Tibet springs to mind. A nation of Buddhists led by (arguably) the most peaceful leader in the world.
Then in 1950 China decided they would be better off without neighbors like that.
"Chaos implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. ... Those who promote chaotic behavior say that only unfettered personal freedom allows people to express themselves fully and lets society benefit from the potential that its individuals have within them."
Can you explain how having a social order prevents a society from fulfilling these ideals?
As soon as you can explain to me how a Lawful society is prevented from fulfilling these ideals, as every statement in the alignment descriptions refers to characters, i.e. individuals and not societies.
In fact, the only use of the word "society" is in the Lawful description. Hmm.
I just quoted the Chaotic description with the word society in it. And it doesn't have to be prevented in Lawful societies to have Chaotic societies.
My mistake, I misread it.
Here's where I think we are making the distinction:
-You (correct me if I'm wrong) are defining the alignment of a society based on the beliefs of its people (i.e. the people in this society value personal freedom of security, etc.)
-I am defining the alignment of a society based on how it functions (having laws, having hierarchy), and therefore if it is a society, it is lawful.
Is that a correct assessment of your view?
Nope. I'm also defining the alignment of the society on how it functions.
I just don't agree that having rules is limited to Law.
Where I draw the line is when the rules extend to more than one person. Having a personal code that one abides by is Chaotic for sure, but adhering to someone else's rules strikes me as as Lawful trait, and creating a set of rules and enforcing them so that others follow (as a society's leaders do) even more so.
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...and creating a set of rules and enforcing them so that others follow (as a society's leaders do) even more so.
But agreeing on the rules that work, and are proven to work over time, and freely choosing to participate under those rules while being free to leave them at any time is Chaotic, and a society.
Where I draw the line is when the rules extend to more than one person. Having a personal code that one abides by is Chaotic for sure, but adhering to someone else's rules strikes me as as Lawful trait, and creating a set of rules and enforcing them so that others follow (as a society's leaders do) even more so.Nope. I'm also defining the alignment of the society on how it functions.
I just don't agree that having rules is limited to Law.
Do you see any difference at all between societies that are strongly structured: caste system where everyone knows their place and must remain in it and rules strictly constrain everyone's options - even those at the top are constrained by ritual and tradition - and those societies where there are certainly some rules to allow society to function, but those rules are designed to allow as much individual freedom as possible.
Or are both societies Lawful because they have rules at all?
Certainly I see a difference. One is more organized/lawful and one is less organized/lawful, but I see both as lawful—or rather, neither as Unlawful.
I see the difference between them as the difference between having three apples or having one apple, not between having three apples or three oranges.
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As examples; the Catholic Church (and the Vatican) is clearly not lawful good but does have a lawful and just society as a goal that we would call lawful good. But as any large institution is inevitably prone to corruption the Catholic Church has problems with abuse of power and position as well as institutional attempts to whitewash current and past events that put the church in a bad light. Any political institution (which means any country and any large religious organization) can ascribe to lofty goals like being a just society.
I wouldn't call any city-state whose utopian ideals include the subjugation of women and non-believers "good".
Hence the problem with every Abrahamic religious organization. It's not that they're bad when they're corrupt; it's that they're bad when they're following their teachings to the letter.
Certainly I see a difference. One is more organized/lawful and one is less organized/lawful, but I see both as lawful—or rather, neither as Unlawful.But we've already determined that Law and Chaos is a spectrum, not separate quantities.
But all of the proposed traits for Lawfulness exist in a society that is supposedly Chaotic, just in a different form! The supposed "Chaotic Society" examples I have seen thus far merely enforce rules in a different way than we ("we" meaning us real-world, internet-accessing cultures) generally do. Some examples have included family elders having say, or a might-makes-right despot, or having several small groups working together in council.
If we look at this completely divorced from the beliefs of individuals in the society—which, as we both claim, is what this discussion is about—how does a society function "Chaotically" and still remain a society? At what point is it Neutral?
Is there some limit on the number of rules?
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ"- Paul the ApostleAs examples; the Catholic Church (and the Vatican) is clearly not lawful good but does have a lawful and just society as a goal that we would call lawful good. But as any large institution is inevitably prone to corruption the Catholic Church has problems with abuse of power and position as well as institutional attempts to whitewash current and past events that put the church in a bad light. Any political institution (which means any country and any large religious organization) can ascribe to lofty goals like being a just society.I wouldn't call any city-state whose utopian ideals include the subjugation of women and non-believers "good".
