The Function of Maps in "Worlding" the World

Maps typically serve as tools to represent the physical landscape, offering predictability and control over the environment. However, "worlding" the world presents an alternative use of maps: to bring the unconscious, invisible, and naturalized aspects of our world into focus. This chapter describes maps as aesthetic tools that challenge our perceptions, encouraging us to hold space for difficult realities that we may have otherwise avoided. By inviting skepticism towards our opinions and desires, maps help us question the origins and implications of our beliefs, and what we could potentially lose by clinging to certain ideologies.

The House of Modernity as a Map

The House of Modernity map synthesizes critical perspectives on modernity into a single image. Drawing on theories from Indigenous, Black, decolonial studies, and post-development theory, this map portrays a house that has grown so large it almost exceeds the capacity of the planet it resides on. The narrative woven through different versions of this map helps spark discussions about the inherent violence and unsustainability of our current system, showing that multiple realities can coexist without being reduced to a single, dominant story.

The Carrying Walls and Promises of the House

The House of Modernity map tells a narrative of expansive growth underpinned by foundations of human exceptionalism and hierarchies based on race, gender, nationality, and other dimensions of identity. The carrying walls represent universal reason and the nation-state, both upheld by Western traditions and the promise of security and homogeneity, respectively. These structures are capped by the tiles of global capitalism that suggest an unsustainable model of continuous economic growth. While the house promises endless consumption and safety, it overlooks the violence and exploitation upon which it is built.

Hidden Costs and Internal Divisions of the House

The map further illustrates the hidden costs of maintaining the house, such as environmental degradation and systemic violence. An additional layer of complexity is presented through the metaphor of global north and south, challenging the simplistic division of wealth and poverty along geographical lines. The metaphorical house contains the penthouse (north of the north), the north of the south, the basement (south of the north), and outside the house (south of the south), depicting the stratification of individuals within this framework of modernity.

Affective and Relational Feedback Loops

Within the House of Modernity, individuals are shaped and constrained by feedback loops that hinge on fear, desire, and perceived entitlements. This section discusses how modernity may imprint default responses within our neurobiology, conditioning us into patterns of behavior that sustain and compound our investments in the house's economy. This indicates that breaking away from the house is akin to breaking an addiction, a challenging process that will be examined further later in this chapter.

Rehabilitating Our Collective Cultural Addiction

Finally, the chapter speculates on the possibility that modern society's dependence on the material, emotional, and transactional economies within the House of Modernity could be framed as a neurochemical addiction. This cultural dis-ease leads to patterns of consumption and behavior that are ultimately destructive, both to ourselves and our environment. The metaphorical narrative suggests that it might be beneficial to look at our adherence to the unsustainable and unequal structures of modernity through the lens of addiction, requiring a deeper cultural rehabilitation process.

The exercises interspersed throughout the chapter aim to make the abstract layers of the House of Modernity tangible, invoking personal reflection on the reader’s place within these structures. By connecting the physical to the conceptual, the exercises encourage us to consider our attachments and aversions within the house, our addictions to the pleasures it offers, and the harm we contribute to by maintaining these dependencies. The chapter culminates with an invitation to reconceptualize our societal values beyond the confines of modernity's promises, considering the transformative potential of acknowledging and navigating this collective cultural disorder.