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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7396515">You might want to stop and consider for a moment that you are using a very specific and in some ways ideologized definition of ideology.  You're going to most specifically run into problems with the "largely concealed" portion, because you're essentially going to start accusing people of believing something that per your definition: they are unaware they believe in.  This makes rational argumentation difficult because you essentially start off with what looks like an attack.  As you did with me.  You'll run into problems with the whole second line of that, because again aside from being a very specific usage of ideology, it is intimately tying it not into power-structures, but perceived power-structures.  Just as you assumed that I must be buying into the Western ideology of progress because I come from a western culture.I'm not going to write you an essay on the subject, but my advice, and keep in mind this is coming from a political scientist, is that unless you have having a specific conversation, you should avoid using specific definitions.  Because, for example, the Dictionary mentions nothing about ideology being "largely concealed" nor connected to "power-structures of the society we live in".  It helps avoid moments exactly like this one where you have to stop and explain to everyone "Hey guys, maybe the reason we're not understanding each other is because I'm using this obscure definition of a word which informs and underlies my factual statements."Again, nothing I mentioned implied a narrative of progress.  Progress has been factually made.  To deny that we have made progress would be to deny that the sun revolves around the earth.  Western society may not be morally or ethically more progressive than any given ancient society in question, but that's a subjective conversation about what morals and values a culture should have that I won't be having here.  Western society may not have progressed as much as some would like to claim, and that's a fair argument for another day.  Western society may have lost specific information that was known only to specific persons long ago, and that is also a fair argument to make.  But you cannot reasonably make the argument that progress is a myth.  Again, when you are operating with an ideological argument that implies deception or ignorance (again: "Largely concealed") the problem you are going to run into is that you are going to end up reading between the lines of what other people are writing.  Instead of asking them for clarification, you are going to use your or system of values which informs and underlies your factual statements to determine what they must have been saying.  The onus really isn't on me to clarify.  The onus is on you not to assume I meant one thing or another.I made vague blanket statements because we are not having a specific conversation about a specific people in comparison to another group of specific people.  It may be an element of your ideology that Western Society is a specific people but that is again on you to explain and not assume that we are sharing in your ideology, or even assume that our ideology is the normal one, the common one or really, assume anything at all.And my argument remains that modern people have larger volumes, even of different kids, of knowledge than historical people.  You're also going to have to do better than Plato, a man who made a claim at a time when we had an incredibly low understanding of the human brain, to claim that literacy does not increase human knowledge, because it is literally the primary transmission vector for knowledge.To get this train wreck back on topic, this goes back to what I was saying about sci-fi vs. fantasy settings.People in sci-fi settings have the general knowledge that is applicable to a multitude of situations, which is why a plethora of information is is not a negative to a sci-fi game.  The characters are assumed to have the general knowledge and general skills to, after some exploring and adventuring, obtain this information.  The characters in fantasy settings are not assumed to have this kind of knowledge, they're assumed to have specific knowledge which will be applicable in specific situations.  Fantasy characters are assumed to have what we generally call "applied knowledge".  It's not that sci-fi characters don't have and don't use this, but they're also assumed to have general knowledge.IE: a Druid in D&D is assumed to have knowledge about nature and how to make specific medicines from it.  A Doctor in Star Trek is assumed to have knowledge about medicines and how to make them when given the right ingredients.  The former knows more applied knowledge: "Give me these 3 plants and I'll make you some medicine!"  the latter has general knowledge:  "I can make you a lot of things if you can get me ingredients."  The approaches are, in short, reversed.  If you were to ask a druid to make a specific medicine with plants to which they are unfamiliar, they likely could not.  If you were to ask a doctor to make a new medicine, they probably could, but wouldn't know what ingredients they need.</blockquote>

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