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Thread: [BIRTHRIGHT] Future BHistory
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06-17-2003, 06:04 PM #11
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On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, The Magian wrote:
> >That`s interesting, because I`ve thought that inventions tend to drive
> >social change. Triremes made Athens a democracy.
>
> Wasn`t it the philosophy of the times that made democracy popular?
Chicken and the egg- the oarsmen of the triremes were numerous and drawn
from the non-landed classes of Greece, and they demanded and got political
power. Some philosophers of the times referred to them derisively as the
mob, following their whims, so in answer to your question, I don`t think
that was necessarily so.
> >The stirrup helped lead to feudalism.
>
> Without the idea of chivalry how far would the stirrup have gone?
The mongols conquored most of Asia and into eastern Europe with the
stirrup, their recurved bows, and no concept of chivalry. Chivalry
doesn`t necessarily follow from having horse-mounted warriors, though it
did in Europe, and it might have in the Mongol Empire had they lasted long
enough to get stable.
In Europe, chivalry developed after the mounted warrior became
predominant. When a stirrupped (is that a word? heh) horseman became the
most powerful military unit, social and political structures developed to
support him, giving him land and wealth to provide the horses and
expensive equipment he needed. The chivalric ideal came rather later.
> >The printing press knocked down monolithic religion in
> >western Europe.
>
> OK, but it was the ideas that the presses brought to others that brought
> the change.
The ideas had been around for quite a while. The Catholic church had no
shortage of detractors, from a few centuries AD on, but it wasn`t until
the means of disseminating the ideas came along that anything happened
about it.
> >Guns did away with the aristocracy, first indirectly (by
> >making wealthy landowners less useful militarily & politically) and then
> >rather more directly :).
>
> Political ideologies drove the persons with the guns to shoot at who
> they shot at.
When you have a weapon, and are oppressed, it`s not a political ideology
that makes you kill your oppressor.
--
Daniel McSorley
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06-17-2003, 06:04 PM #12
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel McSorley" <mcsorley@OKKOD.PAIR.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 11:57 AM
> That`s interesting, because I`ve thought that inventions tend to drive
> social change.
We have a lot of examples where a technology arrived which the social order
couldn`t use so discarded. Printing presses were invented earlier, there
are several ancinet examples, but without a high literacy rate, no one
invests in such a device and it languishes as a curiousity. Had the
printing press come to Europe in a 15th century in which the church was
strong and robust, rather than divided and discredited, it probabaly would
have sealed Europe into a single faith permenantly. The arrival of the
press was reliant on social conditions that would accept a press (sufficient
literacy), and had an impact that intensified already existing social
structures, be that religious division (historical) or religious unity
(hypothetically).
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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06-17-2003, 06:49 PM #13
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On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:
> We have a lot of examples where a technology arrived which the social order
> couldn`t use so discarded. Printing presses were invented earlier, there
> are several ancinet examples, but without a high literacy rate, no one
> invests in such a device and it languishes as a curiousity. Had the
> printing press come to Europe in a 15th century in which the church was
> strong and robust, rather than divided and discredited, it probabaly would
> have sealed Europe into a single faith permenantly. The arrival of the
> press was reliant on social conditions that would accept a press (sufficient
> literacy), and had an impact that intensified already existing social
> structures, be that religious division (historical) or religious unity
> (hypothetically).
So had the printing press not been widely adopted at that time, to aid
pamphleteers and reformists, do you think the schism in the church could
have healed?
I think maybe we don`t ascribe as much importance to technological
advances that solidify the then-current social order as to those which
accelerate change. Hell, I`m even having trouble coming up with an
example. Maybe the roman aqueducts, which were really important, but
`all` they did was strengthen roman power in the cities they already ruled
and could build to. So we don`t think of them as having been terribly
important.
--
Daniel McSorley
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06-17-2003, 07:25 PM #14
I don`t think there`s a difference between sociological and technological
advances the way it`s been presented. They may not always be in absolute
alignment with one another, but sociological change is easily viewed as "the
technology of society" and would then just fit in as a category of progress
along with metallurgy, agriculture or electronics. Some advances in
technological fields lead to social developments, some social developments
lead to technical advances. It`s a mutual push-pull just as other
categories of technology act on one another. Better metallurgy leads to
improved mining techniques which leads to better ore production which
improves metallurgy again. A slow rise in literacy creates the need for the
printing press which in turn improves literacy and increases the need for
even better printing presses. Drawing a distinction between technology and
social development is artificial, and doesn`t reflect anything meaningful
about society or technology. In fact, it disassociates the forces that are
in reality part of an interactive system.
