Intergalactic Summit

Let's save primary discussion of the Caldari for when I get around to writing on that, General, which I'll try to do within a few days. While it's certainly important and worthwhile to compare the two cultures, it's also quite easy to get off-topic.

As for "nobody being born anything," we're all born into some spatial and chronological-- and thus cultural-- context. Unless some set of events typically beyond our own control carries us out of that context, it is that culture that raises us.



These aren't binary, General. Even in the Federation, there is such a thing as "peer pressure" and a "culture" of this or that within a group (the Black Eagles, for example). A "control state" does not flip some kind of switch that turns off thought; it just puts more emphasis on deferring to the judgment of superiors-- and, actually, the ability of an individual to decide that those superiors are in error, and bring the problem to the attention of the superiors' superiors, is an important safety valve for maintaining a society's integrity. The only people around with the capacity to actually remove independent thought are Sansha's Nation, as you of all people know very well.



Have you explained all this to the Matari? I'm sure they'll understand how you're totally not talking about them and their heroic thousand-year struggle to hold onto their own "dead people's baggage."

"Tradition" consists of the ways things have been done, from the past up through the present. Some have lost their original purpose, yes. Some have not.

It can be difficult to tell which is which, and, either way, they form components of a group identity. Again, I think the Matari would be distressed to hear that you, their allies, think so little of what they have struggled long and hard for: the freedom to live as Minmatar.

... Actually, I think they know full well, and that it's the source of most of the strain between you.

Of course, individualism can itself be a component of a group identity-- which is my argument exactly. I notice that even you identify yourself as part of a "we."

While historical records are known to be innacurate due to the documentation process, it is our belief that the war between these two races was not entirely based simply upon secession, but on a mistrust caused by over five centuries of clandestine colonisation of the area now known as the caldari state by the entities that would, given time, become known as the megacorps.

Though the initial colonisation began prior to the original federation charter's creation, the existence of such a large number of hidden colonies after the Caldari peoples had joined the Federation was an understandable shock to the remaining signatories.

When the corporations in question, having signed the Federation charter, reneged on their part of the bargain, specifically choosing to retain separate control over these colonies, and refusing to merge them into the Federation that they had helped to create, the conflict known as the Gallente-Caldari war broke out. Lasting a little over 1 century.

While it is not our place to state whether either side was wrong to take such actions, we do note that within the Caldari corporate structure, breach of contract is a crime with a large, and sometimes terminal, penalty. Yet the state, as it stands today, is apparently a product of one such act.

We Return.

(( ooc : source material. http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/The_Early_Days_%28Chronicle%29 ))

Che Biko:

Enigmatic ... I think I understand which parts you mean, and I, too, look forward to our next conversation.


Unit:

Yes, there is more to secession than seceding. Does that in some way render my remarks inaccurate? People don't generally just wake up and think, "What a lovely morning. I think I'll spend the day seceding." There's invariably backstory-- which, however, is not best discussed here.

One bit that does demand immediate response: your understanding of contract law (State or otherwise) lacks depth. In a setting where corporations rule, yes, contracts can get draconian. That said, it is the nature of contracts to create their own law (that's what a legally-binding contract is: self-generated, agreed-upon law), and the implications of your remarks would depend on the individual contracts breached in addition to a pile of other factors that may or may not have be mentioned in the contracts themselves. To pick an extreme example, a State contract requiring an act of treason against the State is considered null and void by both law and custom. That's not to say that they never happen, of course. Similarly, slavery is illegal, as are contracts that would result in the introduction of slavery into the State. Capsuleers, mind you, are a special, and very strange, quasi-sovereign category.

The place where a contract breach would carry a criminal penalty would be those places where the contract is functionally a sworn oath on an individual's honor. This is very different from, say, a commercial agreement to buy X units of ladies' shoes at Y cost per pair over the next three months-- an agreement very likely to be breached if the market for those shoes dries up, the shipment gets blown up by a capsuleer, or the buyer goes bust.

Take it from someone who hires a whole lot of Caldari citizens under contract, pilot: contract law isn't as simple as "breaking a contract is a crime." Contract breaches are the least of the deeds done at the war's dawn.


Ms. Katla:

Why don't you try out green water swimming, fishing, kelp-gathering, crabbing, and SCUBA diving off the Sila coast on Achura. Then we'll talk about how inherently empty, hostile, and inimical to life the ocean is.

It almost certainly won't kill you to see what you're missing.

