The Age of Exploration

A close-up of the Catalan Atlas
Depicting Marco Polo

The Age of Exploration |
Friday – October 2, 2026

To think that the world has gone from the vast and unending frontiers of Marco Polo and the age of exploration, empire and glory, to this homogeneous corporate landscape. Sad story indeed, but a true story indeed.

    Yes, these are the facts of history that we must confront, facts that may upset us, and facts that may evoke strong emotion and sentimentalism. From the perspective of the old world, Marco Polo was a hero, but in our world, in modernity, Marco Polo is considered a villian and a monster, a monster because he discovered another part of the world, another part of the world from the point of view of Medieval Europe, read "The End of History". Of course, this sentiment is nothing new, and is being felt when many historical persons are being considered, but it is important to understand that without Marco Polo the age of exploration would not have been possible, and I know that there exists a dispute among certain people in terms of what should be made of Marco Polo as a historical person, a man of history, and I suppose that I can see the argument that Marco Polo was a disrupter when he explored China and India, and this may or may not be a fair description of who Marco Polo was, but the point is that he did what the Western spirit sought for him to do: to engage in action, and in his case exploration. Now, in terms of trade and the economy, the money, created because of Marco Polo, I have no comments. I will say that my main interest in Marco Polo has to do with the fact that it seems to align with the history of the world that him, a European, a Westerner, should explore Asia and not the other way around, and this is not to say that no Asians ever explored Europe, but it is to say that the the civilizations in Asia were more closed as a result of this moment in history, a moment that, again, continues to shape our world. Of course, the Age of Exploration began after the time and life of Marco Polo, but again I will continue to argue that he was necessary for this age to occur, and of course the actions of a certain King, a tyrant really. One could perhaps say that Marco Polo was the first modern man, in the sense that he saw history as something quite linear and progressive, but this is also not true; Marco Polo was not a man that had a modern sense of history, but from the modern and progressive point of view, it becomes undeniable to consider him the first modern human.

    To me, the Age of Exploration was not a necessity and I did mention the "glory of empire" at the start, but there is no reason to glorify empires in my view, read "My Views on Imperialism", because empires create too many painful problems, and empires are also cosmopolitan, for they have to be, which is undesirable from the point of view of stability. Of course, I did refer to Marco Polo as the "first modern man", but then again modernity cannot be bound conscripted into all the qualities that made up one man, and so yes I do not consider Marco Polo to be the first modern man, but I do consider Marco Polo to be a turning point, overshadowed though he is. Of course, the modern world is still nothing like the Age of Exploration, but this is because modernity exists in a degenerated state compared to the Age of Exploration. Again, I continue to ramble on here in my posts, but my point is that relatively speaking the Age of Exploration is a long time ago, yet most things today depend more on that age of history than any other, and so I have been forced to consider this history. I should clarify that I do not believe myself in a progressive telling of history, if we consider progress to be linear or even exponential, but since I myself exist within this narrative it does become hard for me to escape the pulling force of the narrative, and this is certainly the case when I am writing about the Age of Exploration. But perhaps it is a mistake to conceive of history at all? After all, have we not seen that the point of history seems to be to function as a narrative in the first place, read "Ideological Indoctrination"? Obviously most of human history is gone, at least from the purview of profane historians, and so we only have the Kali Yuga to consider, and so it would seem logical then that the rigorousity in which we consider doctrine should fall as a function of time, which is the entire thesis of these people anyhow, and they would not deny it. Why then should we be hung up on the Age of Exploration? I do not believe that anyone should get "hung up" on anything, but yes, the Age of Exploration must be considered if we seek to understand our own time, and this was the point of history in the first place. Why did the Primordial Body become diseased in the first place?

    Well, for more on this I should direct you to my "Bible Study series", but I can say that disease must be understood as the outcome of schism and conflict, and this is why God condemned man to not live past 120 years in Genesis (בְּרֵאשִׁית). When Marco Polo came to the Middle East, India, he described a new world, and this was fine, but he did also introduce a new world to the world of India and then he brought the a new world into his own; of course this had to create conflict, but not immediately. I think as well that much of the Western perception of the East stems from Marco Polo, and again we may blame materialism for this, but we may also blame ourselves for this, ourselves and our rationalization. At least we may say this about Marco Polo: Marco Polo was not a conqueror, he came in peace, and this was not the case for the men of the Age of Exploration, for at this point glory and heroism had been replaced with crude materialism, and the action oriented spirit was no longer benefic. Yes, this all is true, and this is the only valid conception of the Age of Exploration. I will say no more about this issue. I will say no more about this issue, because nothing more of value can be said about this issue, and besides this is now in the past and most moderns will not be capable of understanding this past anyhow. History will remain in my purview, but I am a man against time, read "Dreaming".

Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – October 2, 2026.