Hence the problem with every Abrahamic religious organization. It's not that they're bad when they're corrupt; it's that they're bad when they're following their teachings to the letter.
Let's avoid a derailment into religious debate, if we can.
The thing is morality changes over time. What is considered wrong or right can change over the years so at this time because over time what is good has changed hands so many times that no we cannot find a nation that is "good" right now due to our standards, but years ago imsure u could pick a few countries at a time that would be considered "good" by the morality of that time.
But all of the proposed traits for Lawfulness exist in a society that is supposedly Chaotic, just in a different form!Do they? Or does that different form make the difference?
If both have the same number of laws, traditions, etc and the only difference is how those laws are enforced, what determines which is which, then? If the distinction is "Which one more closely resembles the one I live in", as may be the case with some other posters, I disagree.
This is why I don't think this scheme cannot be adequately applied to societies divorced from individual inclinations. An extreme CN character would have no regard for any rules or traditions, but an extreme CN society couldn't, but that would mean it had no rules, and if it had no rules, can it be called a single society at all?
By my reasoning Kaer Maga is not a single society: it's a collection of small societies (each gang, group, and family being it's own small society with its own rules), and the CN designation represents the general attitude of the people.
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By my reasoning Kaer Maga is not a single society: it's a collection of small societies (each gang, group, and family being it's own small society with its own rules), and the CN designation represents the general attitude of the people.
I think a society of societies describes Chaotic societies very well.
They don't break apart simply because their freedom isn't restricted the way a Lawful society would enforce against.
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Tibet springs to mind. A nation of Buddhists led by (arguably) the most peaceful leader in the world.
Then in 1950 China decided they would be better off without neighbors like that.
Tibetan society existed in essentially a religious feudal system up until 1950. In the 30's, they even attempted to capture territory outside of Tibet through armed force.
Slavery and indentured servitude were part of the social structure of buddhist Tibet prior to the atrocities done by communist China.
Not saying any of this to alleviate what China has done, but the pacifist strategy is relatively recent. Tibet's history is not rooted in pacifism, but includes many bloody conflicts, of which the Tibetans were very much participants, not merely victims.
My wife suggested the Garden of Eden
By my reasoning Kaer Maga is not a single society: it's a collection of small societies (each gang, group, and family being it's own small society with its own rules), and the CN designation represents the general attitude of the people.I think a society of societies describes Chaotic societies very well.
They don't break apart simply because their freedom isn't restricted the way a Lawful society would enforce against.
Having a set of over-arching laws that everyone agrees to fall under is a part of my operational definition of "society". How would you define society otherwise? I.e., what makes it one "society of societies" as opposed to "several unrelated societies that happen to be in close proximity"
I'd say probably the closest is New Zealand. No lawful state on earth will ever be good, since the entire history of the world is one of oppressors' victory over the oppressed, (Human beings are just terrible. Every revolution pretty much begets another wave of abuse.) but they were the first to give women the vote, they have recognized seats in their government for the indigenous, and they have some of the lowest rates of crime, very little political corruption, and one of the best track records on universal human rights in the world.
And for being so good and inoffensive, we typically forget to include them on our maps.
Nope.... Not New Zealand massive drug and domestic violence problems. New Zealand is definitely not Dr Seuss' Solla Sollew where the troubles are few.
I tend to think that the more Chaotic a society is, the more that personal relationships and characteristics dominate over institutional ones, and the more Lawful a society is, the more that institutional relationships and positions dominate over personal ones.
That said; Chaos and Law can have a much different relationship with each other than Good and Evil do, and are a lot freer to borrow from one another.
Vatican City?Sorry, going to go laugh forever. You must be joking.
The Mwangi Inquisition no longer jokes as most of the laughs we hear are our own echoing back from across the Expanse.
Let's assume that every nation has an equal quantity of paladins that is proportionate to their respective populations.
Which country has had the smallest percentage of their paladins fall?
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The thing is morality changes over time. What is considered wrong or right can change over the years so at this time because over time what is good has changed hands so many times that no we cannot find a nation that is "good" right now due to our standards, but years ago imsure u could pick a few countries at a time that would be considered "good" by the morality of that time.
