Cultures and their responses to various situations

[David]

So, it's come up a few times at games "well, a Greek would do X different than an Egyptian or general Oerdian". The same has been said for other cultures and various races, as well. In order to make sure we're all looking at this generally the same way, I've created this "cheat sheet" of GENERAL cultural responses to a number of issues. I've included what I think the Californian and general US responses are as well, for comparison. I don't claim to be perfect and if you think I should change something PLEASE let me know WITH the reason why.

Thanks!
David

www.geocities.com/buddhabear_sj/gaming/download/DndCulturalAttitudes.pdf

[Jeff]

What makes you say that Necromancy is "Accepted" in California/USA, while magic (which is a broader term of Necromancy) is discouraged/hated?

[David]

Howdy Jeff,

Ah, excellent question!

First off, let's tackle the concept of magic. What would you do if you went to the doctor for an upset stomache and he said, "take two sugar cubes and put them under your pillow, but before you go to bed, chant 'sweet-tummy, so-yummy' six times"? You'd get a new doctor and view that one as a QUACK! How about an civic engineer that would consult his ley line charts instead of doing soil samples and material analysis for the dimensions of a new freeway entrance? Even MENTION to a devout Catholic that you're going to "cast a spell" on them and you'll probably get at least a case of the "stink eye"! Yet, when it comes to pro baseball, there are a few "magic" rituals that are tolerated (grudgingly)...like what to eat, what to do, or who to talk to (it's called superstition in that context, but it's really magic to those who believe).

The point is, clearly, our culture has an adversarial relationship with what cannot be proven by logic and fact (religion is a separate question and covered in a separate box!). And while in California, we may have friends who are "open" Wiccans, this is NOT a lifestyle that would be viewed kindly in the Midwest or even rural California (such as Butt Lake). Similarly, there are parts of this country that are much more pro-Bible and anti-everything else, which would include anything defined as magic.

Does that answer you for magic?

As for necromancy, our culture, having no belief in the "reality" of magic, also has no objection with what other cultures (that still DO believe in magic) would call the Dark Arts, necromancy, black magic, etc. So, there are LOADS of video games where you have a necromancer animating the remains of his victims and still being a good guy. Ditto for direct attacks against another person's life force. Really, only those who accept necromancy as a potentially real force are squeemish -- like devout (usually non-US-native) Catholics, Kabalists, and practioners of West African-derived faiths, like Santaria or Voodoo.

Our culture takes an ends-vs-means view of magic in general and necromancy in particular. It's cool and badass (think goth!). While there is some (old, lame, unhip) claims that you're hurting something that is nebulous-at-best (a target's soul/spirit) you're still the meanest mo-fo around and getting a very real, material payoff. Which is a reasonable reaction, given that modern America really doesn't believe in magic and take a post-modern view of what it does (it's hard to prove the corruption model of necromancy!)...!

Don't believe me? Well, there is this HUGE wanna-be-vampire movement doing quite well today, while the culture from which these legends sprang views such undead as unspeakably vile and would rather die than become one...so how else would you characterize things?

Does that make sense?

[Jeff]

Yeah, it makes sense. I never really thought of it that way. I was viewing it from a D&D perspective: If someone can create a lightning bolt to hurl at their enemies, they would either be hunted as a witch or considered a badass (probably both, here in California). It comes back to the ends-vs-means stance you described. If someone tried the sugar-cubes under the pillow (eventually you would find someone eccentric or desperate enough to try), and it worked, then word would spread and more people would accept this as a bona-fide cure. My point is that magic would quickly become popular if it could be proven to work.

When re-considering the necromancy part of our culture, I fully agree with what you describe. I simply hadn't occured to me to think of it that way, although goths are still a fringe society.

In my opinion, what you are referring to in the first paragraph is superstition, along the same lines of feng-shuei (sp?) and that weddings under the full moon are lucky.

Also, I know what you mean by the vampire-wannabies. I blame Twilight.

[David]

Oh, buddy, Twilight is just the latest -- 15 years ago all the "cool" gamers were playing Vampire: the Masquerade and reading anything written by Anne Rice.