Gary
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06-17-2003, 08:37 PM #15
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel McSorley" <mcsorley@OKKOD.PAIR.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 12:33 PM
> Chicken and the egg- the oarsmen of the triremes were numerous and drawn
> from the non-landed classes of Greece, and they demanded and got political
> power. Some philosophers of the times referred to them derisively as the
> mob, following their whims, so in answer to your question, I don`t think
> that was necessarily so.
The institution of the Ekklesia (assembly) had to preceed the radical
democracy. The instritution of the phalanx, and the land tenure that
proceeded it, had to preceed the radical democracy in order to establish the
radical one. Radical democracy, or hoplite democracy for that matter,
require a political institution of a certain size, the city state or
smaller. Other societies invented all of the relevant technologies, why did
they not become radical democracies the way Athens did?
So its very reasonable to presume that the styles of governance of Endier,
Ilien, and Cariele would be different, and more assembly based than realms
like Avanil, Ghoere, or Alamie. Medieval cities also had town based
assemblies, largly dominated and coterminous with the guilds, since guild
membership was also generally a prerequisite to city citizenship (as opposed
to residence).
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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06-17-2003, 08:48 PM #16
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel McSorley" <mcsorley@OKKOD.PAIR.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 1:40 PM
> So had the printing press not been widely adopted at that time, to aid
> pamphleteers and reformists, do you think the schism in the church could
> have healed?
The church was already broken, states were setting up their own Popes (the
Babylonian Captivity being only the most celebrated establishment of what
were many anti-popes), heresies were linking up with national, political,
and social cleavages, encouraging their durability. That someone would come
along to make a final break and declare independence from the broader church
was inevitable.
> I think maybe we don`t ascribe as much importance to technological
> advances that solidify the then-current social order as to those which
> accelerate change.
Pointing to the A-bomb and pronouncing that it changed warfare forever is
glamorous. Pointing to aqueducts and saying that urbanization was
facilitated by clean water and irrigation of rich soils isn`t so much.
Neither is pointing to the long scientific build-up to either A-bombs or
aqueducts and understanding that they are based on a culture of science,
scientific processes, an understanding of the periodic table, the concept of
the chain reaction, &c &c &c.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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06-17-2003, 09:03 PM #17
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Foss" <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 2:06 PM
> I don`t think there`s a difference between sociological and technological
> advances the way it`s been presented. They may not always be in absolute
> alignment with one another, but sociological change is easily viewed as
"the
> technology of society" and would then just fit in as a category of
progress
> along with metallurgy, agriculture or electronics.
If you make certain assumptions, yes. Focusing on the technology itself can
give the impression that one might be a strong advocate that only technology
is relevant.
> Some advances in technological fields lead to social developments,
> some social developments lead to technical advances. It`s a mutual
> push-pull just as other categories of technology act on one another.
That`s because in fact technology is just another catagory of ideas, like
practices, values, and organizing principles. But its important to
distinguish the difference having rifles (Amerindians) and producing rifles
(settlers of European decent). Some games allow technology to move in a
vacuum. The Indians get the rifle technology and can produce riflemen.
That`s not what happened. the Indians got rifles and their traditional
hunters became much more effective in the killing business. If technology
alone is considered, we can`t explain these kinds of things. If we view
technology as a cultural process (metalurgy) connected to other cultural
elements (financing forges) and simply call this the iron age, thats fine.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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06-17-2003, 09:48 PM #18
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From: "Kenneth Gauck" <kgauck@MCHSI.COM>
> Germany perpetuated itself as a realm of small states for hundreds of
years.
> Anuire probabaly has partable inheritance so that a generation after
Avanil
> and Alamie were united, the elder son would get Avanil and the younger
would
> get Alamie. Within realms, one son gets the big title, and other children
> are either set up in other holdings, or they are made counts and get a
> province plus estates in other places. Its one of the reasons that there
is
> not much land directly held by the regent. The fact that daughters appear
> in the geneologies of the various dynasties makes it easy to both forge
> theses alliances and yet maintain a sense that the current heir of realm x
> is a direct decendent of founder x.
>
Germany was never stabilized, but any of a huge numbers of pretenders to
power could have unified it at any point. That this was not done can be seen
as an on the European political stage - since states like France, England,
and Spain united. On the other hand, Italy and Scandinavia also failed to
unite (Scandinavia is still three countries at least as similar as north and
south Italy, and these were actually in union during much of the 14:the
century), so there are examples pointing both ways. Part of the problem for
Italy and Germany was that they WERE formally united in the Holy Roman
Empire - a nation so large and diverse that it couldn`t function.
