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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irlo" data-source="post: 8532219" data-attributes="member: 7028372">It's not my view that the religions and social structures of low-tech cultures are less advanced or inferior to those of high-tech cultures, and that's not what I was trying to express. But that is a  view that is prevalent -- so prevalent it's pervades the way that history is taught and the way pop culture represents "primitive people." It's a view that has certainly had enormous repurcussions in the real world in the way that "advanced" nations interact with "primitive" ones. As things are presented, societies follow an arc of development, from primitive to advanced, with implied value judgements attached to those stages. It's a justification for colonization, religious missions, carving up parts of the world into nations with arbitrary borders to force societies into better, more advanced forms. There are also widely-held attitudes that "primitive people" are stuck in time, having failed to advance because of their failings, limitations, or inherent qualities -- and that's wrapped up with a lot of racist assumptions and implications as well.When you label a culture or society "primitive," all those implications come with it, whether you mean it or not. (You've said you don't think about any of that. I'm not doubting you. But a lot of people do think about it -- it's part of what "primitive people" means -- and RPG writers should be aware of that to avoid unintended implications.) The implicaitions are even broader when labelling an entire race (rather than a particular society) as "primitive." That really seems to lean into the unstated assumptions of inherent qualities that prevent advancement which mirror the ideas supporting real-world abuses.</blockquote>

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