July 12, 2022 • 18 mins
Taken from Wade Davis' 20 March 2004 talk at the 100th Annual Banquet of The Explorers Club at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York CIty.
Wade Davis' website:
https://daviswade.com/
Here are a few ways you can help support us:
Patreon for access to exclusive content:
https://www.patreon.com/everestmystery
EVEREST MYSTERY Membership for access to perks and exclusive content:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEk3e_XGyNnqwK2ZlxH7fEA/join
Tip Jar for anyone who would like to help support us:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/EverestMystery
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Thom Pollard (00:00):
This is the happiness quotient following is
a discussion with Wade Davisethnobotanist, anthropologist,
filmmaker, photographer andauthor of more than a dozen
books. Greetings, thank you forbeing here. I have something
amazing and awesome to sharewith you. It's a talk by Wade
Davis at the 100th anniversaryof the Explorers Club. It took
(00:25):
place in 2004. And I justunearthed it on a hard drive
that I hadn't plugged in, inquite some time. It was a great
surprise. And I watched thespeech and was so blown away.
The first thing I did was reachout to Wade Davis and ask if it
was okay if I shared it, and heimmediately got back with me and
said, absolutely put it outthere. Wade Davis, if you don't
(00:49):
know is a culturalanthropologist. He's an
ethnobotanist, author of morethan a dozen books, a
photographer filmmaker, and hisbest selling book, The serpent
and the rainbow about thezombies of Haiti, really put
them into the limelight. He's anexplorer in residence at the
National Geographic Society.
Wade has published 1800 Populararticles on subjects ranging
(01:14):
from Haitian voodoo Amazonianmyth and religion, the
traditional use of psychotropicdrugs, the ethnobotany of South
American cultures and Indians,pretty incredible human being
who has spent an inordinateamount of time with cultures in
the depths of the Amazon andbeyond. Wade also wrote the
(01:36):
book, as many of you know, intothe silence the Great War
Mallory and the conquest ofEverest. I got to know Wade,
when he was writing that book,primarily because he contacted
me and asked me about myexperience of looking into the
face of George Mallory, and alsoabout the watch that I found in
(01:56):
the front pocket of GeorgeMallory. Before we get to the
speech, if you would take aminute to SUBSCRIBE, like,
comment and share this withanyone who you think might be
interested. Thanks so much. Andthis talk that he did in 2004
talked about speech andlanguage. And he says in the
(02:16):
speech, that when we were born,there were more than 6000
languages on this earth. Andtoday, and now this is 2004,
only half of those languagesstill exist. And one of the
things he said that really stuckout to me, every language is an
old growth, spirit of the mind.
(02:39):
And he said, and every twoweeks, an elder dies. And when
that elder dies, a language willno longer be whispered into the
ear of a baby. And he talkedabout the importance of those
languages and how important itis to maintain as much much of
that cultural diversity as wepossibly can. Before I get to
(03:01):
the speech with Wade Davis, it'simportant to know that the
speaker before him was Dr. BuzzAldrin of space and moon walking
fame from NASA. And he doesreference that talk by Buzz
Aldrin. He was introduced byRichard wese, who at the time
was the president of theExplorers Club. And the
(03:23):
introduction to wade the videointroduction was something that
I produced, enjoy this profoundtalk by Dr. Wade Davis at the
100th anniversary of theExplorers Club in 2004. In New
York City.
Richard Wiese (03:39):
You know, I've really thought long and hard How
To sum up 100 years of ourclub's history. You know, I look
out there among you, I lookbehind me. And I see so many
people of accomplishment, somany great explorers, and unique
explorations. And so I thinkthat for everyone, the the
experience of the ExplorersClub, the experience of
(04:00):
exploration, the experience ofscience is very personal. So I'm
not going to attempt to sum itup. But if there is one person
who I feel that can sum it upfor all of us, it's one of the
most eloquent speakers andscientists I know, ladies and
gentlemen, Dr. Wade Davis.
Wade Davis (video introduct (04:27):
And when I see these adaptations,
the genius we've seen it in theability to move through the
desert landscape. When I when Isee that, that knowledge, it's
just beyond my imaginings thatpeople would not appreciate it.
