New Project: Comprehensive List of World Civilizations

[Masada]

Well, yes, but does it matter? If they think themselves a family and hold rituals bringing biological strangers into the clan, we may as well call them a family.

No, but it does kind of destroy the notion of clans as extended families. They might well have acted or engaged in rituals designed to stress that linkage but that's a different thing entirely.

 

[Traitorfish]

You should tell me this - you used this word first (see your post #164).

That's unhelpfully literal. You already talked about given social forms being more or less "advanced" than another (post 143); all I did was change it from an adjective to a noun.

But, if you insist on being indulged,

What do you mean when you say a society is more or less "advanced"? Advanced towards what, and by what metric?

Nope. Most CFC arguments happen because two posters, normally with slightly different first languages or dialects, are using two different and often contradictory meanings for one crucial word. Both of you ought to explain precisely what you mean: often that causes one or both to say 'ah, yes, I agree totally' - and then start arguing over which has the definition of 'emperical', 'socialist' or 'liberal' (which I think are the worst offenders) correct.

I don't have a definition for this usage, because I don't think that it makes any real sense to talk about a given form of political organisation to be more or less "advanced". (Far as I can see, it's really just Whiggery.) All I'm trying to do is figure out what he means when he says it, and how it works in application.

No, but it does kind of destroy the notion of clans as extended families. They might well have acted or engaged in rituals designed to stress that linkage but that's a different thing entirely.

I dunno, it seems that past a certain point, all kinship is basically performative, so it's really just a technicality whether or not the alleged blood-relationship is accurate. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Well if we're talking "Clans" proper, there wasn't much emphasis on supposed family linkages. Technically speaking those were Septs. And really, all of this only applied to the ruling classes, the notion that everyone is part of a clan which is also an extended family is a distinctly late 18th, early 19th century concept, which came alongside such awful inventions as the Clan Tartan.

If we're talking about clans-as-families-as-performance there wasn't much in the way of rhetorical use of the concept of clan as family when Clans were actually a thing. So the performative aspect is also really missing.

 

[Domen]

You already talked about given social forms being more or less "advanced" than another

And I defined more advanced as more complicated in that post - "complicated (advanced)".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complicated

 

[Flying Pig]

The problem with that is that societies do not tend towards increased complexity. If anything, they tend towards what happens to work best at the time.

 

[ParkCungHee]

And I defined more advanced as more complicated in that post - "complicated (advanced)".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complicated

So if you're sticking to this, doesn't this mean that only the Germans can compete with the Irish in social advancement?
I think any society that has a half a dozen seperate ways you can be king consitutes an extremely complicated(advanced) system, that only a series of treaties between minor principalities, papered over by a constitution, knocked over by party, extra-party and army beuracracy can come close to.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Bosnian civilization, 11th century , very important.....

 

[TheLastOne36]

Bosnian civilization, 11th century , very important.....

Bosnia was a Serbian Duchy(admittedly one that came to dominate Balkan politics), so technically you mean Serbia.


Oh-oh, what have I done? In any case that is how I understand it developed. Feel free to explain in depth why I am wrong or whatever.

 

[Traitorfish]

And I defined more advanced as more complicated in that post - "complicated (advanced)".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complicated

Yes, and I'm asking why advancement is pegged to complexity. What is it advancement towards, and why is this advancement identified in and/or expressed by complexity of organisation? Something can't just be a-directionally "advanced", that would be nonsense, and there has to be a good reason for claiming that this axis exists, and that it correlates in a meaningful way with the characteristic in question, i.e. complexity of organisation.

So if you're sticking to this, doesn't this mean that only the Germans can compete with the Irish in social advancement?
I think any society that has a half a dozen seperate ways you can be king consitutes an extremely complicated(advanced) system, that only a series of treaties between minor principalities, papered over by a constitution, knocked over by party, extra-party and army beuracracy can come close to.

The only way I can see us coming out with the claim that society c.2000 is substantially more complex than society c.1000 is if we're talking about the division of labour, and that sounds a wee bitty more Marxian than would be readily compatible with Domen's usually elite-centric view of things. Certainly doesn't peg to this "tribe>chiefdom>state" narrative he's going in any meaningful manner.