I would agree that certain things are deemed evil or bad in one place or time and not bad or even good or valued at other places and times - marijuana, gay marriage and other such issues show that society can change over time its views. However, I do think there are some baselines of morality that do seem to have stood the test of time and have been independently arrived at in different societies. For instance 2,500 years ago in India the Buddha taught that there are ten courses of wholesome conduct (and I am pretty sure these predated him):
1. Not to Kill
2. Not to Steal (or specifically "take what is not given")
3. Not to engage in sexual misconduct (usually explained as involving minors, incest, violence, deceit, unfaithfulness, etc.. - but yes, here there is room for debate about several matters)
4. Not to lie
5. Not to use abusive speech
6. Not to use speech to divide people against one another
7. Not to speak irresponsibly (yes, this is rather vague)
8. Not to give in to greed
9. Not to give in to hatred
10. Not to give in to delusion (also a matter of interpretation I guess)
So, yeah, there are areas there that are debatable but even in those I think most people would agree that irresponsible speech, delusion, and sexual misconduct (at the very least rape and incest and such) are not things we want to see done.
It also comes down to the Golden Rule that has also been independently spoken of in different cultures at different times.
So I am wary of the argument that morality is totally relative. I do think there are baselines even though peripheral issues are arguable and changeable.
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There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ"- Paul the ApostleAs examples; the Catholic Church (and the Vatican) is clearly not lawful good but does have a lawful and just society as a goal that we would call lawful good. But as any large institution is inevitably prone to corruption the Catholic Church has problems with abuse of power and position as well as institutional attempts to whitewash current and past events that put the church in a bad light. Any political institution (which means any country and any large religious organization) can ascribe to lofty goals like being a just society.I wouldn't call any city-state whose utopian ideals include the subjugation of women and non-believers "good".
Hence the problem with every Abrahamic religious organization. It's not that they're bad when they're corrupt; it's that they're bad when they're following their teachings to the letter.
As in all the congregations of the Lord’s people… Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. --- Also Paul the Apostle. There's good and bad in all holy books, but the bad is REALLY bad. Morality isn't a zero sum game.
I'll also have to retract my earlier statement about New Zealand in light of the additional information. Guess there's none. Wait . . . maybe Iceland?
Nobody ruin Iceland for me.
Have you read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, considered to be the first American Novel? That was someone who wrote about the Pilgrims as a contemporary, not through some distant historical lens.Yah, this is tricky because we're looking at those societies through the lens of history.
The Scarlet Letter was written 200 years after the time in which it was set. For historical perspective, if someone were write a story about the life of Nathaniel Hawthorne today, it would be closer in time to his life than his was to Hester Prynne's.
EDIT: Also, the first American novel is considered to be The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown. It was published a full 60 years before The Scarlet Letter
Have you read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, considered to be the first American Novel? That was someone who wrote about the Pilgrims as a contemporary, not through some distant historical lens.Yah, this is tricky because we're looking at those societies through the lens of history.
The Scarlet Letter was written 200 years after the time in which it was set. For historical perspective, if someone were write a story about the life of Nathaniel Hawthorne today, it would be closer in time to his life than his was to Hester Prynne's.
EDIT: Also, the first American novel is considered to be The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown. It was published a full 60 years before The Scarlet Letter
I had a longer post, but don't want to derail too much.
Suffice to say, I think for a modern reader, particularly for anyone who doesn't remember the world without the internet, 1850 is far closer to 1650 than it is to 2014. I do think that the biggest and strongest similarities carry through to all three periods though.
Here is where I disagree: I am not judging individuals/societies based on wether or not they believe in an abstract concept of "Law" or "Chaos". Merely the existance of order and the importance placed upon it.
And an argument can be made that "what the more powerful can enforce upon the less powerful" is exclusively what societies consist of. There are certainly a variety of philosophers who have argued as much throughout time.
{. . .}
What I mean is that in Chaotic societies, order, to the extent that it exists at all, exists purely by and for the whims of the rulers. In Lawful societies, the rulers are not necessarily any better morally, but they build a system of rules that goes beyond their own whims of the moment, even if it is tailored to serve their whims overall. When a Chaotic society loses its leader, if the leader is not replaced immediately, the society disintegrates, although if the pieces get their own leaders during the fragmentation process, they may maintain a decent fraction of the original size, and possibly later on the strongest and/or most treacherous one may manage to take over the rest. When a Lawful society loses its leader, it continues to enforce its rules, including rules for putting a new leader in. Societies that are Neutral with respect to Law and Chaos fall somewhere in between, of course.
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Vatican City?Sorry, going to go laugh forever. You must be joking.
