Map and Territory

Is your viewpoint a map of a territory? Or is it only a map, scribbled and drawn freehand?

Why are you so concerned to influence, if not control, your opponent's map? Is that a way of planting a flag on territory? Or is it a way of planting a flag on, and colonizing, your opponent's map?

Why, if you are a traditionalist, are you so concerned to argue that your map corresponds to the territory? Why are you so concerned to argue that your opponent's map does not correspond to the territory? Are you truly concerned with the territory, or only with who gets to plant a flag? What makes you think that your flag, or any flag, is yours to plant?

Why, if you are a progressive, are you so concerned to argue that nobody's map corresponds to territory? Why are you so concerned to posit an unbridgeable disconnect between any and all maps and any and all territories? Why do you always grant yourself an unspoken exemption from this blanket disconnect, and why do you get so angry when someone points out your self-granted exemption? Is the game you're playing really anything more than a more roundabout and more dishonest version of the game the traditionalist is playing?

What if there's a territory, and our maps are most of the time at least fairly valid maps of that territory, but our flags are largely invalid, the flags of interlopers without a real claim? What if the territory is, by its very nature, like Antarctica-- a territory that admits of valid maps but not of valid flagplanting? How could either traditionalist or progressive bear to live in such a world?