Killing Cartography

Clarifying my call to abandon the ideal and the prescriptivism it stands for

The publication of the review forum on Cartography: The Ideal and Its History (see previous blog entry) reminded me that some people have taken exception to the position I advanced in its final chapter, that cartography should come to an end. Most bluntly, I wrote:

Don’t get me wrong: cartography deserves to die. (233)

A couple of the commentators in the forum and others on Facebook (when I still used that platform) and elsewhere have challenged this statement, as if I am calling for the end to all the mapping practices of modern map making. As if I am seeking to destroy the huge infrastructure of satellites and institutions, proprietary and open web mapping, GIS and GPS, geodesy and design, the mathematics … the spherical earth itself.

I should, perhaps, have been a bit clearer in my expression and written that

the concept of cartography deserves to die.

(I make my excuses in my own contribution to the review forum.)

But, to be honest, if you’ve read the rest of the book, then you should understand that I see cartography as an idealization, not as an actual endeavor. It is an idealization that coincides closely with much of the mapping activities that go on in the modern, industrialized, digitalized world. It is an idealization that many map makers—and users—seek to make real. It is an idealization that permeates how all in our society understand maps and mapping.

And, as an idealization, it is inadequate. It does not describe, explain, or account for all aspects of mapping in the past or the present. The gaps between the ideal and the actuality are all substantial and significant, even when they seem small and minor. Studying maps and mapping as if “cartography” is real can only be misleading: it perpetuates incorrect and misleading preconceptions and convictions, and it obscures all those lacunae.

There’s an apposite analogy that I ended up cutting from Cartography, I think for reasons of flow and structure. Linguists distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive approaches, especially to grammatical usage. Prescriptivists grammarians lay down laws and rules: thou shalt not split infinitives, dangle participles, or use the passive voice! How, they ask, is clarity and good writing possible without following such rules? Descriptivists, on the other hand, argue that the language is highly flexible and allows for a great deal of variation in form while still communicating in an effective manner. They are interested in how people actually use language and in understanding that usage and its variables; they are interested in innovation and change as much as inertia and tradition as key elements in a language. The same prescriptive/descriptive distinction is readily drawn between those who wish to define “this is how you [should] make maps” and those who ask “how are maps made and used?”

Descriptive grammarians are like H. W. Fowler, whose Guide to Modern English Usage (1st ed., 1926; 2nd ed., 1965) is full of subtle snark. His entry on split infinitives begins by dividing the English-speaking world into five categories:

1) “those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is” (“the vast majority, [they] are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes”);

2) “those who do not know, but care very much”;

3) “those who know and condemn”;

4) “those who know and approve”; and

5) “those who know and distinguish.”

As an aside, this categorization seems to apply to attitudes towards the use of Gerhard Mercator’s now infamous projection; group 2 are especially annoying. (For which see xkcd.)

Descriptivists, of course, place themselves in group 5. They like to point out, for example, that those who hold against the passive voice are themselves amongst the worst offenders in their own writing. They argue that the passive voice plays a crucial role in the English language and is thoroughly useful. (And, yes, many people have no idea about just what the passive voice is and complain nonetheless – category 2.)

The problem for me is that the idealization that is “cartography” sustains, if not requires, a prescriptivist approach, an approach that prevents a complete understanding of maps and mapping. So, yes, we need to kill cartography completely and fully embrace a descriptivist position.

[cover image: detail of title cartouche from José Joaquim da Rocha, “Mappa da comarca do Sabara,” 1778 (Arquivo Público Mineiro). See Junía Furtado, “Um cartógrafo rebelde? José Joaquim da Rocha e a cartografia de Minas Gerais,” Anais do Museu Paulista: História e Cultura Material 17, no. 2 (2009).]