Early European explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Pêro Vaz de Caminha attempt to take power over the world they encounter by mapping it (conceptually and literally). For Franco Farinelli, our maps do not represent the earth so much as the earth has come to take the form of our maps. This has the effect of smoothing over all meaningful alterity and reducing the world to what Byung-Chul Han has referred to as the “Hell of the same."

Going through some old notes, I came across an outline I pieced together on a Richard Rorty essay devoted to idealism and textualism that really impacted me. I was a big Rorty fan in graduate school, and I’ve probably never drifted that far away from his brand of pragmatism. I always felt he had a “clear mind, full heart” approach to the humanities in general, even if he was publicly circumspect about philosophy. He was probably right about that, too.