Leapin' Lizards Mr.Science!

From: D M McNamara <D.M.McNamara_at_durham.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 10:20:24 +0100 (BST)

   I never said that knowledge (or data) was a neutral phenomenon - far from it, it is politicised....the concept of neutral knowledge was historically created in the 'Enlightenment' episteme (see Foucault's
'order of things'). Indeed, i have been arguing for relativism in my
illumination entries.
  However, not an unbridled illumination - the social and historical context of knowledge tends to limit what is said (but this cannot be objectively demarcated). What i was infact arguing against was
'essentialism,' which Campbell is heineously guilty of. For example, he
believes (as far as i understand it) that all myths tend to have similar features, and to some extent tend to tell similar stories. Certainly, one can impose ones modern bourgeois capitalist manner of thought on the past (it is inescapable) and claim such things, however, one must appreciate that myths themselves are HIGHLY subjective (Levi-Strauss isn't very fashionable these days)....and tend to mean different things, depending on who is telling them, for whom, and where.

   To be truly critical, one must question the nature of data itself - ie. who is it produced for, how and for whom? It cannot be objective (you can think it is, but in an absolute sense it is unlikely someone could prove to me the scientific, value-free existence of data). data could only be value-free and objective if it existed in a world without consciousness, without power relations, which of course is a tautology, because who would make it?

   Essentialism is when one approaches, say, the archaeological record, with a priori theories and objectivity claims ie. 'all men were hunters therefore this skeleton with a spear must be a man' 'in the past there was always women and men (sex same as gender)' 'in the past we were all capitalists, buried our dead in the same neurotic way, and liked sex' etc.   I am thoroughly against this. However, in my case i believed that it may be better to approach the lunar empire as if they were more like romans, just to make it slightly more convincing to myself (because whether you like it or not, at some point many of the glorantha cultures were inspired by RW analogues). Of course, i cannot tell you what to think, but i can perhaps help you to think more critically. For example, the invasion hypothesis is not a historical universal, sometimes things may be going on underneath the surface, and sometimes things are inevitable. For instance, my argument about the lunar empire was based on the limits to capital, which states that unless a society revolutionises itself it will eventually degenerate through inflation and spiralling economic crisis.

   The lunar empire uses money - presumably its economy is more advanced than the barbarian type, where money is often only used in tribute/taxes/buying mercenaries. For example, the fact that the lunars use precious metals for their coinage surely demonstrates that there exists a 'gold standard' of some kind? Obviously, there are also symbolic reasons for the metal chosen eg. silver lunars (Moon) and gold wheels (gold wheel dancers, yelm). But there is also surely more than this.   However, i suppose that there are dangers in using modern philosophy in glorantha. For example, nihilism or critical theory sits uneasily in a world that is quite blatantly chock-full of spirits, gods and magic. Therefore it is quite likely that essentialism is an unquestioned concept - why should people not believe that they have souls when the world is full of spirits?
  However, what did inspire me was the riddle in dorastor given at the back of the book ie. (something like this) 'what is the difference between virtuous thought and action?' Answer: 'Power.' It is curiously Nietzschean, and therefore made illumination more 'alive' for me in games, in that i am able to blither on for ages about it if i want to, just by adapting Nietzsche (because the philosophy of illumination is in no way a coherent philosophy as presented in the Dorastor book and cults of terror). Certainly it helped me 'flesh it out,' and understand why beings found gbaji, ahem, nysalor, so persuasive.

   Furthermore, the economic explanation for the roman collapse i found interesting because it presented another angle on the lunar demise. For instance, in 'king of sartar' we understand the fall in purely mythic terms...battles of heroes and armies, strange beings, invasions, natural disaster, disease, etc. This is sometimes not enough (certainly it is interesting, and king of sartar never purported to be anything more than a book of myth)...thinking about it in a more 'materialist' way perhaps brings one down to earth, and understand the way commerce may have operated, and why they bothered using coinage at all. After all, the roman invasion of britain was far too costly to have just been about glory and ideology (not to mention the fact that rome had been trading with Britain for decades before the first attack).   Ho hum....
    Dominic.


Powered by hypermail