(no subject)

[arpad]

We are almost all city dwellers. And nevertheless we understand more about medieval peasantry, medieval lords, medieval monks than about medieval town people. It is their way of thinking, their society that is completely hidden behind a fog of modern myths and tales. A capital town in history books just play a decoration for palace plots, whereas fantasy provides impossibilities like "thieves guilds"...

I don't know enough, but somehow I am completely sure that a medieval town would have been the most horrid and alien place for a guest from the future. And not because of its filth.

Comments

[wildernesscat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose that certain rights and liberties that we take for granted, didn't exist in those days.

[trurle.livejournal.com]

The traditional, semi-isolated village seems to you less alien and horrid place?

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Yes. Very easy to understand. Very straightforward.

[trurle.livejournal.com]

I think that you are wrong: medieval and ancient city-states have some familiar and some alien features, but traditional village's culture is both extremely diverse and in most cases completely alien.

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Villages are alien, but I would call them "anthropologically simple". Towns are alien and complex. And this is what you need to feel truly alienated.

[trurle.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to measure anthropological complexity, do you?

[madali.livejournal.com]

They need to make more movies about previous eras and how they lived, without resorting to make things look and seen modern. Like, it grieves me to no end when I watch those kinds of movies and everyone is well-shaved and has 200 dollar haircut

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

This is a reasonable observation.
I am often dismayed by the fact that our ancestors are often considered to be both stupid and mistaken by modern people, when they are no worse than us and simply have a different culture.