Vantage Point

Based on where you are, what you see might be radically different. But does our language accommodate for it?

What you say is often defined by from where you are looking at it.

We often read about the East, the West and the Middle East in news reports. I used to find it confusing at first.

From where I sit in India, the Middle East would be Burma or Myanmar.

Why is the Middle East to my West?

Now think about a person living in Seattle. What is West for them? Ocean! Think about someone living in Japan, is America to their East or their West?

The way we refer to places is actually defined by the image of the world map that we often see. Torn across the international date line because of the position of the Prime Meridian running through England. And the language seems to be from the perspective of someone sitting in Poland or Greece and commenting about the world. 

Photo by Brett Zeck on Unsplash

You have to make one additional assumption. The world below the Tropic of Capricorn does not exist. 

Is Morocco the west? And how about Panama? 

In English, the world is only referred to in Anglo-centric terms and this unleashes cognitive violence upon those who do not live in Europe. This is even more pronounced in the case of Americans. Little wonder the understanding of geography in America is so screwed up. They do not even have a language other than English to fall back upon!

It is high time we change our language based on our vantage point and stop using east and west in absolute terms.