Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1164535" data-attributes="member: 3146">I don't think we're as far apart as you think. Were I to accept the definition of law as conservative--wishing to preserve the status quo--then I would probably agree with this. However, that renders the idea of chaos somewhat moot because there are no chaotic societies (except those which are disintegrating--Collin Turnbull's description of the Ugandan Ik tribe in _The Mountain People_ would be an example of this) and there are few chaotic people. Even those who wish to overthrow traditional society, mores, etc usually invoke the myth of progress (things have progressed in this way for the past hundred years and therefore should continue to progress in this way) or the idea of turning back the clock ("the other side wishes to go back to the 1950's etc") in order to demonstrate that they are in favor of keeping things the way they are but that the other side wishes to change (in this case to change back). And those who wish to change traditions, etc usually wish to change the institutions and mores of a wider or larger society to match that of their own subculture. And in that case, saying that a society is lawful doesn't tell one anything other than that it's a (semi) functioning society. It reduces the idea of law and chaos to a meaningless tautology.It also ignores part of the traditional D&D definition of law and chaos. Since the beginning, personal freedom has been viewed as an attribute of chaos and conformity to tradition has been viewed as an attribute of law. (Thus arranged marriages are seen as lawful institutions and going along with one would be a sign of lawfulness whereas a chaotic individual would likely flee an arranged marriage). However, by amalgamating the idea of formal law and tradition, both traditional societies which go along with arranged marriages by tradition and western societies to whom the idea of an arranged marriage is abhorrent but who govern marriages with a formal system of laws are lawful. And since, written laws in the western world are designed to protect personal freedom, even those for whom freedom is paramount are lawful. And if everyone is lawful then it doesn't give any more information to say "he's lawful" than to say that "he exists."Our key difference is that you are willing to jettison most of the traditional D&D ideas that go into lawfulness and keep one (stability and conservatism) while I see that idea as incapable of carrying the weight that is typically put on the lawful alignment descriptor. I think its reduction to tautological status when applied to groups demonstrates that fact. (Heck, Slaadi society is probably lawful by that definition).Your post does demonstrate an interesting point though. Ideas of Lawful Evil, Lawful Good, and Lawful Neutral are much more coherent and well-defined than law and chaos are in the abstract. It's easier to describe a lawful evil personality or society than a lawful one without the evil. I would suggest that this is because the D&D lawful and chaotic alignments are parasitic upon the good and evil descriptors (which actually have meanings). Lawful good means a particular kind of good. Lawful neutral is like lawful good only not so good. Lawful evil is a particular kind of evil. Unfortunately, even this appearance of precision is false--an artifact of D&D traditions which don't coincide with any of the traditional definitions of law and chaos. (And it's demonstrated by the fact that, for any lawful good or chaotic good character, there is an equally strong argument that they are actually chaotic good or lawful good. (My Living Greyhawk Cleric of Pelor for instance has always been played according to the same personality and priorities yet his alignment has shifted from neutral good to lawful good to chaotic good and back to lawful good over his 8 levels. Ordinarily, people might see that as an indication that he's really neutral good but that's a cop-out. None of the arguments would make him neutral; they all make him either strongly chaotic or strongly lawful. So it's an indication that D&D law and chaos are incoherent concepts rather than that the character is neutral).</blockquote>

Verification