Jenneth-Haani, it was a pleasure to read your post. I found it very insightful, and I hope you do not mind me commenting upon it briefly.

I'd first like to note (for it's own sake, if nothing more) that there other factors that most likely led to the Gallentean individualism beyond what you have spoken of. The lack of a single organized religion to take hold of the populace, for example, or the considerably lengthy feudal period resulting in a lack of cultural unity until late in it's development.

But I have the feeling you are talking about development on a different level. A sort of base understanding of reality established by the "upbringing" of a culture, like how a small child is influenced most by the behavior of the world around it in the first few years of it's life so much that a lifetime of different experiences cannot change it from it's mold. That would, without fail, lead to the previous factors.

I find this idea very interesting. I have long been a fan of the idea that things are defined to inevitably progress on a certain track by their very fundementals, as a flower grows by the design of it's seed. And, well it does make sense, by all accounts. But something about it nags slightly at me.

Though I have never been there myself, and so cannot speak with as much authority as I'd like to, it is my understanding that Pator IV, Matar, has a similar climate and environment to Gallente Prime. Both of them are very large, both have incredibly vast oceans versus their landmass, and both them are "Garden Worlds" as you very well put it. Places of life and abundance.

But in spite of this, the cultural rift between the two is immense. (If not quite so vast as the rift between the one between the Caldari and Gallente, perhaps. Though I am certain many would disagree with such a presumption. ) While the Gallente developed a society based strongly on a culturally ingrained humanist-inclined moral values, which you have summarized quite effectively as "Rights", as well as one based on seeking individual happiness, the Matari peoples instead created one with a strong emphasis on family and tribal identity, and an implied commitment-by-birth to society as a whole, putting it before the self in many respects.

In fact, though I had not heard the viewpoint much in the past, since I became a Capsuleer I have repeatedly seen Minmatar culture be described as fundamentally similar to that of the Caldari. Though this topic was... Disputed, when it was brought up in The Summit. Though I could find fault with this, in particular in how the two view the application of tradition and what it means to contribute to something greater, it is certainly an idea with merit.

Of course, Matar and Gallente Prime are not identical worlds, and I do not mean to imply they would teach identical lessons. That would perhaps be offensive to both parties, more likely then not.

But they are similar in ways that cannot be utterly ignored, and it seems strange that they would produce such completely different "Truths" for the people who inhabit them, and the ways of life that grew as a result. Subsequently, I must conclude there is something more.

If you have the time, I would be genuinely curious as what factors you believe might have influenced the two cultures to develop radically differently. Whether it be in this context... Or, well, something different entirely. One could say "Pure chance", of course, but that rather causes the whole notion to fall a little to pieces, I suppose.

(Hopefully this was a worthwhile point, being my very first post here.)

I'm not arguing that it's empty. I'm arguing that it's dangerous to unprotected human life. The fact that there are other predators swimming around down there too doeasn't make it any less dangerous.

I've looked up this SCUBA diving you mentioned, and it's the functional equivalent of a space suit. If I went down into an ocean in one, I'd probably get eaten by a fish.

This is getting tiresome. The Caldari are led by a corporate oligarchy if you want to be technical, not a dictatorship. Furthermore, the Caldari are collectivist because we, as a people, have chosen to be. As you can see, it has proven quite efficient and effective for us throughout our history.



No, it doesn't. Placing expectations on an individual does not remove their ability to think or self-identify from them. What you seem to keep failing to understand is that the Caldari are not mindless drones that do exactly what we're told. We identify collectively and live in a society built upon community.



We understand quite well. In fact, it is "learning from history" that continues to provoke us to resisting your Federation and the lessons we learned while under your influence continue to fuel our desire for independence apart from you. That you seem to have no respect for tradition and history is something that I, personally find abhorrent.

Miss Jenneth,

I found your exposition both enlightening and insightful. I look forward to your work on other cultures throughout our cluster and would be interested in speaking with you at length to compare observations between ourselves. It is a shame that a well-written and respectful observation is met with such bitterness.

Can you argue otherwise?

I understand what Ms Jenneth is talking about and still my question stands....Can she argue otherwise? can anyone argue otherwise?

In addition Mr Amith i dont think that if you take the government and the penal system from the equation the Gallente have no basis....they based their Government and their penal system on these rights even before they had their penal and government system...

As i said earlier...my question still stands....

