in-a-narrow-land

[in-a-narrow-land]

Your university has a dress code all the time? Really? Ours is only in effect during important events, like visiting lecturers. Is this level of formality a general thing for Anitam?

I’m a professor, not a student. I don’t know where you live, but it’s perfectly normal in Anitam and also every other country I’ve ever been to for workplaces to require their employees to have plausible hair colors for their caste. 

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There’s something so depressing about all of this. I’m not a caste abolitionist myself, but abolitionist theorists and organizers (many of them purple and yellow!) have been instrumental to a lot of movements pushing for more realizing policies allowing for greater caste flexibility. Greens don’t have a monopoly on utopian social theory. 

Nor, conversely, do we have a monopoly on getting idiotic dye-jobs at age four. I work at a university and even our dress code requires naturalistic hair colors. Black hair isn’t so much a caste marker as a sign that you’re unemployed. 

Being mixed caste is *immature*? Mixed caste marriage has been around for decades, you reactionary bigot!

Oh no, dying your hair black is immature. “Look at me, I’m so progressive, I’m gonna pretend to be an alien.”

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I took a seminar with Afen back in undergrad and I kept writing sociolinguistics papers even though that was barely contained in the scope of the course 

don’t get me wrong, he still knows more about it than most sociolinguists have forgotten, but I think he finds the fact that the semantic scope of words is not determined by rational debate to be personally offensive. 

But are you sure you're ~*~saturated enough~*~ to understand it's a bug? Maybe you're just missing their obvious linguistic brilliance.

I know this is a joke, but I was just researching the error and it’s actually really cool. According to @serpentoftherose, the post was originally written in Svarico, which has barely any literature written on it, but I did manage to find something in an ancient issue of the proceedings of the Oahkar lexicographic society (say what you will about the empire, they were thorough). 

Here’s what happened: Svarico initially had two words for intelligent: ahfve, which referred to abstract reasoning (stereotypically “green” intelligence), and kotume, which meant some combination of practical knowledge, situational awareness, and competence. This is relatively common; many languages make a similar distinction. 

The thing is, Svarico has a highly developed system of linguistic registers. Most words have at least three forms which correspond to various levels of formality and difference, and some have as many as eight. Traditionally, these registers were related to castes - greens and blues are expected to speak a register or two “above” everyone else. Not all words have forms in all registers. Kotume in particular is a low-register word. While it initially had more polite forms, they fell out of common use about a hundred years ago, When literacy became widespread among the general population, formal speech became more widely understood, and low-register words acquired additional social stigma. As a result, ahfve, the polite term, took on a lot of the old connotations of kotume. 

Of course, this sort of implies that particular kinds of intelligence, which are culturally linked to particular castes, are more valuable and important, or even that comparing e.g. a talented purple mechanic to a green is inherently complementary. I had to do a little digging to figure this out, but apparently there’s a largely purple-lead movement to restore dying low-register terms to the language, as a way of combatting caste prejudice. Which is probably what the OP was talking about. 

[in-a-narrow-land]

But are you sure you're ~*~saturated enough~*~ to understand it's a bug? Maybe you're just missing their obvious linguistic brilliance.

I know this is a joke, but I was just researching the error and it’s actually really cool. According to @serpentoftherose, the post was originally written in Svarico, which has barely any literature written on it, but I did manage to find something in an ancient issue of the proceedings of the Oahkar lexicographic society (say what you will about the empire, they were thorough). 

Here’s what happened: Svarico initially had two words for intelligent: ahfve, which referred to abstract reasoning (stereotypically “green” intelligence), and kotume, which meant some combination of practical knowledge, situational awareness, and competence. This is relatively common; many languages make a similar distinction. 

The thing is, Svarico has a highly developed system of linguistic registers. Most words have at least three forms which correspond to various levels of formality and difference, and some have as many as eight. Traditionally, these registers were related to castes - greens and blues are expected to speak a register or two “above” everyone else. Not all words have forms in all registers. Kotume in particular is a low-register word. While it initially had more polite forms, they fell out of common use about a hundred years ago, When literacy became widespread among the general population, formal speech became more widely understood, and low-register words acquired additional social stigma. As a result, ahfve, the polite term, took on a lot of the old connotations of kotume. 

Of course, this sort of implies that particular kinds of intelligence, which are culturally linked to particular castes, are more valuable and important, or even that comparing e.g. a talented purple mechanic to a green is inherently complementary. I had to do a little digging to figure this out, but apparently there’s a largely purple-lead movement to restore dying low-register terms to the language, as a way of combatting caste prejudice. Which is probably what the OP was talking about. 