Because it wasn't easy to comeup with that knowledge. You try
to live in the Syrian deserts ofthe Sahara, and then you'll
(04:50):
begin to appreciate the geniusof these people.
Wade Davis (04:59):
Now out, it was difficult to explain to a man
who kindled fire with flint, aspace program that had
catapulted 24 Men severalmillion collective miles to a
distant org, or the fact thatthey had indeed, just brought
back rock and dust 828 pounds ofit all together. Now, one small
(05:21):
part of that precious cargofound its way to Washington, DC,
where it is today embedded intoone of the stained glass windows
of our National Cathedral thatmany of you have seen and
worship beneath. It's called theSpace window. And I never really
had an answer to a sixth queryas to why did we go to the moon.
(05:41):
Until one day I was attendingservice in our National
Cathedral, and I looked up andsuddenly, through serendipity
found myself beneath thatstunning window. Now, in the
Gothic tradition, of course, thestained glass windows are not
decorative. On the contrary,these are the boundaries between
the mundane realm of the sun,and the sacred luminosity of
God. And the entire idea is thatas the sunlight comes through
(06:04):
those beautiful windows, itBay's the congregation in
illumination, in Revelation inthe spirit of the Divine. And I
looked up at that incrediblybeautiful man made window was
swirling orbs of colored glassof every conceivable hue. I saw
that they were swirling around ablack dot, that was a part of
(06:24):
the moon and the moon remnantwas black, dead in earth. And it
struck me that finally I had ananswer to that question of a
Sikh. Why did we go to the moon,we didn't go to the moon. To
acquire new wealth, we went tothe moon in some sense to
acquire a new vision of lifeitself. And perhaps the seminal
(06:46):
moment happened even before Dr.
Aldrin stepped on the moon. Whenon Christmas Eve of 1969, one of
the Apollo spacecraft wentaround for the first time the
Dark Side of the Moon to emergefor the first time to see not a
sunrise or moonrise. But for thefirst time in human history, and
Earthrise. And in that crystalmoment of awareness, suddenly,
(07:08):
everything we had aspired to,for all of our history was
affirmed in stunning glory. Andwhat we saw was not the
limitless frontiers of the earthas we see from the perspective
of the ground. But we saw whatthe earth indeed is a blue
planet, in veiled in a shroud ofmist, floating an infinite sea
of darkness. And I think thatthat vision of the Earth from
(07:31):
space brought to us within ourown lifetimes, Will 2000 years
hence be remembered as a moreprofound moment, than even the
Copernican revolution of the16th century that showed us
finally, that the earth was notthe center of the universe,
because from space, we see thefact that we are indeed, a
fragile planet that indeed canendure our ways, perhaps for
(07:53):
only so long. And if you trackback, that moment, became
catalytic. You know, 30 yearsago, the environmental movement
was nascent, just getting peopleto stop throwing garbage out of
a car window was considered agreat environmental victory.
Nobody spoke about biodiversityor the biosphere. These were
(08:13):
exotic terms within the languageof scientists. Today, there
within the vocabulary of mychildren. Nobody spoke about the
capacity of human beings tochange the climate of the Earth,
deplete the ozone, thendenigrate the rainforest. These
were impossible concepts thatnow become part of the overall
agenda of every government ofthe world. So I think that
(08:36):
extraordinary journey that we'reso honored even to be in the
presence of a man who made is ajourney that will be remembered,
not only in scientific terms,exploratory terms, but in
philosophical, even spiritualterms as a catalytic fulcrum in
the destiny of human beings. Butjust because we've had one veil
of blindness lifted from ourvision, doesn't mean that we
(08:59):
fully recovered our see oursight. And just as we've come to
celebrate the wonder andintegrity of the biosphere, we
have yet to recall the fact thatthere's a parallel web of life
that envelops the planet, thatwe at the National Geographic
are calling the ethnos sphere.
