good man on their ill-fated sail to from England to Australia. In his admission for the murder, Dudley told authorities, “I took out my knife first offering a prayer to God to forgive us for what we were about to do.”

Cohen presents a brief and relatable history of the Age of Sail. For example, something that will resonate with today’s Sailors: a “strong tradition of deference to captains.”

“Captains had what the law called ‘absolute discretion’ in many areas. Their dominion was inherent in the title ‘master’ commonly used for captains, which was short for the full legal title ‘master under God.’ It was widely accepted that captains were free to do what they wanted to their crews, almost without limit.”

The survivors had prayed for heavenly intervention in the three weeks since being shipwrecked. Brooks, the conscientious objector of the group, who nevertheless also drank Parker’s blood and feasted on his body, said they “all promised to live a better life” if God helped them be rescued.

Cohen also gives a stomach-turning history of cannibalism, as practiced in the ancient world and in extenuating survival circumstances –– and as sometimes justified, threatened, or practiced by religions and superstitions. He cites the Aztecs, Maori, and Fijians, and even the first English settlement in what would become the United States at Jamestown, Virginia, during the “Starving Time” of the winter of 1609-1610.

He quotes God’s supposed warning to the Israelites: “Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you.” Deuteronomy 28:53

Cohen notes, “Cannibalism also plays a central role in the Christian liturgy, which includes, in the Eucharist, the ritual consumption of the body and blood of Christ.”

After Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes, survivors ate the corpses of their fellow passengers. “A priest told the survivors that the Catholic Church did not regard it as a sin to engage, ‘in extremis,’ in cannibalism of dead bodies,” 

But, Cohen writes. “In a case of killing someone to eat, the ethical and legal considerations are more complex.”

It’s hard to believe that some cannibalism –– along with slavery –– was condoned and justified in the mid-1800s. The “Custom of the Sea” was widely accepted two centuries ago at a time when sailing was precarious and shipwrecks were not uncommon. Cohen includes stories of numerous life-and-death encounters at sea, including some involving American sailing ships, such as the whaler Essex, which inspired Melville's "Moby Dick."

But the Victorian Age was notable not only for its traditions, but also for its reformations. And the public was kept well-informed of reforms through newspapers, which also splashed stories like shipwrecks across front pages.

When Captain Dudley, first mate Stephens, and able Seaman Brooks faced court trials in England upon their return, England was undergoing progressive reforms of labor laws, sanitation and health practices, and greater equality –– away from castes and toward greater democracy.

Progressive reformers called for:

• No more child prostitution
• An end to children working as chimney sweeps
• Free trade –– lowering food prices for the poor and working classes
• Extending the right to vote, including calls for women’s suffrage
• Support to labor unions
• A turn away from violence
• Dignity of everyone in society

Reformers confronted growing inequality in society as new technologies pushed some workers, including sailors, out of jobs. “New technologies increase profits for the ownership class, but they do not always help workers.”

“To Victorian reformers, in particular, cannibalism at sea represented a part of the old order that they were trying to revamp,” Cohen says. Even when sailors supposedly drew lots to carry out "the Custom of the Sea" it was often the youngest, darkest, or poorest sailor who somehow was sacrificed.

In the forms of reformation, traditionalists who feared change strongly supported Dudley and Stephens and said their actions were justified by a concept called “utilitarianism” –– necessity.

“An old Latin maxim, with origins in Christian canon law, holds that necessities legion non habit, or “necessity knows no law.’” Cohen notes, “The necessity defense has deep roots in Western law and philosophy.” We see the concept used today to justify immigration enforcement, war with Iran, and voting restrictions.

If a leader employs utilitarian tactics and says, “Trust me … I know what’s best for you,” Cohen suggests responding, “No, we do not trust you.”

Utilitarianism is “the philosophical theory that hold that the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number.” But does it justify murder? Authoritarian dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Putin would argue “yes.”

To the Victorian courts the issue was not so much about cannibalism as a utilitarian necessity as it was about the “sin” of taking cabin boy Richard Parker’s life. Parker’s last words, looking up at his captain were “What, me, Sir?”

