Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's a topic that's hard to avoid.
Anyway, that's not entirely true. We have threads about how grim America is, too.
The Environment is an Agent
Anyway, that's not entirely true. We have threads about how grim America is, too.
william_kent
Well-known member
but then some dickhead will post a video of Blackpool and whine how we have it worst
william_kent
Well-known member
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
"Sure, the lack of basic healthcare for millions, constant mass shootings, rollback of women's reproductive rights and the inexorable rise of Christofascism are bad, but have you seen a really rough 'Spoons at chucking out time?"
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
But 'spoons has all those other things too.
Thus emphasising the power of environment.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
luka
Well-known member
an example
The dichotomy is between people who live in rainforests and those who live in deserts. Mbuti pygmies versus Middle Eastern bedouins. Amazonian Indians versus nomads of the Sahara or the Gobi. The sorts of cultures they generate have some consistent and permeating differences.
Some starters about religious belief. Who are the polytheistic animists, who are the monotheists? That one's easy. Rainforest dwellers specialise in a proliferation of spirits and gods, whereas monotheism was an invention of the desert. This makes sense. Deserts teach big singular things, like how tough a world it is, a world reduced to simple, furnace-blasted basics. "I am the Lord your God" and "There is but one God and his name is Allah" - diktats like these proliferate. In contrast, think of tropical rainforest people, in a world with a thousand different kinds of edible plants, where you can find more different species of ants on a single tree than you would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in the same sort of equilibrium must seem the most natural thing in the world.
The dichotomy is between people who live in rainforests and those who live in deserts. Mbuti pygmies versus Middle Eastern bedouins. Amazonian Indians versus nomads of the Sahara or the Gobi. The sorts of cultures they generate have some consistent and permeating differences.
Some starters about religious belief. Who are the polytheistic animists, who are the monotheists? That one's easy. Rainforest dwellers specialise in a proliferation of spirits and gods, whereas monotheism was an invention of the desert. This makes sense. Deserts teach big singular things, like how tough a world it is, a world reduced to simple, furnace-blasted basics. "I am the Lord your God" and "There is but one God and his name is Allah" - diktats like these proliferate. In contrast, think of tropical rainforest people, in a world with a thousand different kinds of edible plants, where you can find more different species of ants on a single tree than you would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in the same sort of equilibrium must seem the most natural thing in the world.
luka
Well-known member
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I think Jonathan Meades has touched on this, but it's probably been observed by others before him.
Something about forests, marshes and grasslands being the natural home of all kinds of sprites and dryads and whatnot, whereas in the desert, there's just the overbearing totality of the sun - sun-worship being prototypical of monotheism.
Atenism - Wikipedia
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
It's because there are more spirits in the forest obv.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
For once you ent wrong.
0bleak
Well-known member
That's not a dirt road - that's basically a decaying infrastructure in an economically hard hit town
cherry-picking an area like that would be like if I went to modern Times Square and said that is how the rest of country is
other_life
bioconfused
"desert monotheism" Cool it with the antisemitic remarks
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
The former Communist countries had a lot of overdue modernising to do which would have been done more recently (because overdue).