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~GeorgeUnbutunu
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My name is George Unbutunu and I am from Boma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am currently studying history in Germany.
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My name is George Unbutunu and I am from Boma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am currently studying history in Germany.
Catholic_Furries
History_Furs
chocolatefurs
Kentucky-Fried-Chicken
Self-Sufficient-Furries
Fur_Fighters
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Comments Earned: 1119
Comments Made: 1895
Journals: 7
Comments Made: 1895
Journals: 7
Featured Journal
The Modern World and LARP (Live Action Role Playing)
a year ago
I’ve recently read about the subject of LARP (Live Action Role Playing), which involves people pretending/playing to be persons from either older period of time (antiquity, medieval period, early modern period etc), fantasy or science fiction worlds. LARPing is seen by many as something extremely childish and is often mocked as a kind of escape from reality and LARPers themselves are often criticized as being “unable to grow up”. I’ve contemplated about this and I came to a different conclusion: what if they are right and most of the modern world is wrong? I used to joke with a friend that we’re just “tribesmen who pretend to be modern humans”, but the more I thought about this I realized that there might be an unspoken truth behind these words. What if we truly are still tribesmen who pretend to be something which they are not? So might say “George, you’re crazy! It’s obvious that we’re more advanced than simple hunter-gatherers! The level of technological advancement is obviously real and we have changed significantly when it comes to societal trends and changes!”
Well, I hear you. I don’t doubt that some societies are technologically more advanced than others (every highly advanced society requires an intelligent elite and a gigantic bureaucratic apparatus to function properly) and I don’t doubt that the current societies have different views when compared with older time periods, but that’s not what I mean. As far as genetics go, we’re not that different from our ancient ancestors, indeed, even biologists openly admit that modern humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) have changed little in the last 300.000 years. Agriculture is a thing since circa 11500 years ago, writing is even younger, with the oldest known written language being the cuneiform script (invented around 3200 BC in Mesopotamia). So, our current civilization isn’t much older than 5200 years (I’m of course not ignoring the late Bronze Age collapse and the fall of Rome, there’s a case to be made that no civilization is actually an unbroken descendant of an older culture, it’s probably more accurate to say that some civilizations arose, developed impressive features and then declined. Later cultures and civilizations learned from the older ones but changed the old knowledge to fit their own purposes, the Holy Roman Empire was inspired by ancient Rome, but it wasn’t a clone of it, it had its own culture, government and even different ethnic groups, but it did share the same religion and Church with ancient Rome). It’s fair to say that civilization is something very recent (historically speaking). Now, there have of course been microevolutionary adaptions, such as the genetic mutations among Europeans which allows them to drink milk or the existence of blue eyes. But these are tiny little things, macroevolutionary changes didn’t seem to have occurred in a very long time. But still, take a tribesman from the Congo and compare him with me, you’ll find little differences. Yes, I’m healthier and taller (because I had better nutrition and medicine when I was a kid) but we’re not actually genetically different at all.
