The UN voted over the weekend to adopt a new more accurate map.
America, and only America, voted against it.
I’ve known for a very long time that the standard Mercator map has major distortions. The most famous, of course, is that Greenland and Africa look like they’re the same size when Africa is fourteen times larger in reality. But I was deeply curious about why only America voted against it so I ended up poking around a bit. It turns out there were also a number of abstentions and concerns from countries like Japan, Ukraine, and India. Interesting reading.
America alone decided to strongly state we should stick with the old map that’s just flatly incorrect. Our representative had some choice words, and here’s part of them:
Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century, and their role in promoting reparations and “cognitive justice.” Resolutions like this and the ideological agenda they promote, are barnacles on our work here, and the reason this institution is losing its credibility.
I thought this was particularly funny ‘cause the rep’s boss has “changed” the name of a Gulf, and a Great Lake, and is floating the idea of changing the name of one of our states.
So how does one interpret this tension where names and presentations matter to America sometimes but other times it’s just “barnacles”?