As for "superstition" or the division between magic, science, and religion, Malinowski (the Polish father of American anthropology) wrote a book on the subject (sitting next to my bed in the "to read next" queue) and there are college classes taught on the subject (including one at SJSU, but take Prof Amiras' version!). Basically, once you can definitively demonstrate "magic" it becomes "science". This is why I refer to the "science of magic" or "magical technology" on various places in my website.

But further, certain cultures (the Norse spring to mind) view magic as a tool for "weaker" people -- especially women -- and those that use magic are somehow lesser, tainted, or not-entirely-right. Odin may be the god of magic and All-Father, but Thor is most-worshipped cuz his dad is also known as "the Terrible One" due to association as a god of the dead. What we would call wizardry was "womanly" (lesser) to the Vikings and this is illustrated that one of its greatest practioners, Loki, actually gave birth to three monsters after he got knocked up while shapechanged (it worth noting that in VERY early versions myths, there was no distinction between Odin and Loki, when the religion was more Celtic). What we call runecasters were the only "butch" form of magic, but even then, not as manly as duking it out with steel!

Finally, I agree with Chris Clairmont's vision of what would happen if a certain group of people could hurl lightning bolts or transform into steel -- I've been an X-Men fan since I was 11. And I have a WHOLE 'nother game universe where players can deal with THAT prejudice...StarQuest using Champions4 rules anyone? The Rocket (Ricky), Volta (Crystal), Rogue (Jaymi), Vector (Dopler), Phantom (Pierre), Flash (Steve), Mystique (Trisha), Jinx (Eric), and many many MANY more all await...!

[Jeff]

Heh. World of Darkness is awsome.

What is the name of this Malinowski book? Can I borrow it? I searched for Malinowski works at the library and came up with nada.

[David]

Bronislaw Malinowski is the father of American Anthropology. He was a Polish Anthropologist who, at the outset of WWI, was on Papua New Guinea and convinced the British to leave him with the natives instead of locking him up for the duration. The name of the book is "Magic, Science, and Religion", was written after WWII, and should be in ANY good collection of anthropology books. My copy has a purple cover and you can borrow it when I'm done.

[Jeff]

Awsome.

Thanks alot Uncle David.

[David]

Cuz my PDFs are now dead...just like GeoCities...8-(

[Jeff]

So now that this is back up (and once again fresh in my mind), I'm gonna ask a few questions.

First up, Greeks being Hated with Matriarchy
This is strongly represented in the myths (Amazonians) and one of the greatest Greek heroes, Heracles, visits and seemingly approves of the Amazonian culture. If the heroes are designed to be the role models of a society, why is this the counter-point of that view?

Norse, Hating Male Homosexuality but being Neutral with Lesbianism
What is the basis for this? I honestly have no cultural knowledge or background here.

The Egyptians being pretty much Okay with anything
Is there anything that they don't like?

The "Pastoral" line.
What exactly does that define?

And finally, Matriarchy within Dwarvish Communities
Wouldn't this fall under Hated? From previous discussions we've had about Dwarvish gender roles and marital behaviors, it seems like any particularly strong women leaders would be discouraged (as female dwarf adventurers are).

Any explanation or extrapolation of these points would be greatly appreciated.

[David]

Lemme start with the Amazons. For most of the last thousand years, historians, philosophers, and "archeologists" (I've a hard term taking per-20th century folks seriously in that role) claimed that the Amazons were actually nothing more than a philosophical foil for Greek philosophers to show "all things wrong when women rule." In many ways, Amazons were the "boogie-(wo)men" of Greek culture. Remember, the Greeks were FIERCELY patriarchal (and they're the reason OUR culture has many of the issues it does regarding gender and equality [although it's only fair to fire a major salvo at St Paul and his contributions via the early Church]). Hercules, actually a holdover from an EARLIER culture (where Heracles, his Greek name, actually means "Glory to Hera" and supposedly the Demi-God of Strength is actually HER kid, and NOT Zeus'), is respectful of the Amazons and takes Hippolyta's Girdle without violence. The Amazons (who really did exist, as we're now fairly sure, albeit NOT as depicted by Herodotus) always lived "beyond the edges of the Greek world" and thus, as a legend to the Greeks, have more in common with "here there be dragons" than much else. Recall their descriptions as "killers of men", "not 'adult' til they'd killed a man", "raped men for babies", "cut off their right breast", etc and you can see that we have more of a mythical "bad guy" than a real society. And, again, this "bad nature" was "explained" cuz "that's what happens when women are in-charge." Oh, yeah, and you can think of the Amazon-culture-as-bad as a last PR battle against the matriarchal Minoan culture which the Hellenes displaced...

