ABSTRACT
On their trip to the Gulf of California, Steinbeck and Ricketts engage in a project that brings marine biology, literature, poetry, philosophy, and mysticism together. Steinbeck in an earlier work reflects on the idea of Westering and uses the Pacific ocean as a metaphorical barrier to otherness and the unknown. In the Logbook from the Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck and Ricketts break out of our human limited way of thinking. Instead of defining our humanness as special and radically different from the rest of the natural world, they break through the barriers that divide us from others, from other species, and from the natural world. They “break through” partially through Darwinist theory, with the aid of mysticism, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism. I will argue that the boundaries they seek to step beyond are based on false understandings and perceptions of the world. Through these false understandings and perceptions, we fail to see the ethical implications of our actions as we fail, for example, to grasp species and ecosystems as interrelated.
