One might equally say that the view that were was a single objective answer to everything, which can be reached by reductionistic logic, was equally 'a very late 20th century attitude' (or a 19th century Rationalist one, if you prefer). But that's not really the point, either. The challenge of Glorantha, for me, to understand each culture in a manner that makes sense for it, not to try and understand some awkward compromise version of it that sorta-works for everything, but doesn't quite ring 100% true for everything. If I'm playing an Orlanthi, for example, why should I be burdened with anyone else's Truth? Mine is completely correct, was good enough for my ancestors, and anyone that says different is a traitor, fool, Riddler, or otherwise in need of a brisk bit of killing. That this worldview might not be very satisfactory in explaining the nuances of Doraddi myth, or Lunar philosophy, is no vice.
> The considerable debate and confusion about the answer to Peter's question
> is a good sign that this approach doesn't work so well for a game system.
> Yes, each culture puts its own spin on various events and theological
> relationships, but when you get right down to it, the world has to have come
> from a particular place, regardless of how many different stories are told
> about it.
No it doesn't. Even Greg's self-consciously God Learnerised account of things for purposes of HW (which he's stated reasonably recently in public is just a useful approximation) has the world coming from four (or so) _different_ places... (Or maybe I should say 'places'.)
> The same applies to Yelm. There is one body which passes across
> the sky during the day. Different cultures might have different names and
> tell different stories about that body, and one might distinguish, as
> someone did recently, between the Yelm the Sun and Elmal the Solar
> Charioteer, but ultimately there can be only one thing up there going across
> the sky.
And thus?
> As a friend of mine recently commented, God Learnerism has spilled out
> into the RW Glorantha community.
I believe this is confusing criticism of God Learnerism with its target.
> Chaos is a good example of this. Is chaos evil and destructive to the
> world? Most cultures say yes, the Lunars say not necessarily. But clearly,
> I think, everything suggests that Choas is destructive and essentially evil.
"The Lunars are talking inherent and fundamental bollocks" would make a poor basis for a Lunar sourcebook, don't you think? The details of the 'objective moral status' of chaos is not a very simple one, and other cultures have significantly different takes from that of the Heortlings and the Praxians, so inferring from that as 'norm' would be misleading, IMO.
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