I think stagnant is generally an unhelpful term, though it might be reasonable to discuss why a particular technology stagnated. Some cultures are relatively unchanging compared to others though, and refusing to engage with that may make you a good postmodernist but it makes you a bad historian IMO.
Campaign Assumptions!
- Thread starter SHARK
- Start date
I think stagnant is generally an unhelpful term, though it might be reasonable to discuss why a particular technology stagnated. Some cultures are relatively unchanging compared to others though, and refusing to engage with that may make you a good postmodernist but it makes you a bad historian IMO.
Ydars
Explorer
SkyOdin; I have repeatedly stated that I do not write off China and Japan at all during the period under consideration. They were incredibly rich cultures and the remaining fragments of that culture are some of the most valuable traditions left on this earth and are amongst the things I love most. You just don't seem to be listening. You seem to have an emotional connection to this discussion that is perhaps clouding your judgement. I would advise you to emulate The Chinese and Japanese philosphers more and demonstrate your lack of attachment and your balance.
My loose use of words has caused some of this misunderstanding (I read back what I wrote in my first post and was annoyed with myself; I did not mean "Cultural Stagnation"; I meant technological stagnation. Since I spend all day weighing words carefully as a scientist, I suppose I can sometimes be forgiven for "letting my hair down" on a message-board, but it still grates on me).
My comments about stagnation were informed by the fact that what you or I think about Japan v the West is irrelevant. What matters is the judgement made by the Japanese people at the time, and they altered their technology along western lines. QED; they considered that our ways were "superior" and you will forgive me if I contend that they were in a better position than you or I are to judge that, sitting here with second and third hand accounts of history over a century later. I also know that the Japanese themselves, teach that they became technologically stagnant during this era as one of my recent employees was a Japanese scientist.
My loose use of words has caused some of this misunderstanding (I read back what I wrote in my first post and was annoyed with myself; I did not mean "Cultural Stagnation"; I meant technological stagnation. Since I spend all day weighing words carefully as a scientist, I suppose I can sometimes be forgiven for "letting my hair down" on a message-board, but it still grates on me).
My comments about stagnation were informed by the fact that what you or I think about Japan v the West is irrelevant. What matters is the judgement made by the Japanese people at the time, and they altered their technology along western lines. QED; they considered that our ways were "superior" and you will forgive me if I contend that they were in a better position than you or I are to judge that, sitting here with second and third hand accounts of history over a century later. I also know that the Japanese themselves, teach that they became technologically stagnant during this era as one of my recent employees was a Japanese scientist.
Exactly. Renaissance-Enlightenment-Industrial Revoluton. Nothing like it had ever happened before.
For most of recorded history there has been a band of civiliations across Eurasia from the Mediterranean through India to China. For most of that time China was somewhat more organisationally and technologically advanced than the others. Attempts to measure intelligence developed by Westerners consistently show that north-east Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) are on average more intelligent than Westerners (by about 5-8 IQ points), so this general superiority is unsurprising. While the Middle East-Mediterranean civilisational area was comparable to India, north-west Europe was uncivilised. North-West Europe has a very short history of civilisation compared to most of the civilised world.
Yet, starting in northern Italy in the mid 15th century, and spreading northwest through France and the Netherlands to England and Scotland, something remarkable happened. By 1800 European civilisation was massively technologically superior to all other world civilisations and globally dominant. This dominance has continued to the present day, but has been in relative decline since the First World War and seems (to me) unlikely to continue much beyond the mid 21st century, so it may be a blip in world-historical terms. Still, it's a very important blip that has undoubtedly changed the world for ever.
If you can't see that I feel like you must be living on a different planet.
Actually, most armies have both. Guns and knives/bayonets are both good in different circumstances, as SHARK knows. But of course you're right that the gun-only army usually beats the knife-only army. There are exceptions like Ishandlwana (sp?), where a spear & club armed Zulu army of around 20,000 annihilated a rifle-armed British army of around 1500 through superior tactics and numbers. And for stealth ops a knife may be generally better. But the general point that for militarily purposes a gun is generally superior to a knife (or spear) is 100% correct.
