Suck It!

And here’s the thing, maps are a type of tool: nobody buys just any old screwdriver, (regular or Phillips?) hammer (claw, ball-peen, wooden mallet?). There are literally thousands of different types of projections out there for maps- Mercator made his for navigation, Philip for land-proportion. Mercator isn’t outdated for what it’s for-sailing a ship from point A to B (Yes, there are better tools for that as well, but his 1585 attempt is still usable). The odd thing is, nobody perceives maps as a specialized tool, and nobody emotes over screwdrivers. Overdependence on one item for a world-view, yep, pretty stupid, but switching one-for-one is dumb as well. Howabout an array of maps- teach people why maps are different, how to use them. Geography is a multiple discipline that has been neglected. Too easily lumped in with the oversimplification of “history as taught now is all about dead white men”-which would have been a big laugh to most of my history teachers. Eurocentric and Afrocentric, and then there's Asia...Everybody thinks their race is the Chosen Few...Looking at maps from various countries, they all, oddly enough, center around whoever made the map's origin...