We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
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Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#2Or, to put it another way, "We may never truly fathom cultures that were destroyed several centuries ago and are only studied through archaeological fragments and the memoirs of late-medieval invaders."
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#3Interesting to see this along with:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682052
...on the front page at the same time.
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#4Carthage is much closer to western culture yet still earns its share of WTFs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage#Child_sac...
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#5> What was the reason for all this carnage?
Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit.
A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy.
Yet thousands are murdered every year in our society, which harshly punishes murder. How many more would be killed, merely for sport, if that were encouraged by religion?
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#6> What was the reason for all this carnage? Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit. A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy. Yet thousands are murdered eve…
> A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies
Yeah. it's called fiction and a more significant portion of people in the world consume all that without committing mass murder. So please, stop associating video games or movies with whatever crazy people do.
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#7> What was the reason for all this carnage? Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit. A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy. Yet thousands are murdered eve…
> A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies Yeah. it's called fiction and a more significant portion of people in the world consume all that without committing mass murder. So please, stop associating video games or movies with whatever crazy people do.
I enjoy those games and movies myself.
It's not my intention to suggest that enjoying those means that our socialization has failed or that we are dangerous (which I do not believe), but that those games and movies appeal to something in our nature that still exists in many of the most well socialized Americans.
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#8Well, this was interesting, but certainly does not persuade me of the thesis stated in the title. I mean, sure, if we have limited records of them we can't know a lot about ancient cultures, but who's surprised to learn that?
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#9Carthage is much closer to western culture yet still earns its share of WTFs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage#Child_sac...
IMO a lot or even most child sacrifice (especially infant sacrifice) in the ancient world can be understood as ritualizing the process of killing children one does not have the means to raise.
Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies Yeah. it's called fiction and a more significant portion of people in the world consume all that without committing mass murder. So please, stop associating video games or movies with whatever crazy people do.
I enjoy those games and movies myself. It's not my intention to suggest that enjoying those means that our socialization has failed or that we are dangerous (which I do not believe), but that those games and movies appeal to something in our nature that still exists in many of the most well socialized Americans.
There's a good case to be made that a significant factor is the association of masculinity with violence in American culture, which explains why men commit significantly more violence than women (and also explains some of the success of violent video games). From this perspective, much of our fascination with and performance of violence is far from inevitable.