this is a very sensible response to an already sensible
observation
insensibly tho
ratzels analogy seems to me incomplete or perhaps just
obsolescent
as states are permeable also tho not across any frontiers to
invisible & nonphysical influences
& increasingly so with technological advance
& his observation about growth was flatly contradicted even in
his own day not only by the common addition of overseas
territories but especially by all the vast majority of growth that is
not purely geographical
finally i would like to add here both to ratzel & nijmegen my
nonsensory but real experience
which is that i agree
boundaries do naturally tend to divide the parties all right
for this much is obvious
however
it is the multipoints that naturally tend to unite them
& that is far from obvious & even a mystery i know
& some will call it nonsensical as well as insensible
but it seems to me as vivid & natural as magnetic polarities
--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "lowellgmcmanus"
<mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:
> Before I comment on the message below, I'd like to say that I'm
a
> new member of the group who has been silently observing for
a few
> days. I've been an afficionado of boundaries and their
functions
> since I had the pleasure of doing graduate study in political
> geography under the pioneering forensic geographer Dr. Milton
B.
> Newton about 25 years ago at Louisiana State University.
>
> The functional dichotomy between boundaries as
"meeting-places"
> and "cut-off lines" that is mentioned below reminds me of what
> Friedrich Ratzel wrote in his "Laws on the Spatial Growth of
States"
> (1896). Ratzel proposed an organic analogy for the state that
was
> misused to justify Nazi imperialism some decades later. That
> political incorrectness aside, his fourth law says that the
boundary
> is the peripheral organ of the state. By this he means that it is
> not only the skin, but the semi-permialbe cell membrane of the
> state. It is through this membrane that the state absorbs
resources
> from without, even while using it to filter out that which it does
> not want to come within. Conversely, the same membrane
seeks to
> contain all that is desirable within the state, while expelling
> whatever wastes it can. It is also through the boundary that a
> state receives the simuli that cause its reactions in its realtions
> with its neighbors, and it is the site at which any growth of the
> state occurs.
>
> Far from being the outer edge or last end of something, a
bounday is
> a thing of great vital importance to the states on both of its
sides.
>
> Lowell G. McManus,
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA
>
>
> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Jan S. Krogh"
> <jan.krogh@t...> wrote:
> > The Nijmegen Centre of Border Research
> > «In the dynamics of the internationalisation and globalisation
> geographical
> > borders are more and more considered as challenges for
further
> integration.
> > At the same time however, borders still are considered to be
> barriers in
> > many ways. Borders represent important values of identity of
> people and
> > demarcate the sovereignty of governments. Because of this
tension
> between
> > borders as 'meeting-places' and borders as 'cut-off lines'
borders
> have
> > become maybe more important then ever before in the
European
> society.»:
> >
> > http://www.kun.nl/ncbr/
> >
> > Looks interesting to me!
> >
> > Jan
> > ---
> > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> > Version: 6.0.491 / Virus Database: 290 - Release Date:
18.06.03