So, what if he’s actually living “naturally” and I’m role-playing as a modern human? I mean my ancestors have lived for many countless millennia like he does, not like we currently do. This in fact goes for all of us, most of our ancestors were in fact hunter-gatherers until very recently! There’s a reason why people love the image of the loincloth-wearing hero waving around a big sword, this archaic image does indeed represent our ancestors in a distorted way. Our ancestors wore loincloths (loincloths were worn in Europe at least until the 18th century and they are still being worn all over the world, in Japan they are referred to as “fundoshi”, thank you, Sakura and Howard!) and swords were the common weapon for warriors (swords were a part of the fashion of European gentlemen until the 19th century and they are still being worn by police and military officers for ceremonial purposes, the last duels in Europe occurred in the 1960s in France, in the lifetime of my father)! Now, I must stress this: I’m not saying that Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan were our ancestors, I’m saying is that these images do represent aspects of a lifestyle which was common for most of us until a very recent period. Like I said before, loincloths and swords seem so far away and outdated to us, but they were in fact used until very recently (some in the Congo still use both, but it’s no longer “mainstream”). I believe that most of us feel “homesick” for our natural lifestyles. The young boy who gets big eyes when he sees an iron-clad knight in full armor isn’t a foolish escapist, he’s a romantic! He feels deep down that the way how current people behave and react is something modern and unnatural. Something alien. Although he has grown up in such a society, he can’t help himself but feel that all of this is abnormal, it’s not how things are supposed to be. We were never destined to be cultureless cogs in a gigantic machine and we were never meant to worship money as our eternal God, yet this is the culture we currently find ourselves in. The young boy who desires to be like a knight isn’t merely responding to the ideal of idealistic knightly behavior, he’s actually seeking to live more like his ancestors. His ancestors might have not been knights themselves, but they did wear armor and they did carry swords and God was holy to them, not money (“Mammon”). I often talk to friends from all kinds of political factions and one thing which they - ironically enough - seem to share is their hatred and aggressive dislike of modernity. It’s interesting that there are no proponents who seem to like the present, the few people who seem optimistic make clear that they are optimistic for a ”coming future”, but not even they seem to like the present time period (“flying cars and dome cities on Mars” come to mind, a world where everyone wears Star Trek jumpsuits). I therefore predict that we will return to a more traditional lifestyle in the long-term. Societies where we need to drug kids to get them through the day and where half of the population suffers from depression have no realistic future. I don’t predict that we’re going to have a complete collapse and basically return to being hunter-gatherers, because knowledge is now globally available, the collapse of one civilization doesn’t mean that another one will go down as well. I mean if Germany gets destroyed, would that really destroy Japan as well? I highly doubt it. Maybe an asteroid or super virus could destroy humanity, but I doubt that the collapse of an entire continent could destroy humanity’s knowledge in the long-term. No, I foresee that humans will keep their technology but start to incorporate more traditional aspects back into their lives. A person of the future might drive a futuristic car, but he or she will also wear clothes which were inspired by traditional designs and return to old beliefs (the rise of neo-paganism shows this clearly, these are not actually be the same old religions which existed back then, but it’s obvious that the adherents of these new religions seek something similar, a deeply spiritual world, an escape from the constant nihilism which is so prevalent in the West now). Hoodies have become popular, but what might surprise you is that this design is very old, so called “Kapuzenjacken” were worn back in old times in the HRE (Holy Roman Empire). They didn’t have zippers, but the design is the same. A medieval piece of clothing returned to far spread usage in modernity and almost nobody noticed it!
But there are more examples of this: cultural phenomena such as HEMA (historical European martial arts, the reconstruction of medieval and early modern fencing systems), primitivism, primalism and postmodernism (both as a philosophy and art style) quite clearly show that people are sick to death of modernism and its symptoms. You might say “that people enjoy old clothing and architecture does hardly imply that we’ll become less modern” and you might have a point there, but fashion often shows our convictions. I mean when have you ever heard of someone who wore a Schutzstaffel uniform just for fashion purposes? We often show off our needs and wants with our way of behavior and fashion.
So no, I don’t think that we’ll see a “Mad Max” future, but “Star Trek” will most likely also never happen, a sterile future where nobody believes anything anymore and everyone just pesters alien civilizations out of sheer boredom seems highly implausible. I believe that the most realistic prediction is something like “Firefly”. An advanced civilization which is also very traditionalistic and retains ancient customs and even old fashion (I recall that Malcolm even has a rapier duel in one episode. Starships and rapiers co-exist in this future). I believe that the future will be both technologically advanced (technology is very useful and is most likely not abolished) but also traditional (traditional in the original sense). Covid-19 has also indicated that huge societal changes are occurring, people were forced to live in isolation for months and this has led to many returning to their families. To come back to my original point: yes, we’re LARPing, but not as knights of old and/or elves, we’re LARPing as modern humans. Nobody really is a modern human. It’s unnatural and makes us sick in the long term. We’ll eventually return to our native lifestyles and political and societal developments all show that a return to our native lifestyle is inevitable. We’re in reality still tribesmen pretending to be space travelers. Until we have finally accepted who and what we are, we won’t go anywhere. Who knows, maybe Frank Herbert will have the last laugh and the future will be decided by nomadic human tribes in outer space.
