I mean, if Australia is sufficiently European to participate in the ESC…
Well, if the San Andreas fault finally stops faffing around and gets on with it…
Western Asia is what people in Eastern and Southern Asia call ‘the Middle East’.
Central Asia is more like the Stans.
And Georgia isn’t far enough north to be called Northwestern Asia.
Hmmm. The Caucuses are tricky. There has to be an official designation, right?
Official designations are easy. Just assemble a couple of important men around a large table, give them a big map and some rulers and Sharpies, and let them work it out.
I mean, when has that ever failed?
I mean, we invented the concept, so of course we made ourselves our own thing. The concept of continent’s was literally invented to distinguish Europe from Africa and Asia. It’s not racism, just literal eurocentrism. But as I said, continents are cultural constructs. It’s just as correct to say that Europe is its own continent as that it isn’t. Just like the discussion whether America is one continent or two or whether India is a subcontinent.
Maybe, but most of them make sense. If you handed a child a globe and asked them to point out the big land masses they wouldn’t have any problem identifying Africa and the Americas and Australia and Antarctica. But no one in their right mind would look at Eurasia and say “that’s two clearly defined continents with a totally non-arbitrary border dividing them.”
The idea comes from the Greeks, but I think that the case could be made that the Mongol Empire ultimately defined the boundaries that are still commonly used to this day.
I have an idea… how about we just call the whole thing Afro-Eur-Asia… People have been moving across the breadth of that landmass for longer than human history now. What constitutes Asia or Europe is constantly a moving target anyway, and is hopelessly mired in all sorts of problematic politics of racism and orientalism.
It might have been medieval European travelers, pilgrims and merchants who defined Europe/Asia. People like Giovanni da Pian del Carpine in Ystoria Mongalorum - Wikipedia certainly written in a period of fear of the Mongol expansions.
How about the European peninsula.
For the Slavic people, it was more than just a fear. It was a major turning point that left an indelible impact on history.
I really do think that Asians had as much of a hand in drawing the map of Europe as Europeans had in drawing the map of Asia, just not in the same eras.
Ok. I get the point. Bad choice of words on my part. And even a bad point of view on my part. Thjemselves and those other guys then.
They the People of the United States, those other guys that want to form an dysfunctional Union, establish Prejudice, insure domestic Terrorism, provide for the common Defiance of law and order, demote the general Welfare, and deny the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our direct descendants, do ordain and establish this Confabulation for the Fascist States of America.
(funny but not funny. I made myself sad)
I do think Africa makes sense to treat as its own continent. Not because of anything to do with humans, but because aside from the Mediterranean margin it has its own distinctive Afrotropical flora and fauna. It also has its own separate geological prehistory before it ran into Eurasia…although by both standards the Arabian peninsula really should go with Africa instead of Asia.
India of course used to be its own island too, but it joined Asia not too long after the Mesozoic, and so far as I know is basically populated by Eurasian groups. If anyone knows anything left from its time on is own I would love to hear!
Just yesterday the twatwaffle said he had a “great night in Louisiana!”, all the while being in Georgia. The state of Georgia. In the United States.
I hear that they’re going to get the Super-Continents back together, and go on tour.
It was part of Gondwana, so there could be interesting legacies!
True, but then again, most people make a distinction between parts of north east Africa and sub-saharan Africa… It’s true that there is very specific flora and fauna, especially in subsaharan, but these categorizations are still often political distinctions that change over time based on our political and social perceptions and less so on geographical and biological distinctiveness. I mean, those things are often invoked to justify the differences, but I doubt that Romans separated North Africa from the European side of the empire. Everyone would have understood the Mediterranean basin as a distinctive whole, because that’s where wealth was created and traded, so that’s where they would have been oriented (not north to those barbarians on the frontier).
To be fair (not really), we do have an awful lot of post-Katrina refugees still living in and around the ATL these days. I see quite a lot of LSU and Saints tags around the city. Somehow, though, I doubt that’s what he meant!
I would definitely think of Rome as more of a Mediterranean than European empire regardless of how you count continents. There is of course politics attached to any scheme we use…treating Afro-Eurasia as a whole has gone with some odd perspectives too.
What’s the point of defending a fascist?
Good question!