Mapping Ethnocentrism
Beginning Comparative Studies
Where Comparisons Start
An excerpt from WCwCC [Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons] 2009
By John G Blair & Jerusha McCormack (Shanghai: Fudan University Press)
(based on pages 21-35)
Introduction
The universality of ethnocentrism makes it a crucial starting point for comparative
studies. WCwCC begins by comparing selected maps of the world from a variety of
countries around the world. For the most part these are the maps ordinarily used in
school classrooms when children begin to study geography or develop some
comparable awareness of the wider world outside their home culture.
Presumptions in World Mapping
In order for the process of comparing maps to be intelligible, it helps to highlight
several features that occur in all world maps. For this purpose it is necessary to learn
some rudiments of cartography (the study of maps). Nonetheless, the central concern here
is not maps, but what maps can show us about cultures.
Every world-map maker must make a choice of how to render a two-dimensional
representation of the three-dimensional globe. There are three major facets to this
problem. In examining any particular map, the student of comparative cultures needs to
keep in mind all three of these factors.
1 East-West Centering
Every mapmaker must decide where to center his representation of the world on a
left-to-right axis. On the globe there is no center, but two-dimensional maps cannot
avoid centering on one slice of the globe, thereby relegating other places to the
periphery.
2 North-South Centering
Similarly, every mapmaker must decide where to place the equator. When the
equator is placed approximately in the middle, which is where it occurs on the threedimensional globe, the land area of Antarctica will be shown, though hard to visualize as
a whole. But in some world maps, as we will see, the equator is not necessarily centered
equidistantly between top and bottom.
3 Choice of Projection
Every representation of a globe in two dimensions must commit itself to a fictional
premise, namely that the two-dimensional object legitimately represents a threedimensional one. The conventions of every projection introduce distortions in shapes
and land areas by comparison with the three-dimensional globe. The nature of these
distortions – how they shape and size different land masses – tell us a great deal about
the cultural assumptions underlying any given map of the world.
1
Traditional USA Map of the World
USA MERCATOR PROJECTION particulars:
Here is a map from the USA, standard in nearly all schools throughout most of the
20th century. Not surprisingly, its east-west axis centers on the USA, though one obvious
cost is that the landmass of Eurasia is split between the two sides of the map. The
former Soviet Union with its eleven time zones was never easy for Americans to
perceive in its entirety. Conscious of this limitation, Rand-McNally, the corporation that
dominates American commercial mapping, tried to compensate. You can discover how
by asking where India appears on this map. The answer is: on the left and on the right.
Duplicating India and a large slice of Central Asia may have been well-intentioned, but
actually compounding a distortion by a further distortion is hardly a corrective.
In north-south terms, this map places the equator about two-thirds of the way from
top to bottom, thereby, still more than the West Europeans, flagrantly playing down the
Southern Hemisphere as compared to the Northern. The implicit message seems to be
that there is mostly just a lot of water down there, hence little of importance in that part
of the world as seen by Americans.
The projection used here is the venerable Mercator projection invented in 1569 by
Gerhard Kremer, whose concerns were navigational above all. Using this map, a ship
captain could draw a straight line between two ports and thereby determine the shortest
trajectory for his ship. In cultural terms, however, the implications are dramatically
different. The Mercator Projection straightens the lines of latitude and longitude, thereby
depicting the relative positions of different land masses in true north-south and east-west
relations, but seriously distorting relative land areas as one approaches the poles. When
the lines of latitude, which in fact converge to a point at each pole, are represented as
parallel vertical lines, all land masses will appear abnormally large insofar as they are
relatively distant from the equator and closer to the poles. Greenland looms still larger
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than in the European maps, appearing about as large as South America instead of oneeighth the size, as it should be in global terms.
The internalization of this map by Americans makes it hard to convince them that
Mexico is in global fact much larger than Alaska. The key problem with maps as a factor
in enculturation is that people forget that they are maps (i.e., imperfect and artificial
representations) and take their more or less arbitrary depictions as showing the way the
world really is.
3
Western European Map of the World
WESTERN EUROPEAN MAP particulars:
This map, made in Switzerland, typifies Western European maps. Not surprisingly,
Europeans see this world as centered east-west on Western Europe, more precisely on
the London of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Here there is less curvature of the earth
incorporated into the projection than in the Russian map. This choice of projection
straightens somewhat the lines of latitude, but also shifts the east-west central axis to
the left. In addition, there is a visible difference from the Russian map in the
representation of relative land masses. This projection increases the exaggerated size of
land areas relatively far from the equator. Thus Alaska looks much larger than Mexico,
whereas the latter is about 25% larger in global fact. Greenland looks only a bit smaller
than South America, whereas the actual difference in area is 8 to 1 in favor of South
America over Greenland. The vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean is, of course, difficult to
envision because it appears split on opposite sides of the map.