Well, I hear you. I don’t doubt that some societies are technologically more advanced than others (every highly advanced society requires an intelligent elite and a gigantic bureaucratic apparatus to function properly) and I don’t doubt that the current societies have different views when compared with older time periods, but that’s not what I mean. As far as genetics go, we’re not that different from our ancient ancestors, indeed, even biologists openly admit that modern humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) have changed little in the last 300.000 years. Agriculture is a thing since circa 11500 years ago, writing is even younger, with the oldest known written language being the cuneiform script (invented around 3200 BC in Mesopotamia). So, our current civilization isn’t much older than 5200 years (I’m of course not ignoring the late Bronze Age collapse and the fall of Rome, there’s a case to be made that no civilization is actually an unbroken descendant of an older culture, it’s probably more accurate to say that some civilizations arose, developed impressive features and then declined. Later cultures and civilizations learned from the older ones but changed the old knowledge to fit their own purposes, the Holy Roman Empire was inspired by ancient Rome, but it wasn’t a clone of it, it had its own culture, government and even different ethnic groups, but it did share the same religion and Church with ancient Rome). It’s fair to say that civilization is something very recent (historically speaking). Now, there have of course been microevolutionary adaptions, such as the genetic mutations among Europeans which allows them to drink milk or the existence of blue eyes. But these are tiny little things, macroevolutionary changes didn’t seem to have occurred in a very long time. But still, take a tribesman from the Congo and compare him with me, you’ll find little differences. Yes, I’m healthier and taller (because I had better nutrition and medicine when I was a kid) but we’re not actually genetically different at all.
So, what if he’s actually living “naturally” and I’m role-playing as a modern human? I mean my ancestors have lived for many countless millennia like he does, not like we currently do. This in fact goes for all of us, most of our ancestors were in fact hunter-gatherers until very recently! There’s a reason why people love the image of the loincloth-wearing hero waving around a big sword, this archaic image does indeed represent our ancestors in a distorted way. Our ancestors wore loincloths (loincloths were worn in Europe at least until the 18th century and they are still being worn all over the world, in Japan they are referred to as “fundoshi”, thank you, Sakura and Howard!) and swords were the common weapon for warriors (swords were a part of the fashion of European gentlemen until the 19th century and they are still being worn by police and military officers for ceremonial purposes, the last duels in Europe occurred in the 1960s in France, in the lifetime of my father)! Now, I must stress this: I’m not saying that Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan were our ancestors, I’m saying is that these images do represent aspects of a lifestyle which was common for most of us until a very recent period. Like I said before, loincloths and swords seem so far away and outdated to us, but they were in fact used until very recently (some in the Congo still use both, but it’s no longer “mainstream”). I believe that most of us feel “homesick” for our natural lifestyles. The young boy who gets big eyes when he sees an iron-clad knight in full armor isn’t a foolish escapist, he’s a romantic! He feels deep down that the way how current people behave and react is something modern and unnatural. Something alien. Although he has grown up in such a society, he can’t help himself but feel that all of this is abnormal, it’s not how things are supposed to be. We were never destined to be cultureless cogs in a gigantic machine and we were never meant to worship money as our eternal God, yet this is the culture we currently find ourselves in. The young boy who desires to be like a knight isn’t merely responding to the ideal of idealistic knightly behavior, he’s actually seeking to live more like his ancestors. His ancestors might have not been knights themselves, but they did wear armor and they did carry swords and God was holy to them, not money (“Mammon”). I often talk to friends from all kinds of political factions and one thing which they - ironically enough - seem to share is their hatred and aggressive dislike of modernity. It’s interesting that there are no proponents who seem to like the present, the few people