[in-a-narrow-land]

does anyone know the source language for this? someone should report the bug to their machine translation project

PSA TO TUMBLR

STOP SAYING “INTELLIGENT” WHEN WHAT YOU MEAN IS “INTELLIGENT”! WORDS HAVE MEANINGS! THOSE WORDS ARE NOT THE SAME AND CONFLATING THEM IS SUPER PROBLEMATIC (AND OFFENSIVE TO PURPLES, SMH). JUST STOP >:-(

(AND IF YOU AREN’T SATURATED ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND: ESTE FROM WANDERINGS IS INTELLIGENT. KAMNE IS INTELLIGENT. WELTE IS BOTH. CAFZE IS NEITHER. THIS IS NOT HARD.)

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what? entertainment is a tiny portion of the average household’s budget; disposable income on that level just isn’t that closely related to overall income. purples spend as much on media per capita as every other caste.

it is obviously and unambiguously true that purples are the most profitable market for everything except property and obscenely expensive luxury goods, simply because there are more of them. 

a note on the  latest round of caste representation discourse: most people are purple and media producers do, in fact, like to make money. When one looks at the data, the castes of characters in popular fiction are distributed proportionally. The darlings of green literary journals have a (slightly!) higher percentage of green protagonists, but that’s not true of best-sellers or film or television or games. 

[in-a-narrow-land]

a note on the  latest round of caste representation discourse: most people are purple and media producers do, in fact, like to make money. When one looks at the data, the castes of characters in popular fiction are distributed proportionally. The darlings of green literary journals have a (slightly!) higher percentage of green protagonists, but that’s not true of best-sellers or film or television or games. 

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the one thing you have to understand about life in the Oahkar Free State is their level of post-imperial cultural anxiety. In some ways, this can be really positive - for one thing, they’re willing to spend a ton of money promoting literary and cultural studies, not just in the Oahkar-speaking world, but in all the former protectorates and subject states. It’s wonderful if you’re an Anitami academic who wants to study in Oahk or get funding to work on Oahkar.

It also means that they can be very, very conservative. Dueling might have a positive cultural valence in, say, Calado, but they don’t take the whole honor culture thing nearly as seriously. Oahkar-from-Oahk people are invested in preserving their cultural identity - which is really a kind of selective memory of a very particular historical moment - because they still can’t cope with their relative political irrelevance. And a lot of the most characteristically “Oahkar” cultural practices have to do with the public performance of violence. 

It’s really bizarre to watch this from the outside. I’m not Oahkar, so no one would ever think of challenging me, and I couldn’t have accepted if they had. In fact, I’ve only ever seen two duels - Oahkar people aren’t nearly as cavalier about it as Ereithanis seem to be, and greens duel much less frequently than blues or grays. The weird thing is that, both times, someone told me how lucky I was not to have to deal with it. They all know it’s archaic and vaguely absurd; greens in particular don’t have that many illusions about honor and bravery. Most people even have a sense of humor about it. It just seems inevitable. 

That’s what horrifies me, more than anything else - how a person can be kind and witty and cultivated and humane and joke about how it’s a meaningless way to die, before turning around and killing. 

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I get it. I’m also green. Normally I’m all for abstracting away tragedies, but I can’t productively engage with the question of why a world where she lived past the age of eight is better than one where she didn’t. 

I should probably bow out of this argument, since for me it does boil down to my dead friend would be alive right now if she hadn’t been from Oahk.

[in-a-narrow-land]

I should probably bow out of this argument, since for me it does boil down to my dead friend would be alive right now if she hadn’t been from Oahk.

[in-a-narrow-land]

And if that social construct were dismantled, they would stop dying. We’re not locked into a framework of absolute cultural relativism; it seems clear to me that we should prefer sets of options for dealing with social friction that don’t include death.

ugh, the whole Ereithani duel thing is all over my dashboard and I’m getting fed up. I’d ask why an absolute monarch murdering one of his subjects as a purely symbolic gesture is oh so much more impressive than ordinary politicians doing the scut work of facilitating red cleaning in countries where they can’t wave their hands and make it happen by fiat, but - well, when I put it that way it does seem sort of obvious. 