Cpt. Jenneth,

thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I fear, though, that certain people are rather responding here with advertisement than the tempered word of reasoned debate. Let's not waste too much breath on those that do so, as they are not deserving any effort from our side. Rather than trying to debate with those that are advertising, which is a futile endeavor, let's keep ourselves at the matter that's truly at hand. There I think Cpt. Ikiryo raises an interesting point:

Pator is at least as lush as Luminaire. Actually, The former is usually described as 'paradisical', while the latter merely as 'fairly habitable'. I think, here is a problem to the part of the argument that claims that the lush environment of their home planet lead the Gallente to their 'universal human rights' as the fundamentals of their society. I think, though, Cpt. Ikiryo, while you are quite right to point out the vat distance between the Matari and the Gallentean societies, you're overaccentuating the rift between the Caldari and the Gallente. While there certainly is a rift between the two, I'm not quite sure if it's bigger that the one between the Matari and the Gallente - and such a thing is hard to measure.

Now as to the Matari: Indeed their culture has a strong emphasis on family and clan, as well as tribe, there is in fact no evidence of implied commitment-by-birth to society as a whole in Matari society prior to contact with the Amarr whatsoever. Further, I'd claim that it is questionable whether such an idea wouldn't prevail in their tribal society if it were not for a common oputside enemy, as there has been little time for a common Matari society to develop and such a cultural identity is still weak, in compairsion to the various tribal identities. This is a fundamental dissimilarity between the Matari and the Caldari and the Gallente as well.

Having said this, I think the problem of how the Gallente arrived at their societal fundamentals is a secondary one for the argument here. Which leads me to the question raised by Cpt. Drengist.

Can one argue other than that 'rights are inherent to living humans as breath'?

Well, that's a good question and it depends of course on how one understands 'rights are inherent to living humans as breath'. I'd think one would have a hard time trying to argue that rights in general are not something that arises from human nature. Humans seem to be the kind of creatures that organize their communal forms of living by - among other things - accepting that there are certain rights.

But that, really, isn't the point that Cpt. Jenneth was trying to make here, I think. Her point is rather, that the Gallente took a certain set of rights and claim that this definite set of rights is universal to humans and that this is something - quite obviously - that others don't have to accept. The initial question would need to be explicated thusly, to give what Cpt. Jenneth sais proper credit:

Can one argue other than that 'a certain explicated set of rights is inherent to living humans as breath'?

This is really a hard question. I'd argue that while it might be demonstrable that a certain set of rights is inherent to human by their very nature, it will be quite hard to explicate that set of 'natural rights' and then claim for that explicated, written version to be inherent to humans by their nature. This is a problem of epistemology first: Whoever writes down these rights needs first to have perfectly understood this natural set of rights and needs to know that he did understand all of it and not more than it.
But that's not all of the problem. Once the set of rights is exactly known, one would have the problem of putting it into writing or, more general, language. Everyone who has put something in writing for someone but himself knows that people don't always understand what the author of a text meant, when they read it. Texts - and that pertains to texts of law as well - are open for interpretation. The natural rights of humans shouldn't be open for interpretation though, else there wouldn't be a single set of rights, really, but several versions of them.

So, even if the Gallente are right on the claim that there are human rights - and this isn't really contended by e.g. the Amarr people - then it still doesn't follow that what they claim to be the content of the human rights is indeed it's content - and the Amarr, agasin, would disagree with the Gallente on the content.

Now, the problem doesn't stop here. The Gallente aren't merely claiming that there are those 'human rights', but beyond that they claim that their 'human rights' need no justification, that they are fundamentals. This, indeed, merits the talk of a certain tyrannical aspect to those rights. They are put in place, like a tyrant, without having the need for justification. While I know that certain Gallente are trying to justify human rights this isn't quite justifying the 'human rights' the Gallente accept but more a critique of them and thus a very welcome exception from the rule.

So, can one argue other than that the set of rights the Gallente explicated is inherent to human living as breath?

Indeed one can and one should! Even - as I showed - if they are right about the fact that there is a specific set of rights naturally pertaining to humans, then one would see that these rights need to be explicated differently by different cultures, because different cultures have different concepts, thought processes and language conventions and beyond that the cultural and material circumstances will inevitably lead to a different expression of those natural rights within this cultural group.

Just like it is a fallacy to claim that because all horses have in common that they have a colour and this horse is white all horses need to be white, it's a fallacy to claim that because that specific set of rights worked for the Gallente it will work for all humans.