Silfren wrote...
I don't think that common citizens not being allowed to own tanks or raw uranium is a violation of the principle of personal property so much as a limitation of it. Personal freedoms are NEVER absolute, in principle or practical application, even when there are arguments to be made that certain specific rights OUGHT to be. i.e., in the U.S, freedom of speech doesn't mean you can use your freedom to incite panic (the clichéd maxim about yelling fire in a crowded theatre), and it doesn't mean that person A has the right to say whatever they please in person B's house without consequences. Having the right to listen to whatever radio programs you please or watch whatever t.v. you please does NOT mean you have the right to blare your audio so loud that it annoys the neighbors. Yet those conditions are not violations of personal freedoms, but limits to said freedoms based on the fact that no given person is free to the extent that they are at liberty to infringe on the freedom of others.
A tank is but a tool and without the explicit desire to do harm of its owner, it will infringe upon no freedoms. However, we still limit the freedoms of of citizens in regards to owning one of these regardless of how much of a model citizen s/he might be. This is because if used, tanks cause devastatins damage.
Should the same thing not apply to magic? It is a tool, yes, but if used irresponsably, it can cause untold levels of destruction. As you said, personal freedoms are never absolute.
The question of whether or not it's appropriate to apply modern Western values to the world of Thedas is a valid one. But it's worth pointing out that many of those Western sensibilities are already a part of the intellectual world of Thedas, which strongly implies that they are not out of place. It was suggested earlier in this thread--and has been elsewhere--that it is inappropriate to talk about genocide within the context of Thedas, because it is a real-world only concept that didn't exist prior to WWII. However, that concept is explicitly named by Wynne in Origins, so clearly it is a concept that is relevant to the Thedosian world. The fact also that the very concept of personal freedoms is a part of the world, mentioned by mage and non-mage alike, in reference to mage concerns but also concerns outside the mage/Templar dynamic, also lends credence to this idea.
True but if we had to contend with eventualities such as the presence of outworld demonic powers who seeked to invade our world through the bodies of people who are randomly born with the abilities of killing others with their minds, I daresay we would have different concepts of freedom and genocide.
Equality makes sense in our world where all men are, more or less, equal. Some are stronger than most, others are more intelligents but there isn't such an insurmountable wall separating the races of our world as there is separating mages and mundanes.
I tried to cover that point, albeit rather vaguely, by acknowledging that Tevinter is not a pleasant place to live. In any case, nothing you said here invalidates my point that Tevinter, being something other than a smoking ruin that does not have abominations pouring out to terrorize its neighbors, is clearly a stable society despite the fact that mages live freely. That point stands and you have offered nothing to refute it. To whit, whether Tevinter is a nice place to live because the mages there live by the philosophy of magic-makes-right, is an entirely separate question from whether Tevinter is a cohesive, stable society due to magic not being tethered to fanatical levels of oversight. It is necessary to examine both of those issues separately, because the one does not cause the other, and also because the primary argument within the world of Dragon Age is less that mages are inherently inclined toward villainy and oppression, and more that magic is so inherently dangerous that mages are always and forever just a bad day away from raining chaos and destruction on everyone around them. The former argument does get made, of course, but by and large it's the second one that gets the lion share from people arguing that mages have to be locked up for the greater good. It's been my experience that the same imbalance is given to both arguments by players of Dragon Age--most people, while using both arguments, give far more attention and weight to the mages-are-walking-bombs idea than the one of power-corrupts.
With that in mind, the question of Tevinter is a very interesting one. We know that magic is practiced openly and often in the Imperium. We also know that Tevinter is, again, NOT a smoking ruin, but a stable, functioning society.* We also know that there is a distinct lack of demons and abominations running loose outside of Tevinter. That last one is coupled with the fact that due to the nature of magic, the Veil there has to be very, very thin. So there is one very reasonable conclusion to draw from all this: The people of Tevinter have developed methods for making sure that magic is controllable. Based on that, there is every reason to believe that people elsewhere in Thedas can study Tevinter's policies to find ways to apply them to other Circles. It by NO MEANS has to be a zero-sum game with either/or all-or-nothing conclusions: in other words there isn't any basis to assume that Ferelden or any other nation can't adapt Tevinter's methods without resorting to the divine, absolute rule of Magisters who are left free to enslave everyone else. At the very least, Tevinter's open-ended attitude toward magic clearly allows for a level and depth of magical study that would be of great benefit to non-Tevinter Circles if only the Andrastian Chantry would stop suppressing it.
First, I question this idea that the Andrastian Chantry supresses magical research; of the defensive variety at least. The entry codexs on the various demons; Desire and Sloth in particular; suggest an extensive study on the behavior and nature of these creatures so as to better fight them; also, I can remember at least two investigations into the nature of demonic possession of inanimate objects such as corpses and trees commissioned by the Chantry.
Regarding studying the Tevinter methods, I agree with you that it could be useful; in theory at least. If anything, I expect their main method of preventing demonic possession involves enslaving demons which involves blood magic and carries its own issues such as mages suddenly having acess to privates armies which brings us back to the "power corrupts" angle of the magic dillema.
Still, theoretically, it shouldn't be an useless venture.
That is logical, but you can make the same argument for many real world situations. Hell, it HAS been made, many times, in reference to people suffering from certain types of mental illness. The problem is that applying logical fixes in the name of maximizing security and minimizing risk--that is to say, reducing the whole issue to a mathematical equation, ignores the fact that we're talking about people. When the method for reaching this min/maxed state requires inhumane methods, there is a problem, and it is not okay to dismiss the people being harmed with this kind of coldhearted logic on the argument that it's okay to dehumanize one group of people for the sake of another. This kind of response may work, but it won't ever be just, and justice needs to be part of the legal system. Mages, after all, are citizens, too. You might remember that it is actually part of the Templars' calling to protect mages as well as protect other people from mages. Could this not be fairly interpreted to mean that mages have rights that need to be protected just as much as other people need to be protected from the potential destruction mages could cause?
Certainly but is the Circle System truly so terrible an option? We've seen that the living conditions it provides mages with are more than adequate. Truthfully, mages have acess to privileges few possessed in medieval times such as an education. The Circle is, more often than not, a luxurious tower where mages can live amongst their own people; are fed, clothed and educated by the Chantry and if they work, they do so to provide for themselves.
It's certainly not perfect. The warden mentality that can develop amongst the templars can lead to abuses but these are certain to exist in any system. Mages have rigths and while it is true that depending on certain circunstances; such as the political and military power of the KC in question; these can be more or less respected, the same can be said of any living in a feudal society like Thedas.
Pre-emptive incarceration based on an accident of birth is not what our society considers as just but we never actually had to deal with actual magic and demons.
Modifié par MisterJB, 22 février 2013 - 01:00 .
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