Re: [conculture] Re: The things one finds

On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, Tom Wier wrote:

>
> At any rate, I was just expressing a feeling that it's too simple a view of
> any culture to see it as totally without foreign influence, which is the impression
> I've gotten from most of the descriptions I've read here (not that that's *bad*
> or anything;  just that I think it's a bit unrealistic).
>
No culture on Andal is without foreign influence (or more properly,
extra-cultural influence, since cultures and national boundaries don't
coincide at all, and there are hundreds if not thousands of cultures),
but I'd prefer them all to remain without serious earthly influence. I
take my religion rather seriously, and therefore I don't want Christian
influence on Andal - but the conquered Matraians have deeply influenced
the conquering Charyans, for instance. In contrast, I don't take my own
neologisms for computers and buses seriously, obviously.

As for this world, historically, foreign influence didn't necessarily
mean losing diversity, but nowadays, that's what it entails, and I think
diversity very valuable, even if I don't believe in Terry Pratchett's
mindquakes, caused by too much uniformity on a planet ;-).

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt