- We mostly play the king and we have never played another coherent faction. We can take meta decisions about values and such but when we decide on laws it is always from the perspective the lawmakers.
- Hereditary rule, to be more precise oligarchic rule, is the natural consequence of only a limited subset of our population having time to get involved in politics. When Aristotle said "slaves are tools that speak" he was not saying slaves are somehow inherently subhuman (as a modern reader might take it), after all some of those slaves were culturally Greek and former citizens. What he meant was "for citizens to function as actors in political life someone else has to do the dirty work." That holds true for all societies until a level of mechanization that comes with industrialization. At best we can enlarge the "franchise" of ruling families through education but that will make the system of government of less olygrachyc (the rule of the few over the many).
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
Here's what you're missing. It isn't a right, it's a privilege. That's the qualitative difference. And it's huge.
- Location
- Philippines
The children are trained to be the best and that is the most we can hope for at this age of development look quite frankly our system is way way too complex for a freeman or yeoman to understand plus since our patricians do not hold land they actually teach their children how to properly manage the kingdom rather than be the kind of nobles we associate with history.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
1. We have literally had kings making decisions independent of us! We do not play any one consistent guy or group; we do play at the meta-level of the society.
2. This ignores how we got here. We got more hereditary and less egalitarian over time. We probably can't have any true democracy (though see Athens for a city-state level example - and yes, I'm well aware how that only involved male citizens). We most likely do need a rule of experts. The problem is when those are drawn from only a limited amount of oligarchic societies. Not being able to achieve realm-wide democracy in this time and age, what I want is social mobility. To push the "hereditary" descriptor back to at least "de facto hereditary".
That is also meaningless. It is de facto always the direct offspring to whom the land management is passed on. That does make it de facto a right.
- Location
- Philippines
So what you want to simplify our system? Because that is inherently the problem our system of government has become too complex that a person needs to be taught at birth to fully understand it.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
There is nothing indicating that. An elite class has formed which uses its de facto total control over the government to lock out everybody else. There is absolutely no indication that being born into one of those families is necessary to learn the complexities of the system. Now, of course a certain amount of training is necessary, no doubt - even a large amount. But the claim that so much training is necessary that you have to be trained in this since birth is quite frankly ridiculous.
- Location
- Philippines
It is though we have no educational system aside from a Parent passing down teachings to his children or said parent getting a friend to teach his children for compensation. It may not be inherently necessary but it may as well be.
A revolution will achieve precisely nothing long term (other than result in death during the transition and potentially long term chaos) because our system of government is complex enough that only those with the right education can do the administrative jobs, this kind of dedicated education is expensive and as such only those who's parents can afford the education can become administrators. So a revolution either results in our administration and government falling apart or a new class of patricians taking over. The only thing we can do to improve this is increase the percentage of the population which can receive this education (this will never be any where near 100%, 10% is generous).
- AN explained that, heroic admin kings need less advice from the gestalt of Ymaryn administrators (chiefs) so they take the turn away. Since most decisions are administrative we mostly play the higher administration (now patricians) though in cases like the Grand Temple vote we can play other things like the sum and total of the Ymaryn priesthood
- Pretty much all societies got less egalitarian as they got more complex, we just held on more than most to the legacy of anarchic tribal democracy. Rule of experts runs into the issue that the experts of today are the ones who have to teach the next generation of experts and they will naturally teach their descendants over all others. Gymnasyums will help here but all they will do is enlarge he oligarcgic franchise since you are not going to see a freelancer get accepted over the sons (and perhaps daughters) of the middle classes. Ultimately what you are proposing can be done but it is not going to bring back that golden age. The hereditary nobility is here to stay for millennia to come, though of course there are better and worse systems to choose from with regards to the set up.
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
Well, it's worth examining why hereditary rule happened basically everywhere. Obviously, rulers are nepotistic, but extremely common social structures generally had benefits for the majority of people. In the broad scheme of things (spread across hundreds of nations and thousands of years) social structures are subject to evolution. Social structures that inherently weaken the state tend to die out. Social structures that strengthen and make it more robust tend to survive.
When you look at history on that scale, common social features (like hereditary-rule, feudalism, monarchy, etc.) represent local maxima. Not "the BEST way to run things" but rather "BETTER than any easily transitionable structure."
Which brings me to my main concession to classic conservatives. If you don't understand the benefits of common, long-standing structures, you're not qualified to change them:
Article: In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
So what purpose does hereditary rule serve for a society? It's a structure that allows a society which cannot POSSIBLY afford public education to still train a small percentage of its scions from birth in governing and administrating. Sure, some of them lack the innate knack for it. But overall it increases the quality of administrators available in the society over non-hereditary rule.
That's also why we've evolved hereditary rule from an elective system. The previous rulers could afford to teach their children to rule, and rule efficiently. Which made them much more likely to be chosen as the next ruler. This process also increased the skill of our average rulers, and is partially why we rarely get BAD kings.
Edit: Amusingly, I've actually found myself in violation of Chesterton's principle regarding guilds. I CAN'T see what net good they provided to society... which is why I've stopped advocating against them. Obviously, I'm critically ignorant or biased in some way. I'm in the 'go away and think about it' stage...
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Bloody hell 4000 pages.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
But there are many methods to gain education. Tutors were a well-known and wide-spread job during ancient times. And Patrician families are not the only who can afford tutors. There are also the traders, or guild masters or even the wealthiest of the yeomen families. Especially with the Arete trait, proper education may become a virtue even in non-Patrician circles, so it's possibles families may be willing to spend quite a bit on tutors.
So you can get people properly educated even outside patrician families. But all those other peoples are locked out from the ruling class.
As I've said before, I'm pretty willing to go to a wealth-based oligarchic system, which by its nature allows at least a certain modicum of social mobility. It is at least better than a pure blood-line based system.
- Location
- Staring into the void
And we've only just gotten into the iron age proper.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2000 years in 4000 pages.
*looks at time till modern age*
*buckles in for a fun ride*
- Location
- Philippines
Thing is this is not a pure bloodline based systems and we do have social mobility although generationaly why do you think that the end goal of most yeoman, trader and artisan families is to become patricians.
- Location
- Orlando, Florida
I'm pretty sure that by the modern age a turn will be a year due to how fast modern societies change.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
We do not have such a system, no. As AN has said several times, people can marry into existing patrician families. That seems to be the height of social mobility - not by personal merits, but by marriage.
What I propose is in fact a system making such inter-generational social mobility possible, but that requires breaking up the total stranglehold of the patrician families over government affairs. This will require weakening the patrician class and empowering the other classes.
A lot of doom and gloom I'm seeing, whereas I walked away from that informational post thinking things were going pretty well. My main take away was that we should max trails, which we already knew.
- Location
- Austria
I agree with most of your post, but the main limiter over bad kings is elective system weeding out morons and assholes.
Also, sexism is not a necessity, for example.
All these people either are patricians, will soon marry into patricians families, or are moving to become new patricians.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
The third point is explicitly not true. Marriage seems to be the only way to move into the patrician category.
- Location
- Philippines
This is false here is the quote to prove it such
Now if the warrior caste can found their own patrician network why not the artisans or the traders or the yeomans?
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
Right, it's an oligarchy. Which tends to be high in intrigue, but more meritocratic than almost any other functional ancient system.