 

[Flying Pig]

So if you're sticking to this, doesn't this mean that only the Germans can compete with the Irish in social advancement?
I think any society that has a half a dozen seperate ways you can be king consitutes an extremely complicated(advanced) system, that only a series of treaties between minor principalities, papered over by a constitution, knocked over by party, extra-party and army beuracracy can come close to.

More importantly, it means that German society today is massively less advanced than it was before Napoleon came along, because the Holy Roman Empire was nothing if not complicated.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Bosnia was a Serbian Duchy(admittedly one that came to dominate Balkan politics), so technically you mean Serbia.


Oh-oh, what have I done? In any case that is how I understand it developed. Feel free to explain in depth why I am wrong or whatever.

Trolltastic a bit? I'll explain a bit, what the hell.

lol Serbian duchy, Im serious, it was a Kingdom that had its own written language (different from Serb Cyrillic), the Principality of Serbia, Kingdom of Serbia and the Empire of Serbia didn't control it at one point (just look at wiki maps, you'll notice the lack of Bosnia)

Spoiler :

Its more of a Hungarian duchy because it was under Hungary for a certain period of time.And it would be more likely that Serbia was a Bosnian duchy, because during Tvrtko I, Bosnia did control most of Serbia. I dont want to get into a flame war over the internet, but I do ask for some acknowledgment and respect for a "country" that has its own religious, national and cultural heritage. Linking Bosnia as Serbian in Medieval times is completely wrong and historians do agree that Bosnia was its own nation, not a duchy or vassal of another.

 

[Ajidica]

lol @ trying to map medieval principalities to modern states.

 

[Virote_Considon]

lol @ trying to map medieval principalities to modern states.

Screw you mang, Wessex will rise again.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

lol @ trying to map medieval principalities to modern states.

agreed, it is loltastic, but what he stated above is equally loltastic

 

[Leoreth]

I do ask for some acknowledgment and respect for a "country" that has its own religious, national and cultural heritage. Linking Bosnia as Serbian in Medieval times is completely wrong and historians do agree that Bosnia was its own nation, not a duchy or vassal of another.

It's this sentiment that makes endeavors like that totally futile. There's always going to be someone who is offended by the exclusion of his object of identification from a "comprehensive" list of world civilizations, no matter how you slice the word civilization.

But I'm sure a five minute read in this subforum would've already told you that nobody was their own nation in medieval Europe.

 

[Traitorfish]

An extremely liberal reading of the Declaration of Arbroath could produce the claim there existed the concept of a self-governing Scottish nation, but that tends to fall apart when you remember that this was around about the same time that the Bruce was claiming to be Emperor of Ireland. Such is the result of trying to impose modern categories onto Medieval realities.

 

[Flying Pig]

An extremely liberal reading of the Declaration of Arbroath could produce the claim there existed the concept of a self-governing Scottish nation, but that tends to fall apart when you remember that this was around about the same time that the Bruce was claiming to be Emperor of Ireland. Such is the result of trying to impose modern categories onto Medieval realities.

Even then, that's not really nationalism because the nation did not exist above and beyond its leader. A nation requires that abstract concept of 'Scotland' to which its people are loyal, rather than the more concrete idea of 'King Robert'.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, the thing about the Declaration of Arbroath is that it's structured as an appeal to the sovereignty not of the Scottish monarch, but of Scotland itself, and toys with a sort of popular monarchy in which the legitimacy of the monarch derives not just from God but from the support of his subjects. (Partly drawing on the less personal notion of kingship found in Gaelic tanistry, partly a concession to a nobility, and partly an opportunistic way of the Bruce avoiding the issue of his weak claim to the throne.) A lot of Scottish nationalists like to see this as a "Scottish declaration of independence" and an affirmation of Scottish nationhood, but in context it's really more about Scotland as a kingdom, Rìoghachd na h-Alba, rather than any sort of collective national identity, which very simply did not exist. My point was the political practice of those making the claim was inconsistent with what the nationalist interpretation suggests it should have been, with the Bruce appealing to a whole different set of identities to justify his exploits in Ireland, which is a pattern you find pretty much anywhere you attempt to apply modern categories anachronistically.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Oh good, FlyingPig is here.

Is Imperator Scottorum Emperor of Ireland or Emperor of the Irish?

 

[Traitorfish]

I think it's strictly "Emperor of the Irish", I just took the liberty of mangling it a little to stress my point.