Tag Archives: Ocean

Ocean as a Seperate Identity from Human intercation

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Writing the name as “Ocean” is not a way of a human individual giving the Ocean an identity, as we have no individual rights to name the natural world. It is a way of showing recognition to what has always been present. Roordan reorganizes our thinking in regards to human ownership, what we conceive to be within our own domain of influence and what is actually out of our control. “Ocean” is the world and environment.

In the piece, Roordan explains to the audience the ideology behind the word “Ocean” being capitalized as one would a “country or continent.” Roordan’s comparison shows us that instead of viewing the Ocean as a “thing” – an object for humans to use – we recognize it for the geographical individuality and statehood sovereignty it possesses. The idea of nationhood in itself is a man made conception only established in a modern age. Calling a state by its individual and capitalized name shows recognition of ownership to that nation, a sign that we as a separate nation respect your right to rule and interact with your nation as you see fit. Capitaling Ocean is the beginning of an evolution in human relationship with the Ocean and the rights it contains over itself, not the rights we believe are assigned to it. 

Lack of capitalization “infantilizes” the Ocean in a way. To us, we see it as a resource for our needs, which then becomes exploited by a race of humans, which then needs conservation by those same races of humans. The Ocean does not need us to govern its tides. The Ocean does not need us to tell it how to care for its creatures and environment. The Ocean has never needed human influence in how it governs. It has total control on the regulation of its waves, its currents, its foam. For all of documented History, the Ocean is responsible for the carrying of knowledge. It has brought creatures across the globe to new lands, stretching biodiversity and evolution across the Earth. It has carried messages from one country to another. It has exchanged goods, people, technology, all for the benefit of humanity. Ocean decides where it moves. Ocean decides who leaves and who stays within its waters. Ocean is an individual, with its own systems, rules. It is a nation that for too long has been denied the respect it deserves from humans in regards to its name. Rooted in our written language is the disregard for Ocean vocabulary, viewing it as ours instead of itself. Even as I write this, the autocorrect wishes to “correct” Ocean to “ocean.” We have been ignorant and naive for far too long. We have deprived a nation from its title, the respect it deserves from those who expect so much from it. We have been taught incorrectly from a young age that the ocean is not a state, but a vast horizon, one that without human exploration, poses no insight to our kind. Yet – why should it reveal its secrets to us? What has the human race ever given this nation in return? 

In the political world, Nations exchange values with each other. Whether this be knowledge, economics, or policy, someone is winning in the barter. And what does the Ocean get? Nothing. We have never given the Ocean anything. We see it as being something within human confluence, therefore iot deserves no proper respect. We take and take, expecting its gifts to keep on giving. And yet – it is still here. It has always been here and it will be here long after humans have left this planet. The first step in correcting the damage we have done to its identity is paying proper respect to its name, its individualism, its Statehood. We are not the ones placing a name on it. We are recognizing it for the domain it has always been. Taking this small step will repair our relationship and lack of understanding we have come to be so comfortable with in regards to the Ocean. 

Roordan is responsible for reshaping how the readers see the Ocean and our relationship with it as a whole. This small correction to our everyday language positively impacts human connection with the Ocean and shows how we are able to give it the recognition and authority it has always withheld. Ocean identity is a part of the world, a massive nation that impacts us all. No matter how we try to shape the viewpoint as the Ocean being ours, something for human domination, Ocean will always come out on top. The Ocean is sovereign, the Ocean is a Nation, and we are at the will of how it shall dictate over us. 

The Water Planet

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The first of the readings this week, although incredibly content and numerically heavy, really seemed to open my eyes about a reality we know, but don’t think of: water outnumbers us by an immeasurable amount.

It’s specifically the way it’s enumerated and compared within the Ocean Reader introduction: “The largest of the regions is the Pacific Ocean, which is an expanse of 64 million square miles (about 165 million square kilo- meters [km]). It is difficult to grasp such enormous dimensions. By contrast, the landmass of Asia, the largest continent, is only about 17 million square miles (44 million square km), while North America covers just 9.5 million (24.6 million square km), of which the United States represents less than half, with 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million square km)” (Roorda, 2). Obviously, the fact that the Earth is 70 percent water is considered a common place fact, but it’s never really actualized how greatly that stretches across the physical space unit its existence becomes contrasted to something we recognize. It returns us to this conversation from class prior, that human beings consistently need to label based on comparison and recognizing it because of what it is not.

This disconnect of disregarding water, and treating as some sort of minute thing compared to our landmasses, only for it to be larger than even our largest areas, really puts it into perspective how disproportionately human beings seem to recognize the world around them. It’s so common to hold this assumption that because we can identify ourselves as sentient, it places us above everything else in this ecological food chain. The decision making and this labeling of important versus not becomes ours to choose, ours to define in spite of never recognizing its capacity because of our typical definition models. Despite being so commonly terracentric in our speech, so selfish in the way we acknowledge the world around us and never considering how our speech, our action, even our momentary thought has lasting effect, the water really has all the power.

Ocean Identity: Belonging only Within Itself

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In our Introduction of The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics, Roorada gives us an overall view on the message this book is intended to grant us, a cultural retrospective in regards to how we as a society view the Ocean and in what ways as a community we begin our rethinking of the Ocean in itself rather in comparison to ourselves. Within the introduction, a topic we are exposed to is “Ocean” being “capitalized”… “as if it were a country or a continent.” Roorada explains to the audience that the purpose of this is “to challenge the conventional wisdom that the seas can be taken for granted. They cannot.” This ideology challenges how many different human societies, particularly the US, see the ocean as a resource, “a thing” to be exploited for personal use and profit. And yet – Roordan challenges us to see that even believing the Ocean can be taken for granted is the problem in the first place. Writing the name as “Ocean” is not a way of a human individual giving the Ocean an identity, as we have no individual rights to name the natural world. It is a way of showing recognition to what has always been present. 

The Ocean was here long before any humans set foot on this earth. Its waters gave life to all forms of organisms, covered the earth in its richness to provide for its creatures. The Ocean does not act on behalf of us. We are its servants, privileged to use it as a pathway into other worlds unknown to us. The Ocean gave us the ability to be interconnected with other human communities, the only course to cultures and expansion. The ocean gave humans food and material, a way to sustain ourselves long before societies stood. Yet how can we say the Ocean bends at our will? How can we look out on this majority, a geographical location that covers more of the Globe than any other “thing” on this planet and expect to obtain power over it? 

             Roordan reorganizes our thinking in regards to human ownership, what we conceive to be within our own domain of influence and what is actually out of our control. Ocean is the world and environment. We live within Ocean. The Ocean is a part of ourselves, we would not be human without it. Our connection with it is that of children, reliant on its resources, unable to survive without its nourishment. We, as a community must take it upon ourselves to reshape our viewpoint on Ocean, understand we have no control over the natural world and are subject to its dominion it places upon us.