Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierce Inverarity
The shift in the quote's terminology from tech to culture and back again is telling. As you yourself point out, tech never exists in a vacuum. Cultures cluster around it. (I'd go further and say that culture produces tech--that some innovations aren't even thinkable until a nontech need prompts their discovery.)
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Yeah, you're not alone in that. Was trying to sum up what is in essence a huge debate regarding the extent that technology and culture co-exist within society. Pinch & Bijker, Winner, Heidegger, yadda, yadda, yadda. And I'm stuck at the moment on who was theorizing the opposite arguement to your statement that culture produces tech: that tech will arise once society is at a state that exists to support it. (Hmmm, I think I managed to mangle social constructivism there. Can't recall...
grumble, grumble, grumble)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierce Inverarity
And to the degree that a given technology is embedded within culture,* the development metaphor breaks down. There simply is no progress in culture. What do Corvette fetishists care about advances in exhaust technology? They don't want the best-engineered car, or the most economic one. They want the coolest car.
As with the Corvette, so with Elvis, so with AD&D: the debate is about the coolness, not the exhaust. Coolness is a really complex cultural term.
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Ah, see, here I think we're differing a bit: I think culture does progress, though I lean towards it doing so in evolutionary steps most of the time. Some of the things that made those older Corvettes "cool" have changed over time, and even though the fundamental tech involved in
the Corvette's physical construction has remained the same, some of the surrounding techs have changed, making the choices behind the coolness of a Corvette different.
But you're right that "coolness" is complex. Billions are spent trying to either figure out what's coming up from the street, or dictate it from on high. RPG's tend to be a little closer to the street. And RPG.net tends to function a lot like the playground or the street corner. And much like the music you listened to in high school, those games we played during our formative teenage years always always hold some appeal. Which is why the outcry is so strong when someone comes along and criticizes it. Which is what we're witnessing here in these "retro" threads.
-sugarman--