travel and philosophers to back to the european age of discovery
travel allows for contact with the other/the unknown which allows for reflection or gaining knowledge
travel vs tourism
tourism is not interacting with the place or people in meaningful ways
in making travel more accessible usually the other starts to become erased
however complaints of homogeneity in cities in not new
maps are socially constructed and process and mental interpretations
google maps = process = always changing
maps represent goals like google maps is trying to highlight business
a lot of early travel was for science
anthropology was later but people still tried to record things about the people they saw
people would take rocks, seeds, artifacts, etc to bring back to brag about or for scientific advancement
people were excited to expand the boundaries of human knowledge
travel allows us to see different forms of society and see different customs to show not much of human nature is innate
desires are innate but ideas are not
color perception, time, etc are all culturally mediated ideas
tourism started as rich people doing a grand tour as spurred by lots of travel writing
they wanted to grow up and become more worldly
officially it was about education but mostly it was to have fun like gamble, drink, and court women (either prostitutes or otherwise)
as travel became cheaper the middle class was able to do it
travel writing was sometimes satirized or used as a form for other stories like utopia stories
mountains used to be seen negatively
however they seem infinite and through a philosophy of space making god be the infinite space of which we inhabit people began to associate the earthly infinite appearing things as godly
it recontextualizes the unknown quality of the sheer scale of it from scary and bad to divine and awe inspiring—thalassaphobia is an example
the sublime is pleasurable in part or because it is dangerous
it allows us to appreciate or feel our mortality more closely in a way that is safe—we are close but not too close to these dangerous forces
skyscrapers and other engineering marvels may not be sublime but there certainly are ways that humans have been able to get us closer to danger while being relatively safe like nuclear power or shark diving
why do we crave the sublime? it’s pleasurable and some people like the terror adrenaline rush but is different and awe inspiring than skydiving
the very large and the very small both can inspire awe
american transcendentalism and environmental philosophy like thoreau led to conservation and by extolling the virtues of nature simplicity self reliance etc
travel was seen as a masculine and dangerous activity and women were usually forbidden or restricted from traveling
doom tourism is a self perpetuating cycle
education of the sites could lead to better preservation efforts but many people just want to go to see it before it’s gone
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