It is said that an image is worth a thousand words. That may be a truism, but not one with universal applicability. With reference to a great many modern images it is mere hyperbole. But with reference to some, such as the one below, it is an understatement. It speaks not a thousand words, but volumes.
This image is so pregnant with meaning--cultural, economic, environmental, political, social--that it could well serve as the opening to a university course on human geography. I hope it is put to similar uses. It is stunning, mind numbing. I sat there for quite some time, just staring at it, looking at various areas of the globe and comparing those to other parts.
The scope of its significance is such that I could not immediately think of a term to adequately categorize it. Fortunately my partner piped up and gave me the term 'human geography', a definition of which is as follows: "the branch of geography dealing with how human activity affects or is influenced by the earth's surface" (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd Edition). Although I don't particularly like or trust Wikipedia, certainly not as an independent source, operating as it does on the principle of 'democratized knowledge' (the facts are what the people say they are), they do have a useful and current definition of human geography here, providing a good sense of it's scope.
Take a moment to think about what light means to human civilization, particularly light based on electricity. Two technologies, arguably, underpin the giant leap made by the Western world generally, and America particularly, in it's development (in terms of power especially) ahead of the rest of the world, ahead of civilizations that already had sophisticated systems (architectural, agricultural, civic, cultural, economic, intellectual, literary, philosophical, religious and social) when the so-called Western world was barely emerging from primitive, tribal, hunter-gatherer existence. I think specifically about ancient Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, and Indian civilizations here. Pick up some texts created in those civilizations some time, or visit a relevant section of a Museum, to get an idea of what I am talking about. I'm speaking of course of the printing press, of Gutenberg, and of electricity, of both Edison and Tesla. The former helped Europe emerge as a world leader through the easy and rapid duplication, sharing, and consolidation of information and knowledge, while the latter catapulted America onto the world stage as a technology leader.
There is so much more to say about these things, but this shall suffice for now. Consider this little nugget, this sound byte, as a little thought-stimulant, a little virtual caffeine for the brain.