And this is the web of culturaland spiritual life brought into
(09:23):
being by the human imagination,the Ethno sphere might be
defined as being the sum totalof all thoughts and dreams,
myths, ideas, inspirations,intuitions, brought into being
by the human imagination sincethe dawn of consciousness. The
ethno sphere is humanity's greatlegacy. It's a web of cultural
life around the planet. Theethno sphere is a symbol of all
(09:45):
that we've achieved, and allthat with the promise of all
that we can achieve as a wildlycreative and imaginative
species. Now, just as thebiosphere has been severely
eroded with the loss of habitatand the concomitant loss of
species is a plant and animal.
So to is the Ethno sphere. Butif anything at a far greater
rate, no biologist would daresuggest that 50% of all species
(10:07):
are moribund are on the brink ofextinction, because it is simply
not true. And yet that the mostapocalyptic scenario in the
realm of cultural diversity ofbiological diversity, scarcely
approach is what we know to bethe most optimistic scenario in
the realm of cultural diversity.
And the key indicator of that islanguage loss. It's an amazing
(10:29):
thing when each of us in thisroom were born, there were 6000
languages spoken on earth. Now,language isn't just a body of
vocabulary or set of grammaticalrules. It's a flash of the human
spirit. It's a vehicle throughwhich the soul of each
particular culture comes intothe world. Every language is an
old growth forest of the mind, awatershed of thought and
(10:49):
ecosystem of social,psychological, spiritual
possibilities. And of those 6000languages spoken in the year
that each of us were born.
Today, fully half of them arenot being whispered into the
ears of children. They're notbeing taught to babies,
effectively, they're alreadydead. And what this means is
that we're living through thisera, in which literally, by
definition, half of humanity'sintellectual social spiritual
(11:11):
legacy has been compromised andlost in a generation. And
there's a sense amongst manypeople that, you know, the world
would be a better place. If weall spoke one language, you
know, communication will befacilitated, Wouldn't it be
easier to get along, and myretort to that is always to say,
What a great idea. But let'smake that language Lakota Sioux.
Let's make it Yoruba. Let's makeit Cantonese. And you begin to
(11:35):
get a sense of what it'd be likeas a native speaker of English,
to have no way to pass on thewisdom of your ancestors, or to
anticipate the promise of yourdescendants. And yet that
dreadful plight is indeed thefate of somebody somewhere on
Earth roughly every fortnightbecause on average, every two
weeks, some elder dies andcarries with him or her into the
grave, the last syllables of anancient tongue. Now there is
(11:56):
this kind of conceit in theWest, that while the while we've
been indulging, technologicalwizardry, somehow these other
cultures have been idle. Well,we now know from biology it to
be true, but philosophically,we've always dreamed it to be
true. And that is that we're allbrothers and sisters, we're all
cut from the same genetic cloth.
(12:19):
All human societies share thesame raw mental acuity, the same
raw mental potential, andwhether whether that human
genius is placed intotechnological innovation, or by
contrast into unraveling thecomplex threads of memory,
inherent in a myth is simply amatter of choice and
orientation. The human specieshas been around as a
(12:40):
recognizable social form,anthropologists will teach you
for at least 100,000 years theNeolithic revolution that gave
us agriculture, at which time wesuccumb to the cost of the seed
and braised hierarchyspecialization surplus, where
the poetry of the Shaman wasdisplaced by the pros of the
priesthood is only 10,000 yearsago modern industrial society as
(13:01):
we know it is only 300 years oldthat shallow history doesn't
suggest to me that we have allof the answers for all of the
challenges that will confront usas a species in the ensuing
millennia, the diverse culturesof the world are not failed
attempts at modernity, theirunique answers to the
fundamental question as to whatdoes it mean to be alive? When
(13:23):
asked the meaning of beinghuman, these diverse cultures of
the world respond with 10,000different voices, and it's
within that diversity of spiritof inspiration of hope, and
promise that we will all findwhat we all seek to be a way to
ensure that all peoples in allgardens can find a way to
flourish. The goal of ourinitiatives with the National
(13:45):
Geographic is not to try tosequester indigenous people in
the past, like some kind ofbiological specimen. You can't
make it rain forest park or themind. But we can change the way
the world thinks about andvalues the most essential part
of the human patrimony, which isourselves, the intellectual
