its perfect circularity contribute to its feeling of disembodiment, and may initially spark interpretations along the register of what Cosgrove terms the “one-world discourse” (Apollo’s Eye 263). That is, Cosgrove notes that interpretations of photo 22727 have generally been framed by two “related discourses”: what he terms the “one-world” discourse on the one hand and the “whole-earth” discourse on the other (262–263). The one-world discourse, he says, is concerned with ideas of communication and interconnectedness, but focuses more on the “global surface [. . .]. It is a universalist, progressive, and mobile discourse [. . .]. Consistently associated with technological advance, it yields an implicitly imperial spatiality, connecting the ends of the earth to privileged hubs and centers of control” (263). In contrast to this more imperialistic, disembodied view, the viewer may also come to understand the image as representing “the globe’s organic unity” and “rootedness,” in accord with what he terms the “whole-earth” discourse, which “emphasizes the fragility and vulnerability of a corporeal earth and responsibility for its care. It can generate apocalyptic anxiety about the end of life on this planet or warm sentiments of association, community, and attachment” (262–263). To fully oppose the one-earth discourse to the whole-earth discourse, however, is to fail to recognize the middle-ground between the two, and the ways in which each fosters different representations of connectivity. Moreover, appropriations of images of the earth contain variations that may be read in terms of both the one-world discourse (as more totalizing and universalizing, signifying networked communication and globalization) and the whole-earth discourse (as more inclusive and rooted, signifying local knowledge and individual accountability).9
While photo 22727 has come to be associated with both discourses, its initial reception was more readily associated with the social contexts of the emerging environmental movement of the United States in the 1970s. Its continued appropriation by environmental groups affords it a strong association with environmentalism even today. As Cosgrove describes, the photo’s “apparent absence of cultural signifiers has made it a favored icon for environmental and human-rights campaigners and those challenging Western humanism’s long-held assumption of superiority in a hierarchy of life” (Apollo’s Eye 261):
[T]he image [. . .] radically destabilizes the cultural part of the conventional meaning of Earth. [. . .] [I]t is no longer regarded as primarily the ‘home of Man.’ Earth is viewed as having an intrinsic life, even its own intelligence as a homeostatic system, and all of its different species accorded dignity equal to that of humans. Humanity is decentered, and by regarding humans as merely one among a multitude of species the cultural variety which is a distinctive feature of our species is suppressed. (Cosgrove, “New World Orders” 128–129)
The image may then invoke in the viewer a sense of responsibility and kinship as opposed to distance or disembodiment. Again, the growing discourses of environmental conservation in the United States in the early 1970s contributed to such interpretations of the photo.
Contextualizations and Appropriations of Photo 22727
The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 is widely understood as one of the primary catalysts for contemporary environmentalism in the United States. Subsequently, in the decades following publication of Silent Spring, the public witnessed the steadily growing momentum of the environmental movement. While photo 22727 has the sort of staying power that has enabled its iconic status among environmental groups and with the public generally, it is important to recognize that it is just one of many rhetorical artifacts and objects of discourse associated with the emergence of environmentalism during that period. A general understanding of the social and political contexts surrounding the emergence of the photo helps to situate its rhetorical power and the associations it both reflected and perpetuated.
Just two years prior to circulation of photo 22727 on April 22, 1970, for example, the United States held its first Earth Day celebration, an event spearheaded by Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. In 1971, just one year later, polls showed that “25 percent of the U.S. public declared protecting the environment to be an important goal, a 2,500 percent increase over 1969” (“Earth Day History”). Thus, according to Senator Nelson, “Earth Day launched the Environmental decade with a bang” (“Earth Day ’70”). Soon after, photo 22727 became appropriated as the logo for subsequent Earth Day celebrations in the United States. Other appropriations of the photo include its use by the environmental group Friends of the Earth “to convey a message of global dwelling, care, and fragility,” as well as its continual use in “antinuclear, environmental, and animal-rights campaigns” (Cosgrove, Apollo’s Eye 263). In many ways, the photo has become a metonym for environmentalism. As Hariman and Lucaites describe, to view the image of the earth as a metonym for environmentalism would involve a “reduction of a more general construct,” such as environmentalism, “to a specific embodiment,” such as the photo of the earth, or the “Blue Marble” (89). As they describe, “[s]uch compositions have to be simultaneously personal and impersonal. [. . .] They depend on a thorough-going realism, but they motivate action in response to the general condition being represented rather than to the specific event of the picture” (89). Photo 22727 fits the bill well in this regard; the image of the earth portrays a convincing realism through its sharpness, its color, and the familiarity of the landforms; its small scale and circular shape also make it easily recognizable as an image of the earth. But it is not necessarily this realism that stirs the emotions; in fact, the photo’s realism helps convey a distancing effect, or a sort of disembodiment that speaks more so to the one-world discourse. Rather, it is the condition being represented more generally, the implicit beauty and fragility of the planet, conveyed also by the informal naming “Blue Marble,” that sparks feelings of personal responsibility and allows viewers to integrate their individual perspectives with their interpretation of the image. Viewers then employ their own experiences and understandings in their interpretation of the image, though these understandings are inextricably linked to the social and political contexts in which the image was presented. That is, photo 22727 first circulated in 1972, at a point when unprecedented acts of environmental legislation contributed to the growing discourses of environmentalism. In 1970, for example, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act were passed, Congress authorized creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Resources Defense Council was created. In 1971, the Animal Welfare Act was passed. In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Ocean Dumping Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act (Kovarik). Outfitted with knowledge of new environmental legislation and organizations, the public’s understanding of these discursive contexts likely helped shape their interpretation of the photo at that point in time. Conversely, the photo helped “communicate social knowledge [. . .] by tap[ping] into the tacit knowledge held by the audience as they are members of society” (Hariman and Lucaites 10).
In addition to understanding the image largely in terms of the “whole-earth” discourse around which it has been interpreted by its viewing publics, Cosgrove also acknowledges the vantage point of the Apollo 17 crew, who first witnessed the view that eventually became photo 22727: “Those few humans who actually witnessed the revolving terracqueous globe and who produced photo 22727 describe their experience in terms of awe, mystery and humility. The axis of world order, if it existed for them, stretched infinitely above and below the global surface” (“New World Orders” 130). This description of the astronauts’ experiences in first viewing the earth from space not only reinforces understandings of mapping as a relational process but also helps to bring before our eyes a version of the image that is surreal and almost spiritual in nature. Cosgrove wants us to imagine the image of earth through the astronauts’ eyes, invoking a sort of ekphrasis that transports us to that moment of witnessing prior to the photo’s having been captured with the camera. Understanding the photo not only through the public lens of the whole-earth discourse but also from the vantage point of its producers affords yet an additional way of seeing that takes into account the astronauts’ embodied experiences at a specific cultural moment, one that precedes even the production of the artifact itself.
As Hayles