[in-a-narrow-land]

My knowledge might be specific to Oahkar dueling culture. I’m a professor of Oahkar literature and I’ve spent a lot of time living in the Free State. I’ve seen it destroy lives. That’s why it’s so hard for me to accept the personal choice framework - from the outside, it’s so obvious that these people wouldn’t be making these choices if they didn’t live in a culture that valorized them.

ugh, the whole Ereithani duel thing is all over my dashboard and I’m getting fed up. I’d ask why an absolute monarch murdering one of his subjects as a purely symbolic gesture is oh so much more impressive than ordinary politicians doing the scut work of facilitating red cleaning in countries where they can’t wave their hands and make it happen by fiat, but - well, when I put it that way it does seem sort of obvious. 

[in-a-narrow-land]

I really do believe that killing someone in a duel is the moral equivalent of murder. That’s why I always refer to it as such, even if it’s not legally accurate. I want to stigmatize the practice as much as possible, particularly in a media environment where duels fought for ostensibly just causes are seen as heroic. 

But back to the subject of why duelling is wrong. There are a couple key points: 

It’s immoral to put yourself in a position where there’s a significant chance you could kill someone for insulting you. Even if you don’t want to call it murder, it’s at least criminal negligence, we still don’t let people create situations that are overwhelmingly likely to lead to loss of life. This seems obviously true whether or not your victim consented to the risk. No one should ever die over dumb personal arguments. Which brings us to,

The fact that this can happen is a sign of a sick culture. By challenging someone to a duel, or accepting a challenge, you’re perpetuating a climate of senseless and unnecessary violence. Every time someone fights a duel and gets away with it, it makes it that much harder for the next person to back out. Which why,

There’s no such thing as uncoerced consent to a duel in an honor culture. I obviously believe that people can ethically decide to end their own lives, but there’s a reason we have professionals who make sure that decision is considered and free. That cannot happen in a culture where refusing to fight a duel carries massive social stigma. It’s no different than shaming someone into committing suicide. 

I know that Ereith has a nominal feudal governing body of some sort, but they also obviously worship their royal family. Which is another reason I doubt that this particular duel was fought on a level playing field! Does anyone really believe that nothing would have happened to her if she’d won? 

ugh, the whole Ereithani duel thing is all over my dashboard and I’m getting fed up. I’d ask why an absolute monarch murdering one of his subjects as a purely symbolic gesture is oh so much more impressive than ordinary politicians doing the scut work of facilitating red cleaning in countries where they can’t wave their hands and make it happen by fiat, but - well, when I put it that way it does seem sort of obvious. 

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it's not just ereith's king though? like what our ruling council could do is besides the point. anyone in Ereith can challenge someone to a duel. to random factorypurples could do the same thing. what you think of dueling is a separate question to what you think about abuse of power because he didn't need to be a king to do that. it's just that tumblr doesn't care when it's two randoms dueling over something with no political meaning.

obviously the institution of duelling is horrifying and should be abolished everywhere yesterday, but I can’t imagine my blogging habits have any real impact on the nation of Ereith 

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I wonder where everyone’s gotten the idea that Anitami blues go around murdering people in fits of pique. 

Treason trials are rare. According to my girlfriend, who’s a judge in blue criminal, they’re also usually pretty clear cut. We do try to make it difficult to accidentally commit capital crimes. There’s still corruption, but it’s much, much easier to get a sentence commuted than it is to get someone executed who otherwise wouldn’t be, especially at the levels where blues tend to operate.

Not to mention that, for this scenario to make sense, there’d have to be no other more pressing political considerations, the council member you insulted would need an in to have an in with the judge you happen to draw, and, most important, the judge would have to think the request wasn’t crazy. We don’t live in a culture where insulting someone’s relatives justifies that kind of response. I did mean what I said. Anitam isn’t perfect, but making fun of a politician’s family will not get you killed. That genuinely does not happen. Some countries are, in fact, superior to others on this point. 

It’s just so bizarre to me to see progressives defending this. Whether or not the victim could have deescalated is spectacularly beside the point. The Anitami legal system might not be perfectly equitable, but there’s no even remotely probably chain of events such that insulting the spouse of a council member could result in my death. That possibility shouldn’t be there to begin with.

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couldn't they just have their private security shoot you, say that you had tried to attack them, and pay off the judge?

No? It’s really unusual for a politician’s bodyguard to have to kill anyone, and sweeping it under the rug would be prohibitively difficult and expensive. When Anitamis complain about government corruption, they’re talking about kickbacks and sinecures, not private militias. 

In any case, council members don’t have private security. Their guards work for the government. 

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It’s just so bizarre to me to see progressives defending this. Whether or not the victim could have deescalated is spectacularly beside the point. The Anitami legal system might not be perfectly equitable, but there’s no even remotely probably chain of events such that insulting the spouse of a council member could result in my death. It shouldn’t be an option to begin with.