Commentary on McArthur's Universal Corrective Map

"A number of years ago I was conducting a seminar for government managers at a conference site in West Virginia. We shared the facility with a small international conference, whose participants had met the year before in Geneva, the year before that in Paris. Here they were in the lovely hills of West Virginia but already they were promoting their next year's meeting in Alice Springs, Australia. The Australian contingent had posted a map on the door of their main meeting room - McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World. It attempted to correct the old Mercator projection of the world that was so familiar to all of us. It showed the South on top, with Australia in the center of the map. The map read, in part, "South is superior. South dominates! Long live AUSTRALIA - RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!" Our group of managers chuckled over that, but also engaged in a spirited discussion of perceptions, world views, and the importance of - at least occasionally - seeing things differently. I left the seminar with the humbling knowledge that the discussion about McArthur's map was the-best learning of the week."  Ron Rago, GTN