From: David Cake (dave@starfish.net.au)
Date: Thu 11 Jun 1998 - 20:28:38 EEST
I think most of the digest is being a little harsh on the Mostali
of late. I don't think that Mostali are incapable of thinking except at the
level of minutia.
However I still think its pretty much useless asking them what was
'really' going on, except in very specialised spheres. The cultural gap is
too great.
The most obvious example, is if you ask an old rock dwarf about,
say, what happened in the Sunstop - he almost certainly won't have even
seen it. He was underground. He remembers well hearing about it at the
time, but he remembers it as a Mostali announcement about implications of
the stoppage as regards to World machine repair, all of which is in terms
of Mostali 'theology' that is even more opaque to the outsider than GRaY
would be to a Doraddi. He is capable of talking about things that aren't
rocks, though.
I think Mostali do converse about, and somewhat understand, things
immediately beyond their particular specialty. I also don't think it helps,
as they (generally, except for those damned Openhandists and
Individualists) don't think beyond the bounds of their caste and culture. A
silver understands the existence of other magics in an intellectual sense,
but he would never act on that knowledge and use it - anymore than a modern
classics scholar would engage in animal sacrifices. (Except the
Individualists, of course, who just might use other peoples magic - and are
regarded as about as weird as an animal sacrificer might be in a modern
classics department).
Cheers
David
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