genius that we represent thediversity of intuitions and
(14:05):
ideas that we've brought intobeings since the dawn of our
consciousness. How do we dothat? Well, we believe the
National Geographic thatpoliticians will never lead us
anywhere, polemics are neverpersuasive. But storytelling can
change the world, and we believeis the greatest storytelling
institution in the world, thatwe can take our audience each
(14:26):
month of 250 million people, tothose points in the ethnos
sphere, where we will take youto those practices that are so
stunning, so dazzling, sotransformative, that just to
witness them will come away,amazed, and hopefully quietly,
having embrace the keyrevelation of anthropology,
which is the idea that the worldinto which you were born, does
(14:48):
not exist in some absolutesense, but it's just one model
of reality, the consequence ofone particular set of choices
that your lineage made, howeversuccessfully, many generations
ago, but These other cultures ofthe world are not failed
attempts at being you failedattempts to modernity. They're
unique expressions of the humanheart. And in the end, the goal
(15:10):
should be to avoid the plight ofa people that drift to a
monochromatic world of monotony,but rather embrace a
polychromatic world ofdiversity, where we finally come
to understand that the goal ofour overall collective species
should be to ensure that allpeoples can engage in the genius
of modernity, without thatengagement having to imply the
(15:33):
death of ethnicity. Because inthe end, diversity, whether it's
biological or cultural, is notsimply the foundation of
stability as a biologist and theanthropologist teach, but it is
an article of faith afundamental indicator of the way
that God wanted this planet tobe. So in the end exploration,
(15:53):
if I was to sum up the fate andthe plight and glory of
exploration, in the nextcentury, it will be more than
adventure. There'll be adventureof the spirit of the soul of the
quest to find a true way thatall of us can live on this
planet revealed to us from spacethrough the extraordinary
journeys of Apollo astronauts,and find a way that all human
(16:15):
beings can be part of thecelebration of a new geography
of hope. Thank you very much.
Thom Pollard (16:23):
Thank you, Wade Davis for giving me the
opportunity to publish thisamazing speech from 2004. I look
forward to seeing you inSeptember of this year. For
those of you who are visitingthis channel for the first time,
I hope you'll take a moment tosubscribe and like and comment,
and let me know what you think.
We'll see you real soon. Thanksvery much.
This is the happiness quotient following is
a discussion with Wade Davisethnobotanist, anthropologist,
filmmaker, photographer andauthor of more than a dozen
books. Greetings, thank you forbeing here. I have something
amazing and awesome to sharewith you. It's a talk by Wade
Davis at the 100th anniversaryof the Explorers Club. It took
(00:25):
place in 2004. And I justunearthed it on a hard drive
that I hadn't plugged in, inquite some time. It was a great
surprise. And I watched thespeech and was so blown away.
The first thing I did was reachout to Wade Davis and ask if it
was okay if I shared it, and heimmediately got back with me and
said, absolutely put it outthere. Wade Davis, if you don't
(00:49):
know is a culturalanthropologist. He's an
ethnobotanist, author of morethan a dozen books, a
photographer filmmaker, and hisbest selling book, The serpent
and the rainbow about thezombies of Haiti, really put
them into the limelight. He's anexplorer in residence at the
National Geographic Society.
Wade has published 1800 Populararticles on subjects ranging
(01:14):
from Haitian voodoo Amazonianmyth and religion, the
traditional use of psychotropicdrugs, the ethnobotany of South
American cultures and Indians,pretty incredible human being
who has spent an inordinateamount of time with cultures in
the depths of the Amazon andbeyond. Wade also wrote the
(01:36):
book, as many of you know, intothe silence the Great War
Mallory and the conquest ofEverest. I got to know Wade,
when he was writing that book,primarily because he contacted
me and asked me about myexperience of looking into the
face of George Mallory, and alsoabout the watch that I found in
(01:56):
the front pocket of GeorgeMallory. Before we get to the
speech, if you would take aminute to SUBSCRIBE, like,
comment and share this withanyone who you think might be
interested. Thanks so much. Andthis talk that he did in 2004
talked about speech andlanguage. And he says in the
(02:16):
speech, that when we were born,there were more than 6000
languages on this earth. Andtoday, and now this is 2004,
only half of those languagesstill exist. And one of the
things he said that really stuckout to me, every language is an
old growth, spirit of the mind.
