Here there be dragons.... or maybe elephants.

I love old maps. You just can't compare them to a Melways, or British Ordinance Survey... or a GPS for that matter.

The maps of old were works of art - detailed, colourful and full of skilled penmanship. And, to a great extent, wrong. And that's a big part of why I love them.

It says a lot about humanity that we can be so rock-hard certain about the way the world is, that we not only draw it in detail but put so much effort to dress it up with iconography, faces blowing the winds, detailed compass roses - all to make it look impressive and official. It looks good, it seems right. Whether or not it is accurate almost seems like an afterthought.

But, no matter how much you dress it up and legitimise it, no matter how carefully drawn it is or how much you promote it: it's either right or it's wrong. We might laugh at the people a few hundred years ago for their ignorance and how wrong it was. But the measure we use to judge that is our own modern maps. The ones we legitimise and label as accurate, with not much more proof than the sailors of old.

I've blogged previously about John Saxe's poem of The Blind Men and the Elephant where six blind men come across an elephant, and each feels a different part and draws their conclusions based on that; then violently disagree on which one is right.

Each man is so convinced of his own rightness, he will defend himself without even considering the possibility that he might be wrong. Just as the mapmakers of old worked with such skill, detail and art to explain to the world how right they were - without considering that they might be wrong.

I'm always suspicious of anyone who takes a position, morally, politically, religiously or otherwise, that discourages being questioned on it. To my mind, any position which refuses to even entertain the possibility that it might be wrong is probably on pretty shaky foundations.

Ultimately, it comes down to simple arrogance. The arrogance of a religion that it 100% convinced that their God demands blood to be shed in It's name. The arrogance of a politician who stands in opposition of a bill simply because the other party support it, without reference to the merits. The arrogance of a doctor who presumes to know what is best for their patient without even asking.

Or the arrogance of a cartographer, who will devote weeks to drawing figures and decorations around the border of their map, utterly convinced that map they surround is flawless.