Progressive reformers in England saw the issue with “moral clarity.” The answer was to follow the law, not subvert the law.  “To slay an innocent and unoffending person to save one’s own life is not a justification or excuse.”

It doesn’t matter that the offender thinks they have God’s permission or forgiveness.

Followers of Jesus believe he sacrificed himself for the salvation of others. Killing the cabin boy (and eat his flesh) in order to save themselves was an “inversion of the concept of self-sacrifice.” Claiming to have God on their side, some said, was "blasphemous."

Supporters and family members of cabin boy Richard Parker placed a memorial “mural tablet” at the graves of the boy’s foster parents. An inscription reads, in part, “Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. –– Job XIII 15.”

It reads as a poetic indictment of sorts against Captain Dudley.

Here are two “found haiku” discovered in this book, one from the first chapter and one from the final words in the book:

proximity to

mortality had always

been part of sailing

stare out into the

fog undisturbed, searching for

A mast and a sail

Readers of this book or those who study the case of “Queen v. Dudley and Stephens” can learn the surprising verdicts and aftermath, especially relating to Dudley and how he met his fate.

Cohen’s book is at times shocking with grim tales of cannibalism. Notably, he refers to philosophers, authors, and literary works such as Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat,” Edgar Allan Poe’s “Narration of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” Rudyard Kipling’s "The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands,” Daniel DeFoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi,” original Grimm tales, and Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.”

These writers, with the exception of Martel, who endorses Cohen's book, are long-dead. But they are also relevant today in confronting growing authoritarianism and the need for true “moral clarity.”

In Dickens’s story the ghost Marley tells wealth-and-power-consumed Scrooge, “Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were, all, my business.”

A Republican View of Autocracy –– Pt. III

Review by Bill Doughty––

As the saying goes, “fear is a powerful motivator.” A survey of 11,000 U.S. federal workers shows they are terrified of mass firings, political coercion, job insecurity, and retaliation for reporting wrongdoing or voicing opposition. This week’s Supreme Court ruling that gives the president more power to fire federal employees just adds to the angst.

The rise in fear (and decline in morale) follows recent executive orders stripping protections from thousands of senior civil servants. A 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) reveals a striking contrast from 2024’s FEVS.

According to University of Michigan Economics Professor Justin Wolpers, an OPM survey of federal workers reveals a sharp increase in fear and chaos, a decline in morale, and an rise in costs to American taxpayers. Yet, members of the Civil Service are still dedicated to public service, Wolpers reports.

No doubt fearing the results of a similar survey this year, OPM canceled the 2026 FEVS and is instead changing future survey questions to purportedly focus on performance.

Meanwhile, President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth –– fearful of differences of opinion or inconvenient facts –– have fired inspectors general, JAGs, and senior leaders who fail loyalty tests.

Fear is used as a motivator by both Democrats and Republicans, as explained by Republican strategist Stuart Stevens in his landmark book “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Democracy Away” (Twelve, Hachette Book Group, 2023).

“All political parties use fear of an opponent to unify supporters, and they always have. When Democrats attack Republicans by saying Medicare cuts will effectively roll old ladies in wheelchairs off cliffs, that's fear. When Nixon ran on his infamous law-and-order platform in 1968, it was very much a strategy based on fear. What is different about the current Republican Party is that fear is its organizing principle, both internally and externally. The party drives support through fear and enforces discipline on the elected officials through fear.

January 6, 2021, was the defining moment of today's Republican Party. Fear drove the mob to the Capitol –– and the mob was called to action by a fearful leader. They were afraid of the choice 81 million Americans had made about who would be their next president, and they were fearful that their coalition consisted of 85 percent white voters was not big enough to win in 2020 America. They were terrified of what an inclusive, multicultural America could do to their status and superiority.”