I think you need to take a step back and take a look at the broad patterns. Like Ydars indicated, historians often tend to be a bit myopic. Look at the forest, not just the trees. Think about how an alien observer would look at human history. You don't have to subscribe to the Whig-Progressivist (or classical Marxist) view of history to discern some broad trends.
Conversely, I think the stability encouraged by Confucianism created functional societies that were and are more robust and long-term viable than many others. Western philosophy certainly has its advantages, but Confucianism may win out in the end.
Ydars
Explorer
S'mon; it is not just historians who are myopic, all scholars tend to get so wrapped up in their tiny specialism that they forget the big picture. I know I have many times and will again 
.
Don't get me wrong; I do agree with SkyOdin about one thing. The History we westerners tell ourselves, especially of science, is laughably inaccurate. It almost completely leaves out the technological achievements of non-western (especially Chinese, Indian and Islamic) cultures and almost pretends that they did not happen. The fact that we actually seem to have stolen some of these achievements and passed them off as western advances does not help.
So I get where he is coming from, it is just that it he seems to not understand the reverse and mpore traditional point of view which, while obviously flawed, is also a real part of the way the world unfolded.
.Don't get me wrong; I do agree with SkyOdin about one thing. The History we westerners tell ourselves, especially of science, is laughably inaccurate. It almost completely leaves out the technological achievements of non-western (especially Chinese, Indian and Islamic) cultures and almost pretends that they did not happen. The fact that we actually seem to have stolen some of these achievements and passed them off as western advances does not help.
So I get where he is coming from, it is just that it he seems to not understand the reverse and mpore traditional point of view which, while obviously flawed, is also a real part of the way the world unfolded.
Hussar
Legend
Facinating read.
I'm not 100% convinced that the Middle Ages were quite as stagnant as SHARK claims. I have read (and I am certainly no scholar, so, feel free to beat me over the head for having my facts wrong) that labour during the Roman Empire period was something like 90% done by humans. By the 12th or 13th century, in Europe, this number was down around 30%. This, to me, certainly points to some advancement.
I really wish I could remember the name of that damn book I read - Waterwheels and something or other. Arches and Waterwheels? Damn I cannot remember. Can someone point me back to it? Excellent read anyway.
But, putting aside the historical end of things and relating this back to fantasy RPG's, there are a couple of things that pretty much remove D&D from any sort of historical context. The big one, in my opinion, is the existence of alignment as a force in the universe.
Think how much it would change the world if you could definitively point to something as really good or really evil. No chance of failure. This would have massive impact on the development of a society. I could easily see groups of paladins (3e or earlier) running around, detecting evil and slapping a Helm of Opposite Alignment on anyone who glows.
I'm not 100% convinced that the Middle Ages were quite as stagnant as SHARK claims. I have read (and I am certainly no scholar, so, feel free to beat me over the head for having my facts wrong) that labour during the Roman Empire period was something like 90% done by humans. By the 12th or 13th century, in Europe, this number was down around 30%. This, to me, certainly points to some advancement.
I really wish I could remember the name of that damn book I read - Waterwheels and something or other. Arches and Waterwheels? Damn I cannot remember. Can someone point me back to it? Excellent read anyway.
But, putting aside the historical end of things and relating this back to fantasy RPG's, there are a couple of things that pretty much remove D&D from any sort of historical context. The big one, in my opinion, is the existence of alignment as a force in the universe.
Think how much it would change the world if you could definitively point to something as really good or really evil. No chance of failure. This would have massive impact on the development of a society. I could easily see groups of paladins (3e or earlier) running around, detecting evil and slapping a Helm of Opposite Alignment on anyone who glows.
Yeah, but do you believe the Cleric who claims "X is evil!" - He could be lying. He could be evil himself. And what does evil mean, anyway? A little bit of taint on the soul? A ravening fiend? Conscious alignment with evil forces? And what does it mean in an evil-aligned society that reveres Tash or Hextor? Is evil then 'good' and good 'evil'?
I find that just ignoring this gives as plausible results as any other approach.
Edit: Look at something like the Great Kingdom on Greyhawk, where Lawful Evil Hextor is the dominant religion. Do Hextorists walk around proclaiming how evil they are? It seems unlikely.
