We must maintain a warlike atmosphere in Antarctica

I dreamt that there were two colonies in Antarctica. I had first visited the one run by a man named Campbell whose motto was "We must maintain a warlike atmosphere in Antarctica." He talked about this a lot, and about the need for "a war of all against all" in his colony. Members of the colony would compete to be "ministers" in his government by fighting each other with their bare hands. This was done on an iced-over lake, the thick ice of which had been cut into squares like an oversized chessboard. As they fought, some of the squares would come loose and sink down into the icy water, and in general everyone in this colony seemed to spend a lot of time in the freezing water. In the waking world, of course, you would die of hypothermia within minutes, but these guys -- including me when I was with them -- were tough.

Later, I went to a different colony, which was peaceful and was run by a woman. I was explaining to her how things worked in Campbell's colony and how potential ministers would "fight -- I mean really try to kill each other." She looked at me uncomprehending and said, "That's insane."

"Well," I said, "Campbell says we must maintain a warlike atmosphere in Antarctica. He says if we wanted to be soft, we would have stayed in Ohio."

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Violence in the Antarctic has come up before -- see "Black Men and Old Ones" and subsequent posts -- but my thoughts upon waking went in a different direction, thinking of the other meaning of "ministers" and of Alexander Campbell the religious reformer. Very early in the history of Mormonism, a large number of Campbellites converted to the movement, changing its character and turning it to a considerable degree into a "Restorationist" sect bent on recreating first-century Christianity. Early Mormonism was based in Kirtland, Ohio, and it was after leaving Ohio that a more militant Mormonism began to develop -- the Mormonism of the Nauvoo Legion and Zion's Camp, of Porter Rockwell and the Danites, of blood oaths and blood atonement, of Brigham's Destroying Angel and unsheathed bowie knife. Perhaps "Campbell" was a broad personification of all this -- of a corrupted Mormonism that had become Joseph Smith's original vision plus a lot of other baggage.

Of course there's Bill's "Numenor on ice" angle, too. Antarctica is also the ultimate "Down Under," even more so than Australia, so Agartha and "To the Faithful Departed" may also be relevant.

Campbell is an interesting name, too. I had assumed it was from the English words it looks to be made up of, but in fact it's Gaelic (of course!) and means "crooked mouth" -- someone who doesn't talk straight, maybe the fat lion (a gorged Mars?) of Sometimes We Fight as opposed to "straight shooter" Herman Melville. (See "Terry the giant Irishman critiques my supposed literary preferences" and "A feast for the god of war" for those references.)