In This Giddy Globe, Oliver Herford says that the North Pole is the only “absolutely moral spot” on the planet. He wrote that in 1919, ten years after Cook, Peary, and Henson made their claims to have reached the Pole as its first explorers. They didn’t stay. An empty land cannot, obviously, be immoral or unethical.
But is emptiness our only hope of an ethical or moral place? Apparently, we are hard pressed to find a populated one that is “absolutely moral.” Your neighborhood? Your town or city? Your country or continent? With more frequent visitors to the North Pole nowadays, Herford would himself be hard pressed to make an argument for its position as morality’s sole refuge.
What about synagogues, churches, mosques, temples? Aren’t they above reproach?
Well, we know enough about the stories of transgressions in “holy places” to make an argument that even houses of worship can be less than moral “spots.”
Herford wrote what he thought was a comic take on the world; thus, his title. He seems, however, to have hit on a serious topic. Where on Earth can we find a moral place?
For thousands of years we’ve been trying to determine what is moral, and we’re still looking for some place where we can find morality without corruption. It’s almost like the quantum measurement problem. As soon as we make a measurement of a quantum particle, we alter it. As soon as we enter a place, we introduce the potential for immorality. Put us at the Pole, and you make the Pole a place of potential immorality.
If Oliver were alive today, he might make his comment about Mars or some other planet where we have not walked the surface. As we travel among the planets and possibly the stars, will future Oliver Herfords keep pushing that “absolutely moral place” to even more remote parts of the universe?
But is emptiness our only hope of an ethical or moral place? Apparently, we are hard pressed to find a populated one that is “absolutely moral.” Your neighborhood? Your town or city? Your country or continent? With more frequent visitors to the North Pole nowadays, Herford would himself be hard pressed to make an argument for its position as morality’s sole refuge.
What about synagogues, churches, mosques, temples? Aren’t they above reproach?
Well, we know enough about the stories of transgressions in “holy places” to make an argument that even houses of worship can be less than moral “spots.”
Herford wrote what he thought was a comic take on the world; thus, his title. He seems, however, to have hit on a serious topic. Where on Earth can we find a moral place?
For thousands of years we’ve been trying to determine what is moral, and we’re still looking for some place where we can find morality without corruption. It’s almost like the quantum measurement problem. As soon as we make a measurement of a quantum particle, we alter it. As soon as we enter a place, we introduce the potential for immorality. Put us at the Pole, and you make the Pole a place of potential immorality.
If Oliver were alive today, he might make his comment about Mars or some other planet where we have not walked the surface. As we travel among the planets and possibly the stars, will future Oliver Herfords keep pushing that “absolutely moral place” to even more remote parts of the universe?
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