In terms of north-south centering, note that the equator is no longer in the middle.
This representation slights Antarctica and privileges the Northern Hemisphere by
granting it a larger percentage of the visual area of the map. Since the equator is
obviously in the middle of the globe, one may reasonably ask why the West European
(and others to come) map does not show it as such. This skewed representation reveals
another level of ethnocentrism. By suppressing Antarctica in favor of giving more than
half of their space over to the Northern Hemisphere, the mapmakers thereby visibly
exaggerate the importance of their own region.
4
Russian Map of the World
RUSSIAN Map particulars:
This map was printed in Moscow during the last years of the Soviet Union, but
current Russian mapping is largely unchanged. The north-south orientation remains
centered on the equator. The chosen projection, however, by lessening the degree of
curvature by comparison with the PRC map, allows the east-west center line to be
shifted westward into the Eurasian landmass. The reason behind this choice of
projection is probably to be found just above the middle of this north-south line –
centering on Moscow. Though the island of Madagascar lies further south on this same
vertical line, one can feel confident that children growing up in Russia do not see it as
central to their world(view).
In terms of north-south centering, the Russian map also places the equator in the
center, granting Antarctica an appreciable representation. The degree of curvature,
however, exaggerates the land area of the Northern Hemisphere. People who grow up
internalizing this map will never perceive that, in terms of land area, Africa is 25% larger
than the former Soviet Union at its largest extent.
5
People's Republic of China Map of the World
PRC Map particulars:
Presumably, this map appeared on classroom walls when the Chinese students of
WCwCC were growing up and internalizing their image of what the world looks like. This
map obviously centers its worldview on the Western Pacific, the closest approximation of
putting China in the center on the east-west axis. In terms of north-south centering, the
equator is precisely in the center. Thus the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are
equally represented.
Strong curvature in the projection, similar to the Mollweide Projection in Western
cartography, emphasizes just how peripheral Western Europe and the USA may seem
from a Chinese point of view.
Note in passing the convention that the north is represented at the top. This
convention begins in European maps of the Renaissance, based on the explorations
that flourished as of the 15th century. Medieval Western maps represented the east at
the top because it was seen as the allegorical direction in which Jerusalem lay (the rising
sun as locus of the “Son of God”: pun intended). Ancient Chinese maps showed the south at the
top, ostensibly because the map represented the Empire as seen from the perspective
of the Emperor, who was seated in the north facing south. It is not clear just when
Chinese maps adopted the convention of north-at-the-top. The China-centered world
map Matteo Ricci introduced to the Chinese mandarins around 1600 depicted the north
at the top, but its influence is hard to assess.
6
Australian “Down-Under” Map of the World
DOWN-UNDER Map particulars:
This map is not altogether serious in intent, but it nonetheless helps to underline that
what is at issue here is not geography but culture, or, more precisely, that geographical
views themselves are visible manifestations of culture. The "Down-Under" map reverses
the long-standing Western convention that the top should represent the north. That this
practice is only a convention is clear from maps mentioned earlier, from medieval
Europe or from ancient China. It is good to be reminded of assumptions that were
previously invisible because, only then, can we discover how they may have channeled
our perceptions or our thinking.
This Australian map, however, undercuts its own primary intention to expose
conventions of habitual Western cartography. Because this map employs the bad old
Mercator projection, it perpetuates the downplaying of the Southern Hemisphere. So
Australia, along with the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, gets no closer to its true
proportional size than in the USA Mercator-projection map we just looked at. Still worse,
Antarctica does not even appear: surely a mistake for anyone interested in the future of
Australia over the next century or so.
7
New Zealand Map of the World
NEW ZEALAND Map particulars:
This map comes from a New Zealand geography textbook from the 1950s. By
choosing a very special projection of the globe into two dimensions, these mapmakers
managed to center the capital city of Wellington, on both east-west and north-south axes.
This is the only map in the present collection that manages national centrality on both
axes. For the record, the technical name of this projection is known as the “azimuthal
equidistant projection.” The lurking southern presences of other continents, as the Cape
of Good Hope in Southern Africa or India or Patagonia at the southern tip of South
America, are somewhat difficult to recognize. But, then, geographical clarity was never
the point. Note that Antarctica receives a holistic treatment for the first and only time
among these maps.
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New USA Map of the World
USA ROBINSON PROJECTION particulars:
This map, now actively being promoted by the National Geographic Society for
classroom use, suggests that there is some hope that habitual American views of the
world may become less ethnocentric as time goes on. The new Robinson Projection
corrects for several blatant features of unthinking ethnocentrism in earlier Mercator
maps of the Rand-McNally type.