In Birthright, the empire described in Roele`s day is far too similar to the
empire of "today" to be historically credible. We are never given any
details of Anuire in the period between Roele the last emperor and the
present. This is a very long period (800 years, if I remember right), and a
lot could/should happen in this time. This is the time from Charlemagne to
Louis XIV. It IS possible for a nation to fail to stabilize in such a time
frame, but I find it unlikely. Remember that Anuire is still and culturally
rather homogenous - it is equivalent to France, not to Europe. If the
ambition had been to unite Rjurik and Anuire into ONE empire, I believe the
situation would be closer to that of Germany.
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06-18-2003, 12:33 AM #19
>Daniel McSorley wrote:
>Chicken and the egg- the oarsmen of the triremes were numerous and drawn
>from the non-landed classes of Greece, and they demanded and got political
>power. Some philosophers of the times referred to them derisively as the
>mob, following their whims, so in answer to your question, I don`t think
>that was necessarily so.
>
I don`t that it is a case of the chicken and the egg. A man must have some
ideas before he acts, even to make a boat with oars or demand anything from
anyone. Your premise about the philosophers is true but let`s clarify that
it is limited to some as you said. As for saying it was necessarily so,
this is like saying it cannot be otherwise concluded and I did not say this,
for as far as I am concerned there is nothing in the realm of ideas that
cannot have more than one possible conclusion, including this argument.
>The mongols conquored most of Asia and into eastern Europe with the
>stirrup, their recurved bows, and no concept of chivalry. Chivalry
>doesn`t necessarily follow from having horse-mounted warriors, though it
>did in Europe, and it might have in the Mongol Empire had they lasted long
>enough to get stable.
>
Again with the necessarily so logic. I agree that chivalry is not necessary
to the cultural development in direct relation to the stirrup. However the
mongols had their own form of culture and honor system like all cultures.
It may not have been based on chivalry but it was their and the warrior was
the center of the theme.
>In Europe, chivalry developed after the mounted warrior became
>predominant. When a stirrupped (is that a word? heh) horseman became the
>most powerful military unit, social and political structures developed to
>support him, giving him land and wealth to provide the horses and
>expensive equipment he needed. The chivalric ideal came rather later.
>
After the success of the sitrrup? Okay but didn`t the romanticism keep the
stirrup alive in culture? Even if I yield that chivalry was an effect of
the stirrup, the stirrup didn`t come about a priori.
> > >The printing press knocked down monolithic religion in
> > >western Europe.
> >
> > OK, but it was the ideas that the presses brought to others that brought
> > the change.
>
>The ideas had been around for quite a while. The Catholic church had no
>shortage of detractors, from a few centuries AD on, but it wasn`t until
>the means of disseminating the ideas came along that anything happened
>about it.
Yes, but it was the ideas that made the change in the minds of the people.
The currency of how ideas get spread is a tool not a cause of change. The
press in its infancy originated as an idea.
>
>When you have a weapon, and are oppressed, it`s not a political ideology
>that makes you kill your oppressor.
>--
Yes it is, feminism, marksism, afro-centrism, dramatism, and cultural
critiques are forms of ideological criticism that all developed from
oppression. Through these ideologies a person can look at the world and as
a result change their view and become motivated to make change, e.g.
revolutionaries pointing guns at their oppressors.
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with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.One law, One court, One allied people, One coin, and one tax, is what I shall bring to Cerilia.
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06-18-2003, 12:33 AM #20
Stephen Starfox says:
> In Birthright, the empire described in Roele`s day is far too
> similar to the empire of "today" to be historically credible.
> We are never given any details of Anuire in the period
> between Roele the last emperor and the present. This is a
> very long period (800 years, if I remember right), and a lot
> could/should happen in this time. This is the time from
> Charlemagne to Louis XIV. It IS possible for a nation to fail
> to stabilize in such a time frame, but I find it unlikely.
> Remember that Anuire is still and culturally rather
> homogenous - it is equivalent to France, not to Europe. If
> the ambition had been to unite Rjurik and Anuire into ONE
> empire, I believe the situation would be closer to that of Germany.
We should also recall that Anuire is subject to some cultural pressures
that historical Europe was not.
The Roele dynasty can claim, on far more solid grounds than any
historical monarch, to have a divine mandate. We should also remember
that the patron deity of the Anuireans is also the patron of monarchs.
This is likely to prompt Anuireans towards greater respect for and
obedience to the imperial `centre`.
(P.S. Hi everybody! ;))
--
John Machin
(trithemius@paradise.net.nz)
-----------------------------------
"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."
Athanasius Kircher, Ars Magna Sciendi.
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"Power performs the Miracle." - Johannes Trithemius
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