One wonders if fear (of looking weak? of more Epstein revelations?) drove Trump to conduct a war of choice with Iran –– and then if fear of an economic catastrophe (“the late, great Herbert Hoover”) drove him to end the war with concessions to Iran: lifting sanctions, ending the naval blockade, allowing development of ballistic missiles, offering up to $300 billion to assist with Iran's postwar reconstruction, and more.

President Putin used fear as a reason to Russians for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Putin lied that democratic Ukraine was a nest of Nazis. Putin, in fact, fears the influence of free NATO democratic nations on his power as an autocrat, propped up by wealthy oligarchs.

Stevens makes the point that Russian oligarchs actually fear Putin, while U.S. politicians fear American billionaires (and now a trillionaire!).

“When Vladimir Putin decided to invade a neighboring country, dooming hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians in a war of genocide, it was his decision alone. Western Russian observers speculated that Russian oligarchs might be able to press Putin to end the war. But it never happened. These men—and they are all men—who possess enormous money, influence, and power nonetheless wake up and fall asleep terrified of a single short former KGB agent who drove a St. Petersburg taxi in the 1990s. They know for a fact that a jail cell, an open window, or a slow death by poison is the fate of those who dare not obey the Russian czar.

In the American political system, on the other hand, it's the politician who wakes up and goes to bed fearing the very wealthy. For all the never-ending talk of campaign finance reform, the billionaire class has designed perfectly legal methods to exert tremendous influence over the democratic process. In theory, this is a power that is ideologically neutral, available to liberal billionaires like George Soros and libertarian conservatives like the Koch brothers. The same is also theoretically true of the First Amendment. Notionally, a powerful far-left television network –– one operating with the same disregard for ethical journalism that epitomizes Fox News ––could emerge and successfully compete with Fox News. But it has never happened and there is no reason to believe it will. So it is with campaign finance. The wealthy on the right have proven to be more effective exerting their influence than those on the center-left.”

Before mega-donors dominated election campaigns Stuart Stevens served well-known Republicans such as Massachusetts Governor William Weld, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and several U.S. Senators; he also led  Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.

“For most of the years that I worked in campaigns, the popular belief that politicians sell their votes never struck me as accurate,” Stevens observes. “The corruption of money in the American political system is not so much the corruption of individual politicians but the corruption of the entire electoral process.”

And fear motivates the ultra-rich on the Right who are afraid of losing some of their wealth and power as well as what Steven calls a “demographic apocalypse confronting Republicans.” Young voters and people of color are turning away from the GOP, which fears "replacement."

“At the heart of the Republican Party’s coordinated, dedicated, and patient efforts to change the legal parameters of how American democracy functions is the deep fear that the party is doomed,” Stevens writes.

“If you believe that America was chosen by God to be a white, Christian nation, then the looming specter of a minority-majority America demands action.”

“It's obvious why Republicans have consistently pressed to make it harder to register and more difficult to vote. In 2015, when Donald Trump began openly to challenge the legitimacy of any election he didn't win, he was building on the well-seasoned doubts of election integrity Republicans have used for decades to justify their highly focused efforts to curate the electorate. The "Big Lie" was simply an amplification of the time-tested voter-fraud lie.

Both parties are constantly engaged in efforts to change voting laws. The difference is that Democrats consistently try to broaden voter participation, while Republicans attempt to shrink it.”

One side fears losing power and privilege; the other side fears losing freedom, democracy and the rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

That last fear is not unfounded. Consider Trump’s 2022 “Truth Social” comment related to losing in 2020. He said election fraud allows "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

President “Teddy” Roosevelt feared something that makes Trump’s visit to the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library yesterday more than ironic.

Trump arrived with his sons in a Boeing 747-8 that was a gift by government of Qatar but that cost taxpayers at least $400 million to retrofit. The visit came on the day a financial disclosure report revealed that Trump generated more than $2.2 billion in his first year in office, mostly from cryptocurrency and stock investments of corporations he promoted. (His sons and other family members are making millions in government connected businesses.)

What Teddy Roosevelt openly feared was grift, corporate influence, and “corruption of the electorate.” His concerns were deeply rooted in the history of the founding of the United States even before July 4, 1776.

