Misreading civilizational borders causes catastrophic errors in global perspective

Evidence

“[A]s far as anyone interested in the contemporary world is concerned,” Fernand Braudel has sagely warned, “and even more so with regard to anyone wishing to act within it, it ‘pays’ to know how to make out, on a map of the world, which civilizations exist today, to be able to define their borders, their centers and peripheries, their provinces and the air one breathes there, the general and particular ‘forms’ existing and associating within them. Otherwise, what catastrophic blunders of perspective could ensue!” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 102

Categorization

• XREF: Braudel’s ‘catastrophic blunders of perspective’ resonates with the library’s recurring theme of misreading social signals — e.g. the apology-misreading Apaches and the strategic silence failures. — connects to: The West’s imagined independence from outside is failing as borders break down — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2015
• SEED: A piece on ‘geopolitical cartography as moral outlook’ — how the mental maps people hold of civilizational borders drive actual policy catastrophe.