Most obvious of all is the willingness to move North America out of the center of the
east-west axis, which allows for a more holistic vision of the major Eurasian land mass
(though not of the Pacific Ocean).
The equator is nearly in the center, bringing Antarctica into view, and sufficient
curvature is accepted into the representation to reduce land-area distortions based on
distance from the equator (the percentages given in parentheses define the remaining degrees of
distortion for major land areas compared to the globe).
Early attempts to market the Robinson Projection in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in
commercial failure for the Rand McNally Corporation, its developer, because local
school boards and even geography teachers felt that it “misrepresented” the world they
were familiar with, that is, the world as represented according to the Mercator Projection.
The National Geographic Society took over the distribution rights and as of the 1980s
sponsored associations of geography teachers in all fifty states as part of an effort to
educate teachers and school boards about maps. As time goes on, the Robinson
Projection is gradually displacing the Mercator in US classrooms. From the point of view
of cultural awareness this evolution constitutes an improvement.
9
United Nations Map of the World
UNITED NATIONS Map particulars:
This map is unusual because it is not the product of any one nation but rather one
which is actively distributed by the United Nations. This map incorporates the Peters
Projection, more properly called the Gall-Peters, proposed in 1974 by a West German,
Dr. Arno Peters. The United Nations sponsors its distribution as the only one of all the
possible maps of the world that responds appropriately to political issues of equality
within the United Nations. In this map each member nation receives map space
proportionate to its land area. The Gall-Peters Projection elongates land shapes on a
north-south axis proportionately as they near the equator. Since longitude and latitude
are represented by straight lines, as in the Mercator Projection, this progressive
elongation around the equator has the effect of equalizing relative land masses
everywhere on earth. In this way north-south and east-west directional relations are
readily assessed, though at the cost of considerable distortion in the equatorial regions.
Here is a reminder that there are political implications lurking behind all choices of
mapping conventions. As we have seen, no one map of the world can be said to be
definitive or undistorted.
10
NASA Map of the World
Particulars of this map from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA):
This “out-of-this-world” map presents itself as a “first-of-a-kind portrait from space,”
but the metaphorical implications of “portrait” are misleading. To unpack the
presumptions that are embedded in this map, it helps to ask a few leading questions:
1. What is the season of the year when this portrait was taken?
2. Why are there no rain clouds anywhere on the earth in this portrait?
3. What was the time of day or night when this portrait was taken?
The answers to all three questions point in the same direction: this is no “portrait” but
a composite assembly of thousands of satellite photographs that originally covered four
square kilometers each. These were selected to give maximum sharpness of detail and
maximum vegetation (and hence minimal snow cover) from any time of the year.
In fact, if the earth ever looked like this, the human race would be in deep trouble,
probably doomed. There would be no prospect of rain – anywhere in the world. There
would be no more seasons – anywhere in the world. And no more alternation of night
and day – anywhere in the world.
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Conclusion
As should be clear by now, the root issues here concern not cartography but cultures.
These maps amount to a global sampling of ethnocentrisms. Each, with the exception of
the United Nations and NASA maps, is a view of the world produced for the education –
more precisely the enculturation – of new members of the home culture. Like the
cultures whose ethnocentric visions they embody, each has its claims to utility,
legitimacy and credence; but not one is true to actual geographical fact.
Everywhere in the world people map themselves as world-central with others as
relatively peripheral. These maps serve as a visible manifestation of mental constructs
which are central to human identification with their home culture. The problem with maps
begins when students – and the adults they become – forget that maps are maps. Then
they start believing that the world in fact looks like the artificial representations that they
grew up with.
The same is true of cultures: one’s own culture will likely seem universal unless or
until one finds a way of stepping outside its framing devices at least provisionally. As an
alleged Chinese proverb circulating in the West has it: The fish does not know water.
The point of comparing ethnocentric culture mappings, then, is not to reject any of
them, but rather to invite us all to modify our attitudes to whatever world map we
happened to grow up internalizing. What we need to understand is that all such
representations share an arbitrariness that reflects the historical circumstances of their
culture of origin at a particular time. Therefore no one of them deserves to be taken as
universal or reliable. Each one could have been different, and in the past its
predecessors have been different.
What observers of cultural ethnocentrism are invited to do is to adapt their attitude
toward their own enculturation: to realize that it need no longer be taken literally, as
defining reality, but as one culture among others. The end product might be described
as an enhanced cultural awareness.
