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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 4654469" data-attributes="member: 463">Preservation of knowledge is not the same as a general culture of inquiry that promotes consistent building on past achievements.&nbsp; That seems to have been the particular genius of the West.&nbsp; I've seen lots of different arguments for why this was so - culture (lots of competing kingdoms, central authority weak), genes (eg Europeans less neotenous than east-Asians, so less conformist), religion (Protestant individualism, Catholic scholasticism) and so on, but I think it's important to recognise how unusual this was, compared even to the ancient Greeks.Edit:&nbsp; And this point is very relevant to building fantasy worlds.&nbsp; I've seen lots of claims about how technologically static worlds are impossible/implausible, despite the wealth of historical precedents (Egypt barely changed in over 2000 years!).&nbsp; Many posters, American especially, take a culture of inquiry &amp; progress as something inherent in human nature, so that the fantasy-medieval must necessarily give way to the fantasy-Renaissance and fantasy-Enlightenment.&nbsp; That's a very ahistorical attitude IMO.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 4654469, member: 463"] Preservation of knowledge is not the same as a general culture of inquiry that promotes consistent building on past achievements. That seems to have been the particular genius of the West. I've seen lots of different arguments for why this was so - culture (lots of competing kingdoms, central authority weak), genes (eg Europeans less neotenous than east-Asians, so less conformist), religion (Protestant individualism, Catholic scholasticism) and so on, but I think it's important to recognise how unusual this was, compared even to the ancient Greeks. Edit: And this point is very relevant to building fantasy worlds. I've seen lots of claims about how technologically static worlds are impossible/implausible, despite the wealth of historical precedents (Egypt barely changed in over 2000 years!). Many posters, American especially, take a culture of inquiry & progress as something inherent in human nature, so that the fantasy-medieval must necessarily give way to the fantasy-Renaissance and fantasy-Enlightenment. That's a very ahistorical attitude IMO. [/QUOTE]

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