Stevens writes:

“In April 1699, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law prohibiting a candidate ‘or any persons on their behalf’ from giving voters ‘money, meat, drink, entertainment, or provision or … any present, gift, reward, or entertainment, etc. in order to be elected.’ Two centuries later, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt devoted whole sections of his 1904 and 1905 State of the Union speeches to calls for campaign-finance reform. ‘There is no enemy of free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption of the electorate,’ he told Congress in 1904. A year later, he called for the banning of contributions by corporations and their directors, reforms that have never been universally enacted in American elections: ‘All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law,’ Roosevelt contended.”

“Of all forms of tyranny, the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy,” Roosevelt warned in his 1913 autobiography.

Roosevelt welcomed “muckraker” journalists to uncover corporate misdeeds. He used federal prosecutors and wide-ranging regulatory legislation to fight corruption, filing 40 antitrust lawsuits and breaking up monopolies.

TR was a proud Republican in the mold of Abraham Lincoln (born in 1858, just three years before the start of the Civil War and Lincoln’s preservation of the Union.)

Fear is a powerful motivator. But it is also a catalyst for change.

Stevens concludes with a challenge: “It is up to each of us to save the America we love. We are our own last best hope. No one is coming to save us. We are our own destiny.”

A Republican View of Autocracy –– Pt. II

Review by Bill Doughty––

Some of the strongest voices standing up to MAGA “Trumpism” are current and former Republicans: George Will, Max Boot, David Frum, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, William Kristol, Nicolle Wallace, Michael Steele, Joe Scarborough, Tim Miller, and Stuart Stevens.

Stevens –– one of the founders of the Lincoln Project along with Rick Wilson, George Conway , and Steve Schmidt, and others –– is a Paul Revere figure among those strong voices.

Published a year before that last election, Stevens warned of his party’s fast-moving slide toward autocracy in “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Democracy Away” (Twelve, Hachette Book Group, 2023). The author is a former chief Republican strategist. He worked on campaigns for prominent republicans including Bob Dole and Mitt Romney and helped elect George W. Bush.

In a blurb for this eye-opening book, journalist and author James Fallows writes, “Stuart Stevens has been everywhere and seen everything, and he shares what he has learned in concise, vivid prose. His book is urgent but not despairing. It is deadly serious but frequently funny. It offers the big picture…”

Here is how Stevens presents the big picture.

“While it is difficult to attribute any deliberate or methodical plan to Donald Trump, whose mind operates like an old-fashioned pinball machine on tilt-bouncing from one inchoate impulse to another—his basic anti-democratic, Strongman instincts have crushed dissent in the Republican Party, empowering the underlying authoritarian impulses within the party. A once-center-right political party with core ideological principles is now marching toward the formation of an autocratic state.”

The big picture includes obvious racism and misogyny in MAGA’s core constituency that would reject a woman of color, Vice President Kamala Harris, from becoming president.

“…the xenophobia and racism that appealed to Trump voters was far more motivating to Republican voters than the small government, low taxes, constitutionally conservative so-called "values" they insisted were the true core of the Republican Party. The absurdity of their deceit could not have been more glaringly obvious. Their commitment to their deeply held beliefs was so weak that they now supported a man who bragged he was "the king of debt," refused to release his tax returns to show he even paid taxes, and his Muslim ban was a religious test that was a clear violation of Article VI of the Constitution that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." They didn't care about anything but remaining in power. The Republican Party leadership was a collection of liars and frauds who thought they could use Trump while controlling him.”

Ouch.

Stevens saw (and foresaw an even greater) corruption by Trump and his family –– and the acceptance by the cult followers of grift and greed.

“Trump’s base of supporters didn’t care if he used his office to enrich himself and his family because if being rich was a qualification for office, getting richer only proved you were more qualified,” he writes.

