The Polar Silence

[Scott Badger]

RJ:

>Cook? Not James Cook, surely, who sailed around the Pacific in the 1760s
>and 1770s?
>
>I think that the point is that "exploration" and "discovery" and
>planting flags and taking photos are all part and parcel of the white
>colonial illusion. They are attempts to claim possession of, or dominion
>over, Nature, in perpetuity -- attempts to defy human mortality in other
>words -- and that when these explorers "succeed" and return the truth of
>our human mortality is concealed, put aside, whitened over, while we
>celebrate and adore.
>
>It is when these explorers nobly succumb to their deaths that the true
>lesson is learnt. White man's had it wrong all along.
>

Frederick Cook, the man who may, or may not, have reached the pole before
Peary might, or might not, have.

I agree with your point to a degree, but if there was any nobility, wouldn't
those that recognized the value of the Eskimo's culture rather than assuming
the superiority of the "White man's" technologies be more worthy of it?
Though, in the end, their deaths were deserved for their arrogance, I will
admit that the struggle and incredible will to stay alive displayed by the
early explorers exhibited a certain kind of nobility.  Months of floating
around on a disintegrating piece of ice, to be followed by months of
floating around in an open whaleboat on the Arctic Ocean, certainly ain't no
picnic.

To be fair, for all of these explorers, exploration and discovery seemed to
quickly become secondary considerations.  They were possesed by the arctic
and, I think, would have continued to return with or without any opportunity
for "conquest".

Scott