> From: David Dunham <david_at_...>
mentions
> Common sense to you perhaps because your ancestors have been doing it.
This is a cue to remind people of the natural conservatism of people
who live on
the edge of survival. I hesitate to use the word "prmitive" people,
because this
carries the cultural baggage of modern people thinking they are less
intelligent
than modern people, which is patently false.
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
>> Remember that the events in this story took place after the Great
>> Darkness. People had lost almost everything. And now the entire world
>> is open to them again.
>
> There's that - as someone else said, they even had to adjust to the idea of
> night and day. Maybe they hadn't seen a working fruit tree for a few
> generations.
Or more likely, only for a couple of generations. The missionaries reached Talastar within the first half century after the Dawn.
> From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
joins the scepticism train with
> And the people survived in the Great Darkness because of hunting/
> gathering/scavenging lifestyle. Which makes the inability to recognize
> edible material come the dawn rather odd.
I'd suggest their lifstyle was more of scrounging/hiding.
But whatever we call it, recognizing edible materials is not a natural,
in-born
ability for humans. Numerous examples of this can be pointed out. I suggest
tomatoes as a starter.
In response to my
>> But the important point is that they were INCAPABLE of knowing or
>> understanding
>> this--and many other things--before the magic and subsequent
>> teaching had raised their consciousness to the knowledge.
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
responds
> Now *that* is a fascinating concept, and a completely new one on me. So
> their understanding, their basic intelligence, had somehow dropped from the
> standard human level?
In modern terms, this is true. But in Gloranthan terms, pehaps the term "soul loss" or "god loss" would be more accuate.
> That explains why the missionaries couldn't just use
> normal teaching methods, simply telling them "These red things taste nice,
> those other red things kill you".
Trust was not something that existed in the Great Darkness.
> But how? And why? And how on the lozenge had they survived the Great
> Darkness in the that state? Is this something to do with falling back on
> animal instincts as a method of survival?
It is easy to lose knowledge. Happened all the time in pre-literate cultures. Especially when certain types of knowledge were kept to certain classes of people. Compound this with a 99% population loss and total ecological disaster (the Darkness) and you see wher they "forgot" things.
Then remember that in the darkness even the known things that survivived were
often warped and corrupted. So we have these ragged, fearful survivors
who know
a few safe things to eat, and they live upon those, and are rightly afraid to
try anythign new, since it is a tremendously hostile environment.
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
proves that modern comparison are not really acceptable comparisons
> True. The exotic fruit counter is fun. But I've learnt all this, by
> experience as you say, with no magic required. And no necessity or
> starvation to drive me to it.
That is not a fair comparison at all. You have built upon the learning of
generations of change.
Let's see, here are some exotic frits from the far corners of the
world, brought
to a place where you have learned that the foodstuffs are safe, by
methods that
are so fast that they are still ripe and edible.
It is simply not a fair comparison to compare a modern grocery store to living
in a hostile environment where even a small wound or small amount of
poison can
disable a person.
> From: Labrygon_at_...
provides some suitable examples of the difficulties of learning
> By primitive we could compare them with several
> RW cases where they are 'ignorant': the first white settlers in australia who
> almost failed to survive due to the peculiar condition(ignorant of the
> conditions) ; with children from those orphanages where they lack any
> affection and
> are deeply psychologically scarred as a result (ignorant of emotion), with
> 'wolf children' who are reared by wolves, with modern people with irrational
> phobias, with religions where there are food taboos.
and also some insight on the conservatism of peoples
> These people survived the darkness but it was probably so horrifying that
> they dare not try anything other than what they did to survive.
> Perhaps they eat
> the meat of squirrels because they are the only beasts that did not poison
> them, perhaps they never saw fruit growing on trees before but only
> managed to survive by digging up grubs, chewing on roots, or
> cannibalism.
> The lightbringers are teaching these people how to live again, rather than
> merely existing is misery. The darkness really was as bad as it could get
> without them all dying. They must have been tough, or good at hiding,
> and resilient,
> but they did not have the luxury of innovation, or nice food, or any sorts of
> real pleasures.
>
> That's just my view.
And mine as well.
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
brings up a fairly tyupical materialstic perspective by wondering
> And from what Greg says, this is because the
> people they were teaching had been brain-damaged, somehow. And the
> missionaries hadn't, somehow.
First of all, I never said they were brain damaged. That is your
interpretation.
Please careful about differentiating between what I said and what you have
inferred.
They were not brain damaged. They were soul damaged.
>> They must have been tough, or good at hiding, and resilient,
>> but they did not have the luxury of innovation, or nice food,
>> or any sorts of real pleasures.
>
> And certainly not the luxury of *not* trying to eat anything they could lay
> their hands on.
This is just overstatement. Most things in the world are not edible at all. Couple this with--I say it again--the fact that most things were poisonous or dangerous, and your assumption here is groundless.
> "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a proverb
> for good reason - because it's true.
Only in particule, perhaps peculiar, circumstance. We need plenty of
things even
today that have not been invented. Humanity went for millenia without things
that might have improved their lives. And without trying to invent them.
Also, available materials are the father. The survivors had enough to survive, miserably and in fear. They certainly had experiences of tyring new things and failing for the vast majority of times.
> From: "Jeff Richard" <richaje_at_...>
reminds us
> I don't think that the non-Lightbringer survivors of the
> Darkness were "brain-damaged". They just couldn't see or understand
> that the Great Darkness was over. I remember one story where they
> couldn't even see the Sun in the sky.
Some could not "see" it. Others could not recognize it for what it was. Heck, they'd been getting by for ncounted generations, and suddenly this new demon appears that burns them and simultaneously their world begins to change, with strange new growths appearing all over...
> Glorantha is a magical and mythical world - there is not always a
> material explanation for things.
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
> Exactly. Their brains were damaged. Or their eyes, though that seems
> unlikely. In this case, they'd lost the ability to understand and to learn -
> brains.
Brain damaged is a materialistic explanation. Materialsm does not work here. If they were brain damaged they could not have learned afgterwarfds.
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
again
> Let's take a look way, way back at what Greg actually suggested.
>
> "So first, recognizing food is not simple. But the important point is that
> they were INCAPABLE of knowing or Understanding this--and many other
> things--before the magic and subsequent teaching had raised their
> consciousness to the knowledge."
>
> Yep. Looks like brain damage to me.
And that cluster of apples looked like poison to the Hagolings.
However, what it
looked like was not so.
> Whether induced magically (eating the
> wrong root), mythically (do a HQ that trades brains for the ability to
> digest anything), or whatever, what they'd lost was the ability to
> understand things. And the missionaries, somehow, gave it back to them.
Yes. They reopened or healed or recovered the parts o their souls that
had been
damaged by the overabundance of Darkness in the universe.
This is a change in consciousness.
> From: "Rob" <robert_m_davis_at_...>
ends this issue of the digest with a legitimate insight
> Actually I think that they were INCAPABLE of knowing or
> Understanding this--and many other things for spiritual or magical
> reasons, not impaired intellect, which I think is Jeff's point.
>
> I think that just because you can infer something, it doesn't mean
> that it is the explanation.
Especially when it is based on an incorrect interpretation of Gloranthan reality.
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