The relevant conceptual strategy is based on two conjoined basic principles:
1. Ethnocentrism is universal.
AND
2. All ethnocentrisms have in principle an equal claim on human legitimacy.
These affirmations do NOT imply that all cultures are equally attractive or admirable:
judgments of that sort depend on what premises one starts from, within what grounding
of values, and from what subjective position one looks at the world.
How could these two combined principles possibly be accepted, objectors will say,
when the very nature of ethnocentrism is to affirm the priority of one group's values (ours)
over those of all others?
All ethnocentrisms, assuming that they at least admit the existence of others, cannot
convincingly ground their claims to superior legitimacy in a way that is binding outside
their own group. Short of annihilating every other in the world, they will be obliged to
admit some version of a pluralistic principle that grants the other the right to exist.
All cultural conceptions of value come into being within a specific cultural context.
They are themselves cultural constructs [link: cultural constructs]. From a cognitive
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perspective, these are heuristic (teaching) devices designed to form the next generation in
prolongation of our in-group ways. Hence, schools might help promote the level of
cultural awareness appropriate to WCwCC by keeping two or three different world maps
on the classroom wall. In that way, the individuals studying there would find it harder to
take any particular one as authoritative. No one map is unproblematic, but at least
people growing up with two maps in mind would find it harder to forget that fact.
To increase the level of sophistication of cultural awareness, it may help to
concentrate for a moment on the process of monolingual people learning foreign
languages. Teachers have known for a long time that a second foreign language is
notably easier to learn than one’s first foreign language. The reason has less to do with
the particular languages than with a change in the learner’s understanding of the native
language. Taking a first foreign language seriously implies grasping the fact that one’s
native language is fundamentally an artificial code system, not a universal key to reality.
Once that insight is ingested it is easier to cope with any number of other code systems,
as is the case of in learning new computer programs.
The most promising move we can make to not be entrapped in unthinking
ethnocentrism, lies not in seeking to get beyond culture altogether (an inconceivable
process), but by adapting our attitudes toward whatever culture has been primary for us.
Once we recognize that our own enculturation is neither universal nor authoritative for
others, we can recognize it for what it has always been in world terms: our culture, one
among many. Such a posture frees us to engage in cultural comparisons, in dialogue
with others.
Here is a personal anecdote, by way of illustration, which, though it may seem
homely, aims precisely at home truths. Back in the days before World War Two when J
G Blair first went to school he met other five-year-olds who drank Coca-Cola. That
seemed remarkable because that beverage was forbidden in his house. Perhaps it
seemed all the more interesting for that reason. He hastened to report these new facts
to his mother. She, a doctor’s daughter and a conscientious parent (that she was and still is
at age 101 in 2008), remained inflexibly convinced that Coca-Cola was not good for children.
So there was still no Coca-Cola permitted in his house. What he had earlier thought to
be a rule of the world turned out to be simply a rule of his house. It was J. G. Blair’s first
encounter with what we now call comparative culture studies.
What was learned from this exposure was of capital importance: the rules of home
remained unchanged, but they were for the first time recognizable as such: no longer
universal rules, but home rules, our way of living.
Similarly, in comparative culture studies, recognizing the legitimacy of others does
not change who one is or where one comes from. With rare exceptions, humans
continue all their lives to see the world through the lenses they acquired in the process
of growing up in their home culture. But awareness of cultural differences opens the
possibility of respecting the fact that others look at the world through other lenses. The
enemy is not ethnocentrism, a human universal, but an unthinking ethnocentrism that
would deny the legitimacy of any other way of life.
In short, the people of the world can begin to communicate with each other once they
admit the reality of ethnocentrisms. A further step toward enhanced intercultural
communication is to become as conscious as possible of one’s own cultural formations –
not an easy task because our own unspoken premises can only be discovered indirectly
and intuitively. At the same time, one can begin to grasp what it must be like to approach
the world on the basis of different premises, within different worldviews. This is where
comparative civilization studies go to work. The following documents develop some
concepts and guidelines useful for pursuing them.
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In Chinese idiom, the spirit guiding this whole enterprise is encapsulated by the Song
poet Su Shi (!" 1037-1101), in a poem entitled “Written on Wall of West Forest Temple”
(#$%&)
'()*+),
-./0123
2456789
:;<=>6?
Sideways a mountain range, vertically a peak.
Far-near, soaring-crouching, never the same.
No way to know Lushan’s true face
When you are in the middle of this mountain!
[Source: http://www.mountainsongs.net/poem_.php?id=111, 070610, translator not identified]
The implications should be clear. To see where one is, one must step aside far
enough to get a distanced perspective, physically or imaginatively or both. This act of
the mind is indispensable in comparative culture studies.
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