Approaching the new planet in his impeller-propelled spacesuit, Weber heads north because:
"...the subarctic regions would be most comfortable for a human." (p. 116)
Again scientific observation.
He reflects that differences of climate, ecology, physiology and bodily appearance and also cultural divergences even within a single species make primitives unpredictable. That reference to divergent cultures generalizes from the single instance of humanity. There is some sf in which other species find human diversity perplexing.
Despite all this, Weber reflects that:
"...one very general rule about primitives is that they don't worry about consistency and a god who doesn't know the language is not a contradiction." (p. 119)
I think that primitives who have that much in common will have a lot more in common as well.
In this particular species:
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I fully expect non-human intelligent races to be as widely varied as humans are in their socio-political arrangements. I think it would take a total state, conquering the world, to force cultural conformity on an entire race.
And the casual, taken for granted brutality you mentioned was a fact of life among all human beings down till the later 19th century.
Ad astra! Sean
"to force cultural conformity"
Without forcing it, easy communication over a region does tend to move that region toward a unified culture. Of course that is only 'tends to', the region won't be totally homogenized, but eg: the Roman Empire had two 'lingua franca' while eg: New Guinea has an enormous number of mutually unintelligible languages.
But New Guinea was, at most, Neolithic. If your contacts are limited to a day or two's walk around the place you were born, there's no functional reason for general languages.
I think the culture in this story was based on Mesoamerica -- from the Olmecs on.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: Stirling's comment was better than what I would have said. I'll add that I had Anderson's "The High Ones" in mind when I wrote my first comment. The totalitarian regime which conquered Zolotoy would have imposed total cultural conformity even as the hideous process began leading to the Zolotoyans losing self-awareness, ability to act independently, intelligence, etc.
Mr. Stirling: I was thinking of the Aztecs and I should have thought of the Olmecs as well.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yup. Cortez did Mexico a favor, as Poul remarked once.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! The Aztecs were a nasty lot and deservedly got what came to them. And one of your short stories, set in a time neo-Aztecs revived all the old horrors, had other Mexicans dismayed and appalled.
Ad astra! Sean
"If your contacts are limited to a day or two's walk around the place you were born, there's no functional reason for general languages."
How does that differ from what I was saying?
For a long time the steppe nomads were neolithic, but easy travel meant individual languages were spoken over large areas.
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