The Mwangi Inquisition no longer jokes as most of the laughs we hear are our own echoing back from across the Expanse.
Let's assume that every nation has an equal quantity of paladins that is proportionate to their respective populations.
Which country has had the smallest percentage of their paladins fall?
Excuse me, what?
Why is this now in gamer talk?
Having a set of over-arching laws that everyone agrees to fall under is a part of my operational definition of "society". How would you define society otherwise?We've had plenty of them without such things. I hear the Zapotistas down in Mexico are doing just fine without the Mexican government.
And each one of those is its own, self contained society. There is no overarching society if there are no overarching rules or governance. My refrigerator and dish washer cannot be considered two parts of the same device simply by their proximity to one another.
I could argue that communes, when they work like they are supposed to, are an example. Even if they tend not to last.
What's this? Another 'how alignment works in the real world' thread?
Did someone cast tasha's mass uncontrollable subjective pontification again?
Or is someone trying to convert the warhammer 'blather' skill to pathfinder.
I think we have concluded that a lawful good nation is a fantasy.
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I think we have concluded that a lawful good nation is a fantasy.
I think we've determined that a Good nation of any sort is a fantasy. You can have a Good leader of government, Good factions within a government, or a Good group as a whole if it's a small enough group...but an entire nation? Nope, simply doesn't work on that scale.
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"That scale" meaning more than about 50 adults. ;)I think we have concluded that a lawful good nation is a fantasy.I think we've determined that a Good nation of any sort is a fantasy. You can have a Good leader of government, Good factions within a government, or a Good group as a whole if it's a small enough group...but an entire nation? Nope, simply doesn't work on that scale.
If you choose carefully, I'd bet you can go up to a couple of hundred. Not much past that,though.
Excuse me, what?Vatican City?Sorry, going to go laugh forever. You must be joking.
The Mwangi Inquisition no longer jokes as most of the laughs we hear are our own echoing back from across the Expanse.
Let's assume that every nation has an equal quantity of paladins that is proportionate to their respective populations.
Which country has had the smallest percentage of their paladins fall?
I am proposing an alternate way of answering the original question. That is, assuming generously that 2% of each nation's population consists of paladins, what nation's paladins are the least likely to lose their paladin powers considering that nation's actions historically?
I think we have concluded that a lawful good nation is a fantasy.I think we've determined that a Good nation of any sort is a fantasy. You can have a Good leader of government, Good factions within a government, or a Good group as a whole if it's a small enough group...but an entire nation? Nope, simply doesn't work on that scale.
Why is 100% Good alignment within a nation required for the nation to be considered Good?
Let's us a game situation as an analogy. Here's a party:
LG Paladin
CG Ranger
NG Sorcerer
TN Druid
3/4's of the party is Good. In the course of events, the party typically helps people. They appreciate rewards, but would help victims regardless. The druid character is assumed to be present with the party for story reasons. He doesn't do any Evil acts and while he sometimes disagrees with the party, he still participates in their adventures.
Would you consider that a Good party?
Lets look at the concept of murder. I want to hone in on one concept for a moment. We all agree, murder is very much an evil act (not all killing is considered murder remember). I don't want to debate what is murder and what isn't, just leave it vague for our purposes. Murder is illegal and widely abhorred within the US. It still happens within the US, but when discovered it is punished and we attempt to use that punishment as a deterrent to others.
Just because murder happens within the US does not make the US inherently Evil (or Neutral). The society at large has chosen to declare murder wrong, which would place the society and it's rules on the path to Good. I'm not arguing that the US is Good, just using this one example how your standard is a false one (IMO).
The US is definitely not good, for many other reasons (including what it chooses to define as murder in some cases).
I think the major reason that all nations will fail the test of being Good or not is how they treat other nations, or citizens from other nations. I think a few nations are starting to expand their concept of morality to include the well-being of other nations, but it hasn't really developed fully yet. Most nations are highly self-interested and only benevolent when it suits their interests.
I don't think 100% of the people within a nation need to be Good for it to be considered such. I'd instead consider the criteria be such:
1) Evil acts are abhorred within society
2) Evil acts are not committed by the will of the people (ie, the government they invest their authority in)
3) Good members of society represent a simple majority (50.1% or more)
I think we can agree that a lot of nations fulfill (1) to some degree, some more than others. Very few nations fulfill (2), particularly if you include 100+ years of history. (3) would require us to come up with further definitions and measuring methods to ascertain.