Message from @snake
Discord ID: 640422441914597386
Which if true would clearly show that things change over time
People could express their values, but they couldn't tell future generations what they thought
I'm responding to the claim that illiterate people didn't pass down their beliefs @snake
The church, among other institutions, had an iron grip on that
I have a striking example to completely refute that
Oh, well illiterate people had children
They would obviously pass it on to them
Those children didn't have the same views
Unlike Ford I don't believe in the heritability of morality
Well there is the heritability of political views and temperament
Political views aren't heritable
I don’t know if that counts as morality
There is an oral tradition of ancient Aryans of India, who have preserved the Vedas, a large corpus of ancient Sanskrit hymns, for over 5000 years
Ok it works like this, you know the big five personality test? Those greatly influence your political values, and morality and are also heritable @ETBrooD
And they have been doing so since before they were acquainted with writing on a large scale
So it is idiotic to even suggest that illiterate people don't pass down their values
That’s why there is a world of difference between conservatives and liberals
But that doesn’t mean it’s a concrete thing, think of it as a outline to a book, environment deals the rest @ETBrooD
Same with Germanic bards and Celtic druids
I think you've still misunderstood my argument
? Maybe I did, chat has gotten a little chaotic
My argument is that we don't know which values illiterate people had, since they didn't express their values through time. They can learn chants all they want, that doesn't change the fact that they can't create a big library of personal values that would show their true diversity of thought.
So for us it is impossible to assume that they either did or didn't have diverse values.
Still wrong
Do you know how Grimms tales were made?
And what do they reflect?
No
I can vaguely remember a few of the stories
They were a collection of folklore of rural Germany, collected by the Grimm brothers
What they found was that these stories reflected many similar elements and often times contained missing links with Germanic Iron Age historical events
Which had been recorded elsewhere
"Many similar elements" does not equate to "values consistent through time"
It does tell us which values remained and which didn't, and couple it with historical events, you have the complete picture
No it doesn't tell us that, because it's only a collection, and it's not a word-for-word representation of any values
The main point is, there has always been a transmission of beliefs from the older generation to the younger, even when they were illiterate
It's also likely that the Grimm brothers put their own spin on the stories
So to sum it up, it proves nothing about consistent values
It proves that people propagated their beliefs regardless of literacy
Which is really a self evident point anyway