America Divided by ... Uh, Passports?

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

– Mark Twain

Here’s something fascinating on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to begin. This is a snapshot of passport ownership - over the last four years - by state.

Humans are hard-wired to look for patterns. And I readily saw some patterns here - it’s tough not to fall headlong into the Post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Yet, look at it … red states vs. blue states. High median income states vs. lower median income. States with more ‘diversity’ vs those worried unduly about illegals/gays/anything different. Centers of technology and higher education vs. those without.

The possibilities for interpretation beggar the imagination.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

–  Henry Miller

Try looking at this map through the lens of the Democratic Party or the Tea Party. Although you can’t base much causation on a simple map, it’s rather easy to look and see where intolerance/ignorance hold sway seems to be correlated with where folks haven’t ventured out much. The places where continued and persistant belief in the ‘exceptional’ nature of America is entrenched seems to mesh with the same places where folks simply haven’t seen anything else to compare it to.

Your thoughts?

-maven