Gori the Grey
The Poster
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- Jan 5, 2009
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Over in the "Guessing" Thread, Civ's chief historian, Andrew Johnson, posted the following thoughtful post:
A number of people have answered, including myself. I will collect those answers below. Response to the questions he poses threatens to derail that thread, but the questions he asks are interesting and vital to the success of the game, so I think this topic is worth its own thread. Let me just get this post posted. Then in the next I'll collect the answers that have been given. And then from then on, we can go to town.There's an interesting divide here that I just want to point out, and it concerns the question "what is a civilization?" I've posted about this before, but it's worth repeating here.
We can take kind of two models here - an essentialist view and a materialist or political view. The first of these goes something like this: a civilization is a people who share a certain cultural or linguistic continuity that goes back in time. They might not have been united or even seen themselves as similar to others in their "civ", but we see them from the vantage point of the present as "the same." The political view instead puts linguistic unity aside and focuses on organization - a civilization is a structure of power, a political unity.
Greece or Maya would be examples of the former - these were not unified politically (except for once, under that one guy) and no one figure issued commands (Athens, you build the Parthenon. Rhodes, you build the Colossus). It takes some difficulty to imagine an ancient Germanic civilization that stretches from the Alps to Denmark. Rome would be the opposite - Rome is not Rome without its Greek, Egyptian, Gaulish, or other residents, and comes together through political power.
Rulers and states at times play with this distinction between essence and political power - China and Rome both undertook projects to "civilize" territories, meaning bringing them into line with the customs of the center. But the big confusion comes in the 18th-19th centuries, when states began to present themselves as the manifestation of ethnicities - we get the X people's republic, or the kingdom of the Y (consider the change from the title "King of France" to "King of the French"). This often creates unity where there could have been splits and splits where there could have been unity (Bretagne, Bavaria, Yue lands on one hand; Laos, Flanders, etc on the other). So projecting a modern construction of timeless ethnicity back in time feels correct to us ("what is the German civilization doing in 4000BC?), but that's because we're products of the present system. This debate would be very different in 1500, or it will be different in 2200 (if there's anyone to have it then). But the debate can feel very heated because "the realization of a timeless essence in political form" is the calling card of many states. Historical evidence towards origins simply scatters and falls apart when you go back far enough - I've got a paper somewhere that I'm writing on the conjecture as to the origins of the Thais - what we know is the first real mention is in Cambodian records. Before that, there's a host of theories, all with extremely dubious evidence and pushing their own agendas.
So, the question (that I'm posing, not answering) is this: is the Civ player a kind of godlike world-spirit, guiding a group of people who don't know they're a unity towards their destiny, inspiring the construction of wonders and guiding the people towards scientific inquiry; or more of a ruler, moving troops here and there and commanding construction? And, of course, with the bottom line being that the game has to be fun, how do we deal with this question?
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