From: jph613@huxley.anu.edu.au (John P Hughes)
Newsgroups: aus.games.roleplay
Subject: Re: Cultural regeneration zones
Date: 13 Dec 92 02:03:59 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: aus
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.2.12
Keywords: Culture utopia distopia, ritual chopping off bits, dole bludging

Hugh Fisher: >>>Cultural regeneration zones                  11 Dec 1992 03:22
John P Hughes writes:
...
[description of CRZs deleted].
|>
|> Order maintained by extended family groups, with little or no formal
|> hierarchies.

    Hmmm. What happens to feminists in these happy little tribes, I wonder?
    It's my impression that 99% of history has women relegated to cooking and
    child care - for the good of their souls and the collective all, of course.

Your impression is wrong Hugh. Surviving hunter/gatherer cultures are the most
egalitarian known. Systematic oppression of women (and other groups) seems
to have begun with the rise of State-like formations and cities in the middle
east some six thousand years ago. When you're living in a small group, you
are valued and accepted for what you can contribute, not what label you carry.
There is no reason for the sexual division of labour to be maintained in
these CRZ communities. And where do you think the women were when these
CRZs were set up? In the kitchen baking scones? :-)

Please don't get the idea of CRZs as some sort of living museums where people
are forced to live in some historical stasis. They're simply groups of 
people trying to build a pleasant lifestyle in a sustainable environment.
As with any group, you take what you like from your cultural heritage and 
discard the rest.

Remember that at the time of European contact, east coast Aborigines had
higher life expectancies, and general health than Europeans. The "work"
component of their lives was only a few hours a day. They had leisurely
comfortable lives devoted to religion and philosophy. It was just they had 
a non-material culture. Take the best of this and add Shadow and nano-
technology. Its a valid choice among several.

In the West, we imagine the future as one big city, and accept the gang wars,
crime, poverty and competition that goes with it (see Cyberpunk). Having
watched the great cities fall and die in their own demands for energy, I
believe many people in the future will sek other alternatives. The fact
that this particular future requires the death of 8 billion people...


>    do these extended family groups operate with Western style two children
>    families?

Who knows? I imagine that the value of a human life would greatly increase
El-Wipeout, and with a World population of 100 million, there's room.
However, like most low-population density cultures, the overiding concern is
to maintain an equilibrium with the ecological environment.

>    I also can't think of any great religious leaders who believed in a stable
>    world population (or for that matter, feminism). Wouldn't there be some
>    trouble reconciling the commandments of your Virtual prophet ("Go forth
>    and multiply!") with the lifestyle? Or has there been a bit of editing?

I mentioned Mary Daly as one of the examples of a Virtual "guru". All religious
traditions are interpreted in the light of prevaling cultural values by the
majority of worshippers. Ordination of women priests is a good example.
Christianity has been changing constantly for two thousand years,
 fundamentalists notwithstanding. Why should it stop now?

One of the manifestations of the Virtual religious consciousness (as I see it)
is that the worshipper builds a direct relationship with the "Guide" of their
choice, be it Buddha or Mary Daly or a non-incarnate diety such as Shiva. 
Formal religious structures (churches, nation-states) are much less important.

Of course she who constructs the program has a LOT of power and responsibility.

>|> Emphasis on personal growth and development through community sharing of
>|> myth and ritual, initiation and shamanic/alternative states of consciousness.

>    Which, in my admittedly sketchy knowledge, frequently involve ants, knives,
>    and low tech dentistry for the one being enlightened :-)

In some cultures certainly. Initiation rituals WERE painful. They were designed
to dislodge the strong mother/child bond and impress upon the initiate
the responsibilities of adulthood and their new status.

However, much wasn't like that. Don't get carries away by missionary reports
of the fuzzy wuzzies. Shamanism can involve pharmeceuticals, but works
well with simple trance and imagery (well the sort I practice does).
Ritual is whatever gets build in the circumstances. Using pain as a measure
of adulthood is a fact of life in societies threatened by invasion or
with high mortality rates. But not in stable, small-scale societies with
lots of cultural and physical space to themselves.

>    Plus frequent ingestion of selected plants and mushrooms to maintain the
>    alternative states of consciousness :-) Maybe I could stand the initiation
>    ritual after all.

Hey, it cant be all bad...

Thanks Hugh.

John
(possible romantic. Weekend in Melbourne prescribed as cure).