Category Archives: verticalism

Go down Moses

How was the world oriented north? We take it for granted that north is up because you place the more important things on top. But does this mean that people in the South must feel forever inferior? To counter this psychological disadvantage, it is important to understand the historical processes that led to this arrangement. [...]

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West Wing – ‘It’s freaking me out’

It is common when talking about the influence of the world map for people to invoke an episode of the much celebrated US television series West Wing. The appeal of this series lay partly in the way its director Aaron Sorkin’s was able to tie together events on the world stage with the personal lives [...]

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The fall of South

‘Perhaps universal history is but the history of several metaphors.’ Jorge Luis Borges  If you’re in Pretoria, you go ‘down’ to Johannesburg. Melbournians travel ‘up’ to Sydney. Cariocas in Rio pop ‘down’ to São Paulo. The expression ‘up’ or ‘down’ has nothing to do with any incline in the journey. Then why do we use [...]

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