Publish at July 09 2018 Updated May 04 2023
To a native, an explorer is just a stranger who doesn't know where he is. He will go back and, depending on what he tells, his story will eventually attract other people. Contacts will be established and eventually the idea of exploration will fade away in front of what will have become known by all. When only "travelers" come, the territory is considered "explored."
With Google Earth and Google Map, There are not many geographically unknown places left. Blogs sharing travel stories are swarming and bringing the most unlikely destinations to any would-be traveler. The fate of geographic exploration is sealed by robots and drones that can explore better than we can and at less risk.
But is this really the case? On closer inspection, exploration requires two elements: a territory that is known to exist and an absence of contacts. What are the "territories" still unknown today? To discover them, let's examine the drivers of exploration.
Exploration necessarily relies on powerful motivations because what remains unknown is unknown for reasons that are usually difficult to overcome. In the past these were physical and geographical barriers: great distances, cold, heat, altitude, mountain ranges, deserts, oceans, jungles, hostile peoples, unknown diseases, etc.. It required considerable investment to overcome them and people willing to do anything, even die.
Search for power, wealth or glory were the usual motivations of explorers and their sponsors. Today exploration, now scientific, still remains propelled by commerce: industrial geologists map the subsoil, the seabed, and even asteroids. As for glory... there are no longer really any explorers, at most adventurers.
The outcome of the explorations is colored by the motivation of the explorers. Blinded by their search for gold or glory, the explorers of yesteryear mostly missed the cultural and social riches of the lands they explored. They did not see the value of it. There are still many territories to explore then!
The territories to be explored are those with which we have no contact and which we know exist. A motivation superior to all others is emerging: our collective survival.
The barriers are no longer physical but subjective. "Animals, no more than a forest or a termite mound, have souls" is an example of a cultural bias that ensures that we do not explore the territory of life on this level.
Other religion, other language, other skin color, other traits, other customs: we miss out on riches because we do not perceive their value or understand their necessity or purpose and harbor irrational fears about them.
Without contacts of an emotional nature; we confine ourselves to so-called "objective" observation. This is the other territory we need to explore and obviously need to create a viable future for ourselves.
Exploring these territories runs into barriers of prejudice; crossing them represents a social risk. It will take perseverance and courage to overcome the obstacles that will be erected, but there are still territories to be explored, sources of discovery, wonder and joy. We can all take on the role of explorers.
Explorers who run the world not for glory but for the joy of living.
References
The Future of Exploration - In the age of Google Maps, what's left to discover?
By Kate Harris
https://thewalrus.ca/the-future-of-exploration/
End of the World - https://www.revue-boutsdumonde.com/
Google Earth - https://www.google.com/intl/fr_ca/earth/
Google Map - https://www.google.ca/maps
Drones exploration - https://www.google.com/search?q=drones+exploration
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