The problem with Evil races is not what you think

[pemerton]

My point was that if one society is 99.9% of the way to industrialization, it will still look like what you choose to label as 'primitive' compared to one which crossed over that line, even a mere century earlier, which is nothing in the timescale of pre-industrial change, but is an eon to an industrial society.

Agreed.

This discussion of rates of change and diffusion also relates to my question about the Grippli and Cormyr - what is the timeframe in relation to which I am expected to imagine there has been no significant technological diffusion. And also why I asked about a comparison to twelfth-century Kent and western Ireland.

If Cormyr resembles twelfth-century Kent, but the Grippli who live nearby resemble much of Australia in the same period, what is the reason why? As far as I can tell there's no in-fiction explanation, just an authorial stipulation that the Grippli are primitive.

That is reinforced by the fact that, in D&D, all the ways in which we would find mediaeval Kent "primitive" - be that in public and personal health, or the amount of material goods around, or the quality of a lot of manufacturing - are glossed over in depictions of Cormyr; while the descriptions of the Grippli doubld down on the ways in which they are "primitive".

It's not a presentation of a seriously considered social reality. It's just the reproduction of pulp tropes.

I mean, AT NO TIME, have the Chinese EVER considered themselves 'behind' Europe or the West generally. Yet, even today, that charge is leveled against them, and they were practically universally reviled and labeled as a sort of human plague only 100 years ago. Yet they have one of the most advanced cultures on Earth, and have had for THREE THOUSAND YEARS continuously! So, at one time, from about 1700 to the mid 20th Century, China was in a politically disunified state, and Europe briefly surpassed them in arms manufacturing, which allowed the colonial powers to militarily dominate China.

How does that fit in your model of 'advanced' and 'primitive'? Europe called the Chinese 'primitive', yet had nothing like their ceramics industry, or numerous other industries, not to even mention that China was still far ahead in finance, and actually pretty close to Europe's equal in manufacturing for most of those 350 years.

This is why I hardly find it surprsing that, after a short (ie approximately two century) blip, China is returning to its status as a centre of world production. The same is true for India.

Here's another salient quote from Hodgson (same essay, p 46):

At least till very recently, there was a tendency among Europeans (including, of course, Americans) to take this remarkable fact [of European power] for granted. . . . Such Europeans have wondered why in recent years, after many centuries (so they suppose) of static quiescence, the various "backward" peoples now are stirring. They have overlooked the wonder of how it could be that, for what is in fact a rather brief period of little more than one century, Europeans could have held so unique a position in the world. [Fn: The notion of the "millennial torpor" of "the East" remains so widespread partly because of touristic misimpressions but also because it has been subsumed in the approach of two sorts of scholars: the Westernists, who downgrade all alien societies, and the area students, who suppose all pre-Moderns were overwhelmed by tradition.] The real question, from the standpoint of the world at large, is just that: what gave the Europeans such overwhelming power for a time?​

 

[Monadology]

This is something I've had to grapple with in teaching.

I prefer non-industrial to pre-industrial because the latter tends to import a notion of trajectory - whereas I think it is an open theoretical question whether such a trajectory exists (obviously Hegel and Marx, among others, thinks it does; but not all social theorists or world historians agree), and so prefer a terminology that does not seem to presuppose an answer to that question.

That said, I do use pre-modern. I spend about half-an-hour in class explaining the pitfalls of modern/modernity as a term of art and explaining why, nevertheless, I find myself unable to dispense with it.

I was being sloppy with the prefix and hadn't noticed the nuance you identify here. I definitely have no attachment to the 'pre' prefix! Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[pemerton]

I was being sloppy with the prefix and hadn't noticed the nuance you identify here. I definitely have no attachment to the 'pre' prefix! Thanks for pointing this out.

No worries. The whole issue of terminology is very challenging. The use of modernity/pre-modernity - which is something I do, and you can see it also in the Hodgson quote not far upthread - also builds in some presuppositions.

It may turn out, in due course, that the impression I have of things which underpins my use of modernity was mistaken. Perhaps it will go the way of phlogiston. But at the moment it's what I have.

 

[Ixal]

There are lots of literate, pre-industrial cultures. Hence why Renaissance Europe is never described as primitive. No one uses 'primitive' to just mean 'pre-industrial.'

Hence why I did not equate those two term. That came from you. Although I disagree that Europe is never described as primitive, especially when we are talking about the development of technology at certain points in time in history.
And when talking about the Grippli the label pre-industrial is entirely useless as everyone in D&D is. But primitive on the other hand still gives you a usable distinction between the technology of the Grippli and other groups in the world.

You seem to have lost the focus on what we are talking about and now just want to argue for arguments sake.

 

[pemerton]

Hence why I did not equate those two term. That came from you. Although I disagree that Europe is never described as primitive, especially when we are talking about the development of technology at certain points in time in history.
And when talking about the Grippli the label pre-industrial is entirely useless as everyone in D&D is. But primitive on the other hand still gives you a usable distinction between the technology of the Grippli and other groups in the world.

You seem to have lost the focus on what we are talking about and now just want to argue for arguments sake.

I believe the shoe is on the other foot.

Why are the Grippli presented as "primitive"? That's exactly what the thread is about - understanding the implications of the use of certain tropes in the fiction of FRPGing.

A post which asserts that (i) Grippli are properly described as "primitive" because (ii) they use less sophisticated or elaborate technology than their neighbours isn't engaging with the thread topic. It isn't addressing the question of why (i) or (ii) or both are part of the fiction, nor what the implications of that are.

 

[Ixal]

I believe the shoe is on the other foot.

Why are the Grippli presented as "primitive"? That's exactly what the thread is about - understanding the implications of the use of certain tropes in the fiction of FRPGing.