(02:39):
And he said, and every twoweeks, an elder dies. And when
that elder dies, a language willno longer be whispered into the
ear of a baby. And he talkedabout the importance of those
languages and how important itis to maintain as much much of
that cultural diversity as wepossibly can. Before I get to
(03:01):
the speech with Wade Davis, it'simportant to know that the
speaker before him was Dr. BuzzAldrin of space and moon walking
fame from NASA. And he doesreference that talk by Buzz
Aldrin. He was introduced byRichard wese, who at the time
was the president of theExplorers Club. And the
(03:23):
introduction to wade the videointroduction was something that
I produced, enjoy this profoundtalk by Dr. Wade Davis at the
100th anniversary of theExplorers Club in 2004. In New
York City.
Richard Wiese (03:39):
You know, I've really thought long and hard How
To sum up 100 years of ourclub's history. You know, I look
out there among you, I lookbehind me. And I see so many
people of accomplishment, somany great explorers, and unique
explorations. And so I thinkthat for everyone, the the
experience of the ExplorersClub, the experience of
(04:00):
exploration, the experience ofscience is very personal. So I'm
not going to attempt to sum itup. But if there is one person
who I feel that can sum it upfor all of us, it's one of the
most eloquent speakers andscientists I know, ladies and
gentlemen, Dr. Wade Davis.
Wade Davis (video introduct (04:27):
And when I see these adaptations,
the genius we've seen it in theability to move through the
desert landscape. When I when Isee that, that knowledge, it's
just beyond my imaginings thatpeople would not appreciate it.
Because it wasn't easy to comeup with that knowledge. You try
to live in the Syrian deserts ofthe Sahara, and then you'll
(04:50):
begin to appreciate the geniusof these people.
Wade Davis (04:59):
Now out, it was difficult to explain to a man
who kindled fire with flint, aspace program that had
catapulted 24 Men severalmillion collective miles to a
distant org, or the fact thatthey had indeed, just brought
back rock and dust 828 pounds ofit all together. Now, one small
(05:21):
part of that precious cargofound its way to Washington, DC,
where it is today embedded intoone of the stained glass windows
of our National Cathedral thatmany of you have seen and
worship beneath. It's called theSpace window. And I never really
had an answer to a sixth queryas to why did we go to the moon.
(05:41):
Until one day I was attendingservice in our National
Cathedral, and I looked up andsuddenly, through serendipity
found myself beneath thatstunning window. Now, in the
Gothic tradition, of course, thestained glass windows are not
decorative. On the contrary,these are the boundaries between
the mundane realm of the sun,and the sacred luminosity of
God. And the entire idea is thatas the sunlight comes through
(06:04):
those beautiful windows, itBay's the congregation in
illumination, in Revelation inthe spirit of the Divine. And I
looked up at that incrediblybeautiful man made window was
swirling orbs of colored glassof every conceivable hue. I saw
that they were swirling around ablack dot, that was a part of
(06:24):
the moon and the moon remnantwas black, dead in earth. And it
struck me that finally I had ananswer to that question of a
Sikh. Why did we go to the moon,we didn't go to the moon. To
acquire new wealth, we went tothe moon in some sense to
acquire a new vision of lifeitself. And perhaps the seminal
(06:46):
moment happened even before Dr.
