The wrong kind of details: the components of wonder (aka lmp's rant)

[Kuruharan]

How did the political center resist the temptation to loot the economic center and why didn't the economic center agitate for more rights? Was this strange truce because campaign finance 'reform' hadn't been invented yet, she asked facetiously? Never mind, off topic. (but I still want to know why it was stable-- or wasn't it stable?)

The Muse gave you part of the answer.

Because so much of the economic center was tied up in slaves who had absolutely no say in the political center

Another part is that, for whatever reason, the Athenians did not think well of artisans and craftsmen. The citizens had no desire to take what the metics had because they did not want to have to perform the (what they considered to be) menial tasks of potter, sandalmaker, etc. They left that to the metics who could become well off financially. Of course since these unsavory occupations were the foundation of much of the commerce the metics were very important economically speaking. This system also allowed the citizens greater time to play politics all day rather than work. The metics would have liked to become citizens, but you must understand that the Greek polis was very much a family affair. It was tied together by different kinships and it was almost unthinkable to the average Greek to allow a foreigner into that group. If the metics had caused any trouble they would have been expelled from the city.

This is not to say that there were not Athenians who were into "trade." However, they were usually involved in an ownership/management capacity. There was a lower class of citizens that had occupations of various sorts, but they were not the dominating economic force.

Land owning men were the only citizens who could vote.

Well, as I said above, that's not entirely true. Cleisthenes, Solon, and Themistocles expanded the citizen body to increase their power base and this eventually included people who did not own "land" per se. These were initially city men of a certain economic value but more metics kept coming into Athens who set up successful businesses numbers of these metics became far more economically prosperous than many citizens. Pericles also eventually restricted citizenship by passing a law that a citizen had to be the child of two citizen parents, or at least the mother's family had to have citizenship. (As an aside, Pericles had to have an exemption to this law passed for his illegitimate son because his legitimate sons died and he had to perpetