Maps, Atlases, and the Case for Being Completely Wrong

Editorial Assistant George Logan muses on how, sometimes, being incorrect can be much more fun   

There are several things that a person might expect to see on a first trip to New York City, a place that some, mostly Americans, state brazenly is the greatest city on Earth. Hot dogs, bodegas, speakeasies, and a man yelling “watch it” from a yellow cab. I saw, felt, and heard all of these things on a recent trip to the Big Apple in December.

What I did not expect to find, however, was the 14m tall statue of Atlas, a titan of Greek mythology, outside the famous Rockefeller Centre. There he stood, holding up the sky on his back in spherical form—his punishment from Zeus for warring against the Olympians. Though built in an Art Deco style rather than an attempt to recreate any classical Greek style of sculpture, it was a gentle reassurance that, despite all the swear words and reckless driving, this is still a city of art and culture. 

As if he were hearing my sentiment, while looking up at the statue, I overheard a man wearing a tweed sports jacket telling his girlfriend, rather incorrectly, that the statue depicted Atlas holding up the physical world, rather than the celestial. When he glanced at me, I gave him an agreeable nod—after all, if believing something makes the world feel a little bigger and brighter, who am I to deny him. After all, believing that Atlas is holding up the Earth itself makes for much better writing metaphors.

My somewhat ignorant belief that most Americans’ view of the world is that America IS the world was muddled by this encounter. But this man’s misplaced enthusiasm was a reminder that sometimes being wrong is just more fun - especially in a time where we have access to being right about everything whenever we want it. 

From this line of thought and from staring at Atlas, memories of an atlas globe that my family owned when I was young flooded to the forefront of my mind. With its ornamented curved arm holding the sphere on its axis, I had always thought it an expensive and treasured curio of my parents. Most likely, this was not the case. The recurring pattern of my mother and father’s taste in interior decoration was cheap ornaments made to look expensive in true

post-war British fashion. 

Yet, I would not have cared - the globe was my ticket to anywhere I wanted to go. I fondly remember spending entire afternoons spinning it, imagining what the places that my finger landed on were like. What language did the people there speak, what strange things did they eat, and most importantly to a 7-year-old boy, did they have elephants?

Without access to a computer to confirm or deny any of my ideas concerning what these places looked like, they remained confined to my daydreams. Though it wasn’t in use at this point, our Google overlords had not yet seized our imaginations. We thought that being able to look things up in a heartbeat would be a modern freedom, but all it did was put our sense of wonder in a prison with walls made from code and bits instead of steel and concrete. 

Maps have suffered a similar fate. They used to exist in an adjacent plane of being to architecture, blending art with functionality. But now the need for instant results has devolved the map into a digital tool, mostly used for finding the fastest route between home and a night out. When a map spread open could cover a dining room table with just the topography of a small town in Italy, the world felt big enough to be worthy of Atlas’ burden. Now he might as well be holding up a golf ball. Sometimes I wonder if the American who thinks that Africa is a country has it better - imagine his surprise when he finds out that there are two Sudans now. What would the mighty half-man, half-god say if he could see what we have done with his legacy?

Perhaps that is why classical maps that turned out to be wrong are so intriguing. They are a window back to a time when ignorance was full of possibilities. Some early Dutch maps from the 16th Century depicted what they thought was Australia (terra australis) and Antarctica as one massive supercontinent. If these were the maps we use today, I might set out from my little terrace house and walk in a straight line to the South Pole, battling ice breaks and elephant seals, Shackleton-style. 

Like in my hypothetical adventure, Shackleton never actually reached the South Pole. We don’t revere him as one of history’s greatest adventurers for his successes, but for his indefatigable fortitude and determination to save as many of his men as possible when everything went pear-shaped. 

They say that history belongs to the victors, but perhaps it really belongs to those who got it wrong but kept going anyway—like Shackleton and the man in the tweed sports jacket. So, next time you are at a function, and some faux-intellectual type tells you a fact that sounds impossible, just go with it. It will probably be more entertaining for the both of you.

by George Logan