To do otherwise is to delve into the peril of political experiment, relying on scholastic intellectualism, passing convenience, transient political populism, disfiguring what must be, settled national consensus referenced from unique historical and
geographical determinism forming national identity, definite territory, and a strong constitution
Approximately the German view, namely,
geographical determinism, or as one German writer put it, "the geographical conscience of the state."
Part of the problem is that we assume some landscapes are more generative of spiritual experience than others, a view Belden Lane names
geographical determinism. As Lane explains:
Moody eschews
geographical determinism, noting that the matter cannot be seen as a conflict between north and south, the developed versus the developing world.
Frank Davey defines
geographical determinism as "a belief that the landscape has or should have--effects on the personalities and perspectives of its inhabitants, [and] leads to the assumption that these effects should have greater importance to the individual than do other possible grounds of identity" (5).
In the introductory piece, Charles Klopp notes the importance of "
geographical determinism" for Triestine literature (4), a recurring theme throughout the essays.