A party that once stood for “states’ rights” and against a centralized government under a single authority, now supports the opposite. How has the Republican Party strayed? Lincoln emancipated slaves and united the nation; Teddy Roosevelt fought against big money in politics; Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and achieved rapprochement with China; and the Bushes and Reagan welcomed immigration. All would be considered “woke” or supporters of DEI (diversity, equity/equality, inclusion) by MAGA Republicans today.

“Once a political party in a democratic system abandons any moral or ideological rationale for its existence, it is on the road to autocracy.”

Stevens offers these nuggets of wisdom about the current downhill road to autocracy, from the Big Lie of election fraud to greater violence against democratic institutions:

• “There’s always been too much money in American politics. No other Western democracy allows vast sums of money to pollute its electoral system.”
• “No anti-democratic movement becomes more democratic once in power.”
• “The last time Americans couldn’t agree on who was a legal president was in 1861.”
• “Two truths remain constant … if there is to be a democracy, someone must be willing to lose … (and) no one tries to change the rules…”
• “The truth is that no one in the Republican Party actually believes there is widespread (voting) fraud, but it is a convenient cover story for the destruction of democracy.”
• “The success Republicans have had gerrymandering congressional districts is a supercharged propellant for minority rule.”
• “The Trump loyalist who stormed the Capitol have broken faith with the institution of American democracy.” [ written before Trump pardoned them and is now attempting to pay J6ers reparations]
• “You do not assault the Capitol unless you believe the democratic process has failed and must end. You do not refuse to certify the election of the candidate who received more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history if you respect the will of the people, an essential element for any democracy to survive.”
• “Violence has become an essential element of the Republican political narrative, signaling to the once fringe militia groups and their sympathizers the they have a place in the party.”
• “The far right is obsessed with guns and violence because they reject … the essence of a shared community.”
• “The Trump announcement at Waco was a declaration of war against American democracy made to a well-armed crowd eager to be his soldiers.”
• “If white evangelicals love Trump and black evangelicals hate him, is this about religion or race? And like all of Trump’s appeals, it is about race.”
• “In healthy democracies the heads of state act as a calming influence, reassuring citizens that their safety is protected by government policies and institutions of the state. Dictators act in exactly the opposite manner.”

Trump and his chosen loyalists have fast-laned the U.S. military on the highway to autocracy and Christian Nationalism/Supremacy by using troops as backdrops at Republican rallies, promoting protestant Christianity in the ranks, and restricting balanced media and independent thinking at the Pentagon.

Stevens notes:

“People in the armed forces are fond of the term ‘combined arms maneuver.’ The U.S. Army's Military Review defines it as "the application of the elements of combat power in a complementary and reinforcing manner to achieve physical, temporal, or psychological advantages over the enemy to preserve freedom of action and exploit success.’ This is exactly how Republican efforts to shape elections should be perceived. The Republicans have successfully undertaken ‘complementary and reinforcing’ efforts to control legislatures and appoint conservative judges at every level for decades.”

In Part I of our review of “The Conspiracy to End Autocracy,” we pulled quotes from various authors cited by Stevens.

One of the authors Stevens relies on to make his point is “Surviving Autocracy’s” Masha Gesson who warns, “Autocrats declare their intentions early on. We disbelieve or ignore them at our peril.” Gesson adds about President Trump, “He was probably the first major party nominee who ran not for president but for autocrat. And he won.”

Trump won again in 2024, despite Stevens’s warning a year earlier.

Trump was elected, in part, because of the support of Republicans who were former “never-Trumpers” –– especially in the immediate aftermath of January 6, 2021 –– but who then pinballed back as loyal supporters and enablers: J.D. Vance (who called Trump “America’s Hitler”), Marco Rubio (who referred to Trump as a “con man”), Ted Cruz (who said Trump was “utterly amoral”), and Lindsey Graham (who once called Trump a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”).

Other formerly ardent supporters, however, have turned away from the MAGA leader’s autocracy movement: Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson, Chris Christie, Megyn Kelly, Sohrab Ahmari, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Shawn Ryan, Theo Von, and Joe Rogan.

Once afraid of Trump and his followers, they are joining the ranks of those opposed to tearing down the Constitution and democracy.