Early anthropologists belkieved that distance is equivalent to the past. Thus, the further away someone is to the European central, the more likely they are to represent the past. This is embedded in the notion of “otherness.” Of course, we no longer believe that people far from us are that (biologically) different than us, but those early thoughts fundamentally framed some of our thoughts about difference.
For most people, those far away or in a distant past feel so still fundamentally different.
What is interesting about the web is that it starts to collapse time and space. In theory, this should eliminate the notions of “otherness” but somehow, in reality, i think that it will just create confusion. I’d hypothesize that people will continue to judge others along their local notions of similarity and create new barriers to time and space that did not previously exist. Of course, perhaps i’m just being pessimistic today.
In the same way, mythology veiws travelling out across landscape as the experience of the unconsciousness.
Our conscious mind is the part of the universe that we know, the unconscious are all the parts that are connected to it but are usually out of sight.
Operating in the presense of the familar is what initially shaped our conscious minds, but the unfamilar brings out the projections in the same way as clouds and ink blots.
This also what causes the damned “Heart of Darkness” effect of colonialsm. The colonizer’s map all of their suppressions onto them.
‘collapsing time’ would be a nice addition to my, the world’s largest, collection of euphemisms for rock grinding (if you manage to get through and agree with the early parts and still adhered to reasonings and reasons for the site you might agree).