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+--- Thread: Lore Question about Education and Childhood in Eorzea (/showthread.php?tid=11581)
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RE: Lore Question about Education and Childhood in Eorzea - shotgunbadger - 05-13-2015
(05-13-2015, 03:47 PM)Dracyn Wrote: I think part of the inconsistencies also lie in the religious aspect of the culture. We're trying to compare this world to our own where a major religion held sway both politically and scientifically for over a thousand years. They quite literally kept the population of the known world ignorant. I won't get into if it was deliberate or some odd side effect, but it did happen.Â
This world however has a religion that supports education. In fact there's several deities dedicated to knowledge, experimentation, and exploration. This religion also holds little political sway in most places.Â
So we're really dealing with a world that is only held back by the cycles of destruction that plague it.
Funny enough me being annoyed at how wrong the first paragraph is goes into why the second paragraph doesn't really mean anything for the education of the world as a whole.
The major religions of the world did not 'keep the world ignorant', in fact within their ranks, be it the Catholic church, the Islamic empire, or the assorted Asian cultures that all had different degrees of spirituality, all were the vanguards of scientific progress.
The reason Joe Turnip Farmer wasn't part of that wasn't because they were 'keeping him ignorant' but rather because information was super hard to spread around. Books were costly and hard to mass produce, and more importantly the only ones who HAD the free time to learn to read and junk, for the most part, were the wealthy or those in clergy or the like who didn't have to spend 12 hours a day in a field.
Obviously in this world technology isn't the same but the general concepts remain fairly true. It's more a matter that it's super hard to get the random chocobo rancher a good set of books to learn on because not only does that take a lot of time and resources, but that dude just doesn't have a lot of time for it because he's got chocobos to raise or his family doesn't eat.
Obviously I can imagine situations like priests of knowledge based gods holding 'schools' in some form, but that can't change the reality that many people simply can't afford to spend most of a day not working.
RE: Lore Question about Education and Childhood in Eorzea - Dracyn - 05-13-2015
(05-13-2015, 05:56 PM)shotgunbadger Wrote:(05-13-2015, 03:47 PM)Dracyn Wrote: I think part of the inconsistencies also lie in the religious aspect of the culture. We're trying to compare this world to our own where a major religion held sway both politically and scientifically for over a thousand years. They quite literally kept the population of the known world ignorant. I won't get into if it was deliberate or some odd side effect, but it did happen.Â
This world however has a religion that supports education. In fact there's several deities dedicated to knowledge, experimentation, and exploration. This religion also holds little political sway in most places.Â
So we're really dealing with a world that is only held back by the cycles of destruction that plague it.
Funny enough me being annoyed at how wrong the first paragraph is goes into why the second paragraph doesn't really mean anything for the education of the world as a whole.
The major religions of the world did not 'keep the world ignorant', in fact within their ranks, be it the Catholic church, the Islamic empire, or the assorted Asian cultures that all had different degrees of spirituality, all were the vanguards of scientific progress.
Understandably I can agree with you on the transportation of knowledge and lack of free time. But there's plenty of instances in European history where scientific advances were deemed heretical and those scientists were often forced (many times on promise of torture and death) to recant their theories and give up on their research.
I am not condemning religion I am simply looking at historical examples. And if you compare Medieval-1700 Europe to Eorzea there seems to be far less persecution of knowledge seekers.
And personally I feel that if the Umbral Eras can be stopped we'd see the Eorzean society advance faster than we saw our own. Especially since they have a genius like Cid leading the way.
RE: Lore Question about Education and Childhood in Eorzea - shotgunbadger - 05-13-2015
Well straight up magic helps development a good deal, I imagine.
Like, if Gutenberg had teleportation crystals, flying ships, and a huge pool of mercenaries with magic and swords to draw on I bet books would be a lot easier to spread around, yea.
RE: Lore Question about Education and Childhood in Eorzea - Lilia Lia - 05-14-2015
(05-13-2015, 09:29 PM)Dracyn Wrote: I am not condemning religion I am simply looking at historical examples. And if you compare Medieval-1700 Europe to Eorzea there seems to be far less persecution of knowledge seekers.
This does exist in some form. Alchemy was only recently accepted as a valid science and was heretofore considered heretical by the powers that be in Ul'dah. Black Magic is also seen as such, unless I am mistaken. So Eorzea does have its share of "forbidden knowledge" and conventional superstition towards the strange and extraordinary. Though you could argue the example of alchemy goes to suggest that Eorzea is entering a period of enlightenment, which would actually suit the world pretty well, especially as part of the "Astral Era" thing.
RE: Lore Question about Education and Childhood in Eorzea - shotgunbadger - 05-14-2015
Yea I'd say a major part of the story is the enlightenment of the world in many areas. There's still a lot of "WE DO NOT DO SUCH THINGS" or just normal 'yea got no clue about that, weird huh' you have to overcome.