Aldrin stepped on the moon. Whenon Christmas Eve of 1969, one of
the Apollo spacecraft wentaround for the first time the
Dark Side of the Moon to emergefor the first time to see not a
sunrise or moonrise. But for thefirst time in human history, and
Earthrise. And in that crystalmoment of awareness, suddenly,
(07:08):
everything we had aspired to,for all of our history was
affirmed in stunning glory. Andwhat we saw was not the
limitless frontiers of the earthas we see from the perspective
of the ground. But we saw whatthe earth indeed is a blue
planet, in veiled in a shroud ofmist, floating an infinite sea
of darkness. And I think thatthat vision of the Earth from
(07:31):
space brought to us within ourown lifetimes, Will 2000 years
hence be remembered as a moreprofound moment, than even the
Copernican revolution of the16th century that showed us
finally, that the earth was notthe center of the universe,
because from space, we see thefact that we are indeed, a
fragile planet that indeed canendure our ways, perhaps for
(07:53):
only so long. And if you trackback, that moment, became
catalytic. You know, 30 yearsago, the environmental movement
was nascent, just getting peopleto stop throwing garbage out of
a car window was considered agreat environmental victory.
Nobody spoke about biodiversityor the biosphere. These were
(08:13):
exotic terms within the languageof scientists. Today, there
within the vocabulary of mychildren. Nobody spoke about the
capacity of human beings tochange the climate of the Earth,
deplete the ozone, thendenigrate the rainforest. These
were impossible concepts thatnow become part of the overall
agenda of every government ofthe world. So I think that
(08:36):
extraordinary journey that we'reso honored even to be in the
presence of a man who made is ajourney that will be remembered,
not only in scientific terms,exploratory terms, but in
philosophical, even spiritualterms as a catalytic fulcrum in
the destiny of human beings. Butjust because we've had one veil
of blindness lifted from ourvision, doesn't mean that we
(08:59):
fully recovered our see oursight. And just as we've come to
celebrate the wonder andintegrity of the biosphere, we
have yet to recall the fact thatthere's a parallel web of life
that envelops the planet, thatwe at the National Geographic
are calling the ethnos sphere.
And this is the web of culturaland spiritual life brought into
(09:23):
being by the human imagination,the Ethno sphere might be
defined as being the sum totalof all thoughts and dreams,
myths, ideas, inspirations,intuitions, brought into being
by the human imagination sincethe dawn of consciousness. The
ethno sphere is humanity's greatlegacy. It's a web of cultural
life around the planet. Theethno sphere is a symbol of all
(09:45):
that we've achieved, and allthat with the promise of all
that we can achieve as a wildlycreative and imaginative
species. Now, just as thebiosphere has been severely
eroded with the loss of habitatand the concomitant loss of
species is a plant and animal.
So to is the Ethno sphere. Butif anything at a far greater
rate, no biologist would daresuggest that 50% of all species
(10:07):
are moribund are on the brink ofextinction, because it is simply
not true. And yet that the mostapocalyptic scenario in the
realm of cultural diversity ofbiological diversity, scarcely
approach is what we know to bethe most optimistic scenario in
the realm of cultural diversity.
And the key indicator of that islanguage loss. It's an amazing
(10:29):
thing when each of us in thisroom were born, there were 6000
languages spoken on earth. Now,language isn't just a body of
vocabulary or set of grammaticalrules. It's a flash of the human
spirit. It's a vehicle throughwhich the soul of each
particular culture comes intothe world. Every language is an
old growth forest of the mind, awatershed of thought and
(10:49):
ecosystem of social,psychological, spiritual
possibilities. And of those 6000languages spoken in the year
that each of us were born.
Today, fully half of them arenot being whispered into the
ears of children. They're notbeing taught to babies,
effectively, they're alreadydead. And what this means is
that we're living through thisera, in which literally, by
definition, half of humanity'sintellectual social spiritual
(11:11):
legacy has been compromised andlost in a generation. And
there's a sense amongst manypeople that, you know, the world
would be a better place. If weall spoke one language, you
know, communication will befacilitated, Wouldn't it be
easier to get along, and myretort to that is always to say,
What a great idea. But let'smake that language Lakota Sioux.
Let's make it Yoruba. Let's makeit Cantonese. And you begin to
(11:35):
get a sense of what it'd be likeas a native speaker of English,
to have no way to pass on thewisdom of your ancestors, or to
anticipate the promise of yourdescendants. And yet that
dreadful plight is indeed thefate of somebody somewhere on
Earth roughly every fortnightbecause on average, every two
weeks, some elder dies andcarries with him or her into the
grave, the last syllables of anancient tongue. Now there is
(11:56):
this kind of conceit in theWest, that while the while we've
been indulging, technologicalwizardry, somehow these other
cultures have been idle. Well,we now know from biology it to
be true, but philosophically,we've always dreamed it to be
true. And that is that we're allbrothers and sisters, we're all
cut from the same genetic cloth.