Make sense? Compare them to the worst stories of Communists in the 50s or Muslims right after Sept 11th and you get the idea.

As for Herc himself, please recall he was DEFINITELY a SERIOUSLY flawed hero himself (thank you, Greeks, for a good guy who ISN'T Superman!) with his rages and lack of brains. Theseus, he is NOT...which fits cuz Herc had Zeus as his patron and the slayer of the Minotaur had Athena (and sorta Poseidon).

Norse male-homosexuality... Well, if you have no cultural background, you might wanna trust those of us who've researched the topic... Just ribbing you; I appreciate an inquisitive mind...

No, actually, the Norse were PRETTY specific on this point (much like the Aztecs). It was demeaning for a male to be a bottom, so much so that it REQUIRED blood and not weregild (paying gold for a life to avoid constant inter-clan vendettas). The ONLY time man-on-man action was even sorta tolerated was when it was master-topping-slave and even then it was something that could get your back stabbed in a dark alley cuz it was FILTHY to the Norse. Yes, it did happen, but the tops did NOT show off... Meanwhile, women were NOT sexual, other than to serve men and the fantasy of men watching two women go at it and then the man joining in seems to have existed in the Norse (and American) consciousness.

For the Egyptians, well, it's said they were an actually pretty mellow (comparatively) people. But two things I can think of would've got 'em hot-and-bothered. One is to say that ANY other culture is even worthy to stand in their shadow -- seriously, even the Mongols and Sui Dynasties of China weren't as "we're better than you". The other thing that'd get an Egyptian riled up would be to desecrate the dead, ESPECIALLY a royal mummy (yes, tomb robbers did it, but they were REALLY punished/tortured if caught and the lowest of the low).

Pastoral is the opposite of Urban. So it's a measure of how cool the culture is hanging out in farming communities and other distributed social networks INSTEAD of cities. A culture with a D would use concepts like "he grew up in the sticks" in a condescending way (a trait we get from the Romans, BTW).

While a Greek would HATE AND LOATHE to have a woman in charge and such a figure would be "the source of all things shitty" (see above or talk to Eric about the Union, cuz that attitude survives even today in some work environments), the Dwarves would merely make it fantastically tough for such a women to GET to such a position and, if she DID make it, then grudgingly accept her. Recall that dwarves don't feel women are inferior, per se, but rather that their "job" was keeping the race (which has a genetic gender imbalance) from dying out by making babies.

[David]

Any MORE questions? That was sorta fun...!

[Ghost of Bob]

Where would the Sule fall on the chart? You didn't have a Melnibeon/Nazi column...

[David]

Excellent question, Adam...!

Yeah, many of the Suloise attitudes would be similar to general Oerdian ones, but I think they would also have certain unique traits that are similar to Nazis and Melniboneans...

Off the top of my head, I'd say neutral with any form of sexuality (depravity in Elric and Tom of Finland for the Nazis) with having children fairly important (all that breeding and eugenics). Slavery is SUPER important with Civics and Conformity being also big deals (only two C deities with most of the rest Lawful!). Learning and Magic is also SUPER important and Necromancy quite cool, although Witchcraft is wrong and thanks to Wee Jas (Religion) punishable by DEATH. Urbanity is better than Pastoralism, but not unduly cuz you do need to eat, although that's the job of "lesser beings" such as slaves (they make the world go 'round) and peasants (genetically-inferior pseudo-citizens).

[Artec]

hey there is a cool book called the night angle series, 3 books, very cool idea if you want to play an assassin.