The Ideas of Carl Sauer in His Specific Ideological View - Essay Example

Sauer’s scientific background also encouraged him to stress the importance of objectively observing other traditions and religions and to teach these methods to future geographers coming up behind him.  Thus, Sauer helped to establish many of the academic structures of present-day geographical studies as well as link the importance of all of these studies in an effort to achieve better understanding among students in sharp contrast from the rather unschooled, strictly physical approaches to the science that had gone before him.

In bringing forth these ideas, Sauer differed greatly from his predecessors, such as David Livingstone, who explored geography on a purely physical plane.  Livingstone conducted his explorations during what is considered the new imperial age of exploration in which was seen as a great expansion of territories and ideas.  In his world, the goals of exploration were quite different from the academic pursuits for the understanding of Sauer’s time, serving to validate European-held beliefs that expounded the idea of an organized universe and serving to claim new lands for God and crown.  Based on their ideas of universal hierarchy, which was further supported by the ideas of Social Darwinism, it was believed the cultures of Europe had seen much higher advancement than those of Africa.  Rather than seeking to learn about the cultures and people they came across, Livingstone and others sought instead to convert them, saving their souls and teaching them the ‘right way to live, thereby losing much of the advantages to interaction, in terms of information regarding the physical landscape as well as a means of learning about their ancient stories and cultures. 

Modern geographers such as Harry Kitchen, on the other hand, have taken to segregating their studies into various fields such as economics and physical geography, but yet have continued to draw out the linkages between these fields.  In writing about the geography of Canada, Kitchen is careful to enumerate the physical geography of the provinces as well as the economic challenges this presents.  The growth of the cities has given Kitchen and others much to study including the impact on the environment, the operations of government and the fuel that attracts individuals into the cities from the country.  As a result of this overwhelming abundance of information, the field of geography has seen additional splintering among scientists; each of the various sub-sciences of geography has further split into areas of specialty and has, at the same time, grown to encompass not only the physical spaces of the city but the spaces of the mind, the virtual reality of the internet and how these relationships are shaped by and shape the culture in which they operate.