Jamie9 wrote...
DRTJR wrote...
Synthesis, is a magic "Fix-It", If you do not have to work to get food, or shelter how many of us would work?That is Stagnation.
If you had no one to challenge you, how many of us would strive to be better? That is Stagnation.
If you have nothing to challenge as a culture, be it internal or external problems then it will stagnate. If we do not fight amongst ourselves we can't advance because their will be no challenger, be it physical or mental, no new ideas means Stagnation.
This is like arguing with Javik. 
Depends what type of work you're talking about. Some people find their work very fulfilling. Especially if it helps others. So I would go to say that many would still work. Cultural norms would change and work would be treated differently.
You should strive to be better to become a better person, not because you want to 1-up that other guy.
Why do we *need* to advance? Seriously, why? If these advances help us understand things better, sure. If they make our lives better, sure. But do we *need* to advance?
Or can we live life helping others, conversing, fulfilling your ambitions, perhaps falling in love?
Stagnation wouldn't be the end of the world.
Actually, stagnation on a global form is somewhat dangerous, especially regarding cultural and religious issues.
To demonstrate this, I point to historian Arnold Toynbee.
Toynbee, who is sometimes listed as a comparative historian, argued that civilizations don't live or die by a cycle of a patterned rise or fall, but rather they live or die based on their own actions as a civilization. Toynbee focused on the cultural and religious aspects of a civilization, judged them there, and came up with a conclusion that Civilizations answer to challenges by accomplashing goals to meet those challenges. Want to defend your home, build a national army. Want to cure polio, create a vaccine. Want to go to mars, build a space shuttle. Culture, in terms of how we advance in architecture, science, mathematics, history, music, food, entertainment and so forth, is the lifeblood of a civilization.
But what kills ciliziation is what Toynbee referred to as the "creative minority." This group becomes dominant, despite being a small population of a civilization, because it promotes a stasis sort of mentality, to not reach for the stars, to not use science to expand our cultural limitations. We basically become stagnent and we see a loss of social cohesion, a cultural stagnation, and then a hard fall that leads to a civilizations "death" as it were.
Now, Toynbee linked a lot of this to morality and Chrisitanity being the only way to prevent the creative minority from taking over, but later resinded that idea in other works he made. So he was a tad biased in terms of his theory. I also am paraphrasing a 12 work series into two paragraphs. However, Toynbee was the first comparative historian to basically say that its the fault of the civilizations stagnation through culture, rather than political or social will, or a constant, unstoppable cycle, that caused a downfall.
The same idea can basically apply here. Evolving is not necessarily changing physically, but rather meeting challenges and coming forward through these challenges with achievements that allow us to evolve, that allow culture to thrive. The Geth are emblematic of this, promoting them stops a proxy war, puts two distinct cultures that have fought in the past to co-exist once more, and, as a nice touch, gave them the chance to culturally uplift the Quarians back to where they once were. Tali said in 3 that the Geth can help them build, and in 2-3 years the masks can come off, instead of waiting 20-30 years. So they can reclaim their lost culture, reclaiming a homeworld and a life they once had, if they meet that challenge and recognize the achievement they made is not something to fear, but to relish in.
This goes for pretty much EVERYTHING in Mass Effect. The Genophage, the Turians and their relationship with the Volus, Salraians "uplifting" the Yahg as a client race, and so on. Sometimes it won't succeed, but at least they make strives to improve their culture, rather than lock it in stasis. The Batarians locked theirs in stasis and it basically almost destroyed it due to isolation and their lack of cooperation on a galaxy-wide scale, which as noted, is kind of a theme for Mass Effect, cooperation of the races. The Krogan also represent this before 3, with Wrex, ironically enough, being an odd man out because his ideas WERE radical, were different from what Krogans would do.
But his ideas make the change possible, and like the Geth, they evolve as a civilization.
I should stop rambling, my point is that stagnation is not an answer, and its interesting that refusal as an ending adresses this, but then shows how it is hope for the next cycle to break the chain. So in many ways, refusal is both condemning as a violation of what is right, but hopeful for those who we will never see, for what it did. Its good and bad at the same time.
Modifié par LinksOcarina, 01 juillet 2012 - 02:53 .
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