(12:19):
All human societies share thesame raw mental acuity, the same
raw mental potential, andwhether whether that human
genius is placed intotechnological innovation, or by
contrast into unraveling thecomplex threads of memory,
inherent in a myth is simply amatter of choice and
orientation. The human specieshas been around as a
(12:40):
recognizable social form,anthropologists will teach you
for at least 100,000 years theNeolithic revolution that gave
us agriculture, at which time wesuccumb to the cost of the seed
and braised hierarchyspecialization surplus, where
the poetry of the Shaman wasdisplaced by the pros of the
priesthood is only 10,000 yearsago modern industrial society as
(13:01):
we know it is only 300 years oldthat shallow history doesn't
suggest to me that we have allof the answers for all of the
challenges that will confront usas a species in the ensuing
millennia, the diverse culturesof the world are not failed
attempts at modernity, theirunique answers to the
fundamental question as to whatdoes it mean to be alive? When
(13:23):
asked the meaning of beinghuman, these diverse cultures of
the world respond with 10,000different voices, and it's
within that diversity of spiritof inspiration of hope, and
promise that we will all findwhat we all seek to be a way to
ensure that all peoples in allgardens can find a way to
flourish. The goal of ourinitiatives with the National
(13:45):
Geographic is not to try tosequester indigenous people in
the past, like some kind ofbiological specimen. You can't
make it rain forest park or themind. But we can change the way
the world thinks about andvalues the most essential part
of the human patrimony, which isourselves, the intellectual
genius that we represent thediversity of intuitions and
(14:05):
ideas that we've brought intobeings since the dawn of our
consciousness. How do we dothat? Well, we believe the
National Geographic thatpoliticians will never lead us
anywhere, polemics are neverpersuasive. But storytelling can
change the world, and we believeis the greatest storytelling
institution in the world, thatwe can take our audience each
(14:26):
month of 250 million people, tothose points in the ethnos
sphere, where we will take youto those practices that are so
stunning, so dazzling, sotransformative, that just to
witness them will come away,amazed, and hopefully quietly,
having embrace the keyrevelation of anthropology,
which is the idea that the worldinto which you were born, does
(14:48):
not exist in some absolutesense, but it's just one model
of reality, the consequence ofone particular set of choices
that your lineage made, howeversuccessfully, many generations
ago, but These other cultures ofthe world are not failed
attempts at being you failedattempts to modernity. They're
unique expressions of the humanheart. And in the end, the goal
(15:10):
should be to avoid the plight ofa people that drift to a
monochromatic world of monotony,but rather embrace a
polychromatic world ofdiversity, where we finally come
to understand that the goal ofour overall collective species
should be to ensure that allpeoples can engage in the genius
of modernity, without thatengagement having to imply the
(15:33):
death of ethnicity. Because inthe end, diversity, whether it's
biological or cultural, is notsimply the foundation of
stability as a biologist and theanthropologist teach, but it is
an article of faith afundamental indicator of the way
that God wanted this planet tobe. So in the end exploration,
(15:53):
if I was to sum up the fate andthe plight and glory of
exploration, in the nextcentury, it will be more than
adventure. There'll be adventureof the spirit of the soul of the
quest to find a true way thatall of us can live on this
planet revealed to us from spacethrough the extraordinary
journeys of Apollo astronauts,and find a way that all human
(16:15):
beings can be part of thecelebration of a new geography
of hope. Thank you very much.
Thom Pollard (16:23):
Thank you, Wade Davis for giving me the
opportunity to publish thisamazing speech from 2004. I look
forward to seeing you inSeptember of this year. For
those of you who are visitingthis channel for the first time,
I hope you'll take a moment tosubscribe and like and comment,
and let me know what you think.
We'll see you real soon. Thanksvery much.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.