A post which asserts that (i) Grippli are properly described as "primitive" because (ii) they use less sophisticated or elaborate technology than their neighbours isn't engaging with the thread topic. It isn't addressing the question of why (i) or (ii) or both are part of the fiction, nor what the implications of that are.

No, this is you projecting other issues you seem to be invested in onto this discussion and adventure writing in general.
The word primitive can and is used to denote technological development as shown. So the entire question comes down to if the development of the Grippli in the adventure fits with what's usually described as primitive.

Your entire crusade about technological diffusion is already moving the goalpost, especially as you are unwilling to accept that historically situations of groups with big technological differences meeting and living next of each other without or with slow technological transfer existed.
So this Grippli situation matches real world historical situations in a RPG loosely modelled after historical cultures.

 

[Malmuria]

You can of course look up dictonaries.
For example what comes up on google:

adjective

1. relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.

• relating to or denoting a preliterate, non-industrial society or culture characterized by simple social and economic organization.​
  "primitive people​

[...]


noun
noun: primitive; plural noun: primitives

1. 1.
   a person belonging to a preliterate, non-industrial society.
   "reports of travellers and missionaries described contemporary primitives"

Google uses Oxford I think, but you can get similar results from Cambridge or Marrian-Webster. Primitive is used to described technological development.

The OED lists several usages. Prior to the late 18th century, "primitive" only referred to something foundational, as opposed to "derivative." e.g. the primitive church. It only comes to denote contemporaries living in an 'early stage in time' in the late 18th century and only in the context of British encounters with native peoples. That is, to the extent that word refers to difference in technology in human societies, it is intrinsically tied to the colonial encounter, and the belief among Europeans that traveling in space meant a kind of traveling back in time, as Johannes Fabian puts it. If the word has a more generic usage separate from its origin in the colonial encounter, as evinced by your preferred usage, that is a later development, one that develops past or forgets its originary usage.

Through the nineteenth and early-mid twentieth centuries, the word was inseparable from a derogatory usage, one emanating from a mindset of European superiority in all things. This extended to the arts, where it was assumed that the material culture of Africa was crude and rudimentary compared to Europe, which caused no small amount of confusion when colonialists discovered, for example, Benin bronze sculptures, which european scholars had to assume actually came from ancient greece due to their existing prejudices (cf Annie Coombes' Reinventing Africa). As I indicated previously, the adventure refers less to the technology of the Grippli, and more to their "primitive decorations," ie their art and culture.

Your level of defensiveness around this topic, as if a fantasy adventure could not possibly involve and invoke colonial relationships, is simply absurd. Especially as it was the explicit intention of the author to upend these kind of relationships, only for them to be reinserted via a white, established editor.

 

[Malmuria]

No, this is you projecting other issues you seem to be invested in onto this discussion and adventure writing in general.
The word primitive can and is used to denote technological development as shown. So the entire question comes down to if the development of the Grippli in the adventure fits with what's usually described as primitive.

The word is used in the adventure to describe the way that the Grippli decorate their homes: "they're modest affairs, primitively decorated with giant crab claws." It's a judgmental usage, and further this language was the result of a complete rewrite by the editor. The author described the art of the Grippli as meaningful and important, just different from what the PC adventures might be familiar with.

And btw, this issue come up because THE AUTHOR OF THE ADVENTURE WAS OFFENDED BY THE USAGE OF THE WORD. It didn't correspond with how he wanted the Grippli described, let alone described using language evolving colonialism. This was, further, only one change among others that reduced the humanoid npcs to either helpless victims (the Grippli) or evil-for-evil's-sake villains (the Yuan ti). THE AUTHOR OF THE ADVENTURE WANTS FUTURE PRINTS OF THE BOOK TO NOT INCLUDE HIS NAME BECAUSE HE IS EMBARRASSED BY THESE CHANGES.

 

[Ixal]

The word is used in the adventure to describe the way that the Grippli decorate their homes: "they're modest affairs, primitively decorated with giant crab claws." It's a judgmental usage, and further this language was the result of a complete rewrite by the editor. The author described the art of the Grippli as meaningful and important, just different from what the PC adventures might be familiar with.

And btw, this issue come up because THE AUTHOR OF THE ADVENTURE WAS OFFENDED BY THE USAGE OF THE WORD. It didn't correspond with how he wanted the Grippli described, let alone described using language evolving colonialism. This was, further, only one change among others that reduced the humanoid npcs to either helpless victims (the Grippli) or evil-for-evil's-sake villains (the Yuan ti). THE AUTHOR OF THE ADVENTURE WANTS FUTURE PRINTS OF THE BOOK TO NOT INCLUDE HIS NAME BECAUSE HE IS EMBARRASSED BY THESE CHANGES.

Then you might want to check the dictionary again.
of or denoting a simple, naive style of art that deliberately rejects sophisticated artistic techniques.

So again, the world primitive fits with how the word is used as a neutral description of the art style.
That the editor changed something, that happens. See the example I have posted here from Enworld where the edits completely changed the meaning of an article and were neither discussed with the author nor was he even informed about them. The change to primitive could simply have happened to give players a clearer image of how their art looks like as "meaningful and important, but different" is very nondescriptive.
That the author does not want his name added to the work is his right but its not evidence for anything.

 

[pemerton]

No, this is you projecting other issues you seem to be invested in onto this discussion and adventure writing in general.

I've got nothing to add to @Malmuria on this topic.

Your entire crusade about technological diffusion is already moving the goalpost, especially as you are unwilling to accept that historically situations of groups with big technological differences meeting and living next of each other without or with slow technological transfer existed.

You still haven't told me what the history is of the Grippli in relation to Cormyr. How long have they been neighbours? Why, in the fiction, has technology not diffused?