Tag Archives: The ocean

Ocean Lingo

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I found the reading, “Deterritorializing Preface” interesting as it tries to shift our perspective of life by changing commonly used “ground” words and metaphors in to ocean related vocabulary. I was surprised to see that the seven words Steve Mentz provided were quite similar to the words he replaced them with and how he managed to relate them to modern day events. For example, he replaced the word “state” with “ship” and explaining how both can be related to the political environment as ship-to-ship encounters comprise of trading, fighting, hailing, and sighting similar to the activities “state” governments conduct (xvi). I think the idea behind changing our vocabulary from land to sea terminology is neat given that it is something we don’t use as often. Even though we will most likely spend our life on land and are fortunate enough to live on the coast, we or at least I sometimes forget that the ocean takes up the majority of the surface area on Earth. What I think Mentz was trying to say was we should be more considerate towards the ocean and can start with simple changes like tweaking our vocabulary.

The Ocean Reader History

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There is so much to the ocean that is undiscovered. We only know life on land, but there is an entire ecosystem that is undiscovered in the ocean. Eric Roorda makes this apparent in his “The Ocean Reader…”, by pointing out that 71% of the world is water, meaning, that there is more life in the water than on earth. The discoveries that we have made on land— on 29% of this world, have been phenomenal. Roorda highlights how little us humans know compared to the world as a whole. The Ocean has been a feared concept because as humans we fear the unknown. We don’t know if the unknown exists to hurt us or benefit us. Reading Roorda’s introduction made me think of the Bermuda Triangle because yes there are many things for us to learn, but when you think of the risks that accompany discovery it makes you question whether or not it is worth it. We don’t know much about the Bermud, but we know airplanes and ships have disappeared. Our curiosity is peaked, but would we risk flying or sailing across the Bermuda Triangle to learn? I’m not agreeing or disagreeing, it’s just something that Roorda had me questioning especially when he noted that the pacific is the largest (64 million miles) and deepest body of ocean. I can’t even fathom the depth of that.

week ten: the ocean…

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so we had two readings that touched upon the same issue- focusing on the ocean instead of focusing on the land itself. The article the Ocean Reader brought up a very fair point about how the ocean as a whole was (and still is) something we used in many different ways

“It serves as an introduction to the multifaceted Ocean, which is an enormous and very complicated system. Humans interact with that system in many ways. They relentlessly hunt
sea creatures, taking 90 million tons of fish from it annually. They use it as a highway, with 100,000 ships at sea right now. They study it, find inspiration in it, play on it, and fight over it.” (3)

Now personally, when someone puts it like that, it really kind of shows the impact the ocean has. We were afraid of it for a very long time (our overconsumption and our use of the ocean today is pretty modern) before recently. Even now, we take it for granted, because all we see out of it is something to exploit, to use and to discard. We take the life from it and then pretend like it didn’t have life in it. It’s as the other article says at the very beginning- “Without conscious choice, writers have embedded a terrestrial bias… Dry land is presumed the norm.” (7 Vast Oceans)

We need the ocean more than it needs us, really- and we need to treat it way better. Without the ocean, would things be as advanced as they would? A better appreciation of the ocean would definitely change things, but I think that can only really happen when we shift our focus towards it. Granted, we need to care more about the planet in general, but that also includes the ocean.