who seem optimistic make clear that they are optimistic for a ”coming future”, but not even they seem to like the present time period (“flying cars and dome cities on Mars” come to mind, a world where everyone wears Star Trek jumpsuits). I therefore predict that we will return to a more traditional lifestyle in the long-term. Societies where we need to drug kids to get them through the day and where half of the population suffers from depression have no realistic future. I don’t predict that we’re going to have a complete collapse and basically return to being hunter-gatherers, because knowledge is now globally available, the collapse of one civilization doesn’t mean that another one will go down as well. I mean if Germany gets destroyed, would that really destroy Japan as well? I highly doubt it. Maybe an asteroid or super virus could destroy humanity, but I doubt that the collapse of an entire continent could destroy humanity’s knowledge in the long-term. No, I foresee that humans will keep their technology but start to incorporate more traditional aspects back into their lives. A person of the future might drive a futuristic car, but he or she will also wear clothes which were inspired by traditional designs and return to old beliefs (the rise of neo-paganism shows this clearly, these are not actually be the same old religions which existed back then, but it’s obvious that the adherents of these new religions seek something similar, a deeply spiritual world, an escape from the constant nihilism which is so prevalent in the West now). Hoodies have become popular, but what might surprise you is that this design is very old, so called “Kapuzenjacken” were worn back in old times in the HRE (Holy Roman Empire). They didn’t have zippers, but the design is the same. A medieval piece of clothing returned to far spread usage in modernity and almost nobody noticed it!
But there are more examples of this: cultural phenomena such as HEMA (historical European martial arts, the reconstruction of medieval and early modern fencing systems), primitivism, primalism and postmodernism (both as a philosophy and art style) quite clearly show that people are sick to death of modernism and its symptoms. You might say “that people enjoy old clothing and architecture does hardly imply that we’ll become less modern” and you might have a point there, but fashion often shows our convictions. I mean when have you ever heard of someone who wore a Schutzstaffel uniform just for fashion purposes? We often show off our needs and wants with our way of behavior and fashion.
So no, I don’t think that we’ll see a “Mad Max” future, but “Star Trek” will most likely also never happen, a sterile future where nobody believes anything anymore and everyone just pesters alien civilizations out of sheer boredom seems highly implausible. I believe that the most realistic prediction is something like “Firefly”. An advanced civilization which is also very traditionalistic and retains ancient customs and even old fashion (I recall that Malcolm even has a rapier duel in one episode. Starships and rapiers co-exist in this future). I believe that the future will be both technologically advanced (technology is very useful and is most likely not abolished) but also traditional (traditional in the original sense). Covid-19 has also indicated that huge societal changes are occurring, people were forced to live in isolation for months and this has led to many returning to their families. To come back to my original point: yes, we’re LARPing, but not as knights of old and/or elves, we’re LARPing as modern humans. Nobody really is a modern human. It’s unnatural and makes us sick in the long term. We’ll eventually return to our native lifestyles and political and societal developments all show that a return to our native lifestyle is inevitable. We’re in reality still tribesmen pretending to be space travelers. Until we have finally accepted who and what we are, we won’t go anywhere. Who knows, maybe Frank Herbert will have the last laugh and the future will be decided by nomadic human tribes in outer space.
User Profile
Accepting Trades
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Gorilla
Favorite Music
Gospel, Jazz and Classical
Favorite TV Shows & Movies
Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings
Favorite Games
Stronghold Crusader, TimeSplitters, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls and everything which involves Mario
Favorite Animals
Apes (I love Apes)
Favorite Foods & Drinks
Chicken (in every form), Italian cuisine
Favorite Quote
"Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act." (Psalm 37:5)
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