> To overgeneralize
> grossly, high rates of change in ancient societies
> occur for short periods of time (and often
> precipitated by an outside influence), while a high
> rate of change is more or less continuous in a modern
> society (and often caused by internal dynamics).
Like you, I wonder what exactly is meant by "change". If "progress" is implied, then yes, change used to be much slower (in the West) than it is now.
> I do have a couple problems with this thesis, though.
> Change in what are we purportedly measuring? If we
> are talking about technological progress, I would not
> disagree, since technological change appears to be a
> roughly cumulative function. Likewise for economic
> wellbeing. I am less certain about social change. It
> seems to me that religion changes less now than it did
> two hundred ot two thousand years ago. Fashion in
> America has not changed fundamentally since about 1820
> -- women still wear dresses and men wear pants (not
> togas, or tights, or kilts, or whatever). These
> features are ones where we also have a dearth of
> information about ancient societies like Egypt. The
> writings that remain are largely from a point of view
> of a ruling elite that combined political and
> religious power. It does not tell us much about what
> the common Egyptian thought about the divine, or what
> the lass next door was wearing the other night, etc.
These are all very good points : the crux of the issue I think isn't change as such, but stasis. The preservation of information and habits via writing and other means of recording of information and transferral to the next generation needs to be dominant for change not to occur, whether by means of TV or mythology or indoctrination or whatever. Technological progress is of course the main factor of change in modern society, death coming a close second, but on the other hand as time goes by our societies seem to be becoming increasingly radicalized and conservative. TV is dominant.
But do we really know whether the educational systems of ancient Egypt were as efficient as modern methods of propaganda are ?
The cool thing about Glorantha is that we can experiment with these questions. We know exactly how cultural change occurs : via HeroQuesting ; but it does mean that the ancient RW is only partially valid as a model for Glorantha : your clan isn't going to forget how to do magic feat X just because magician Y dies. Your guardian being, ancestors, and gods/spirits/saints/etc know what the proper customs are, what rituals you need to do, what clothes good people should wear, what food they should eat, and how to do magic feat X.
Change would often be just a synonym of evil, IMO.
> My second problem is that, all of us being modern
> folks, we are fairly thoroughly indoctrinated in the
> ideology of progress -- that, since about 1450,
> technological and economic progress has accumulated
> and accelerated. It tends to arrange our point of
> view so that we see those things that support the
> thesis and ignore those that do not. I question
> whether we can genuinely judge such a subjective thing
> as the rate of change experienced by us vs. that
> experienced by our ancient ancestors.
I agree.
Maybe it would be wiser to think about mutation vs change, such as the usual mutations of women's fashions vs. the change that women can now wear pants too ?
Julian Lord
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