{"id":31392,"date":"2023-02-25T18:29:13","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T02:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31392"},"modified":"2023-02-25T18:29:13","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T02:29:13","slug":"geography-of-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/geography-of-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Geography of Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever considered that maps, or more precisely, the ground beneath you influences how you think? Without a doubt, we take the ground and maps for granted. We live in an age of pocket GPS that guides family road trips and gives accurate milage and minutes to the nearest McDonalds, yet this is a novelty on the world stage. Maps came from somewhere and it is those maps, and the geography that they illustrate, that are still shaping the dynamics of the world. Which is why Simon Winchester rightfully observes of William Smith, \u201cIt was the work of genius, and at same time a lonely and potentially soul-destroying project. It was the work of one man, with one idea, bent on the all-encompassing mission of making a geological map of England and Wales\u201d[1]. It was a work of genius and driven-determinism that would earn him the nickname \u201cStrata\u201d[2] and change how we understand the very ground beneath our feet. It is these maps, or really the ground they represent, that challenge or confirm the very ideas we have about the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While I walk on that ground, I am usually staring at the latest headline describing the latest spat of global powers beautifully predicted in the book, Prisoner of Geography<\/i>[3]. In this book, author Tim Marshall, explains that, \u201c\u2026geography, and the history of how nations have established themselves within that geography, remains crucial to our understanding of the world today and to our future\u201d[4]. As I read about the latest about the war in Ukraine, I see the uncanny observation offered by geography that, \u201cYou could make the argument that President Putin did have a choice: he could have respected the territorial integrity of Ukraine. But, given the he was dealing with the geographic hand that God has dealt Russia, this was never really an option\u201d[5]. I feel like Tim Marshall should be required reading for every student, journalist, and politician to better understand and predict the machinations of the world\u2019s governments – just look for the mountains and ports to predict the geostrategy of nations for the next few decades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maps and geography has surprising implications on the way people think. The notion of the Unites States stretching from one ocean to another was rightly observed by John Quincy Adams when he wrote, \u201c\u2018The acquisition of a definitive line of boundary to the [Pacific] forms a great epoch in our history\u2019\u201d[6]. Which leads me to think, what ideas and perspectives of the world have been shaped by my geographic location?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is one of the implications offered by Winchester as he frames the shift caused by William Smith\u2019s map. Winchester observes that one of the shifts was how the energy science of geology challenged church dogma around the process of Creation. Winchester writes, \u201cYet, when William Smith was born, the unquestioning acceptance of a notion such as this [six-day creation of the world] was beginning to change\u201d[6]. In the footnote on this discussion, Winchester observes that a 1991 survey found that 100 million Americans believed that God created humans in the last ten thousand years and \u201cevidence now suggests that this number is climbing\u201d[7]. If we consider this perspective in light of the geographic isolation of the United States, is it any wonder that any idea can have a particular residence? Certainly the internet is bringing a more level playing field to communication and ideas, yet the geographic separation allows pockets of dominate perspectives to take hold for better or worse. It certainly makes me wonder why I think or hold the beliefs that I have. Could it be that they are geographically shaped?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Simon Winchester,\u00a0 <\/span>The Map That Changed the World<\/i> (Harper Perennial, 2009) p. 192.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Ibid., 193.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    3.\u00a0 <\/span>Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography : Ten Maps That Explain Everything about the World<\/i> (New York, NY: Scribner, 2016).<\/p>\n

    4. \u00a0 <\/span>Ibid., 7.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    5. \u00a0 <\/span>Ibid., 25.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    6.\u00a0 <\/span>Winchester, 15.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    7.\u00a0 <\/span>Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Have you ever considered that maps, or more precisely, the ground beneath you influences how you think? Without a doubt, we take the ground and maps for granted. We live in an age of pocket GPS that guides family road trips and gives accurate milage and minutes to the nearest McDonalds, yet this is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2633],"class_list":["post-31392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp01-winchester-marshall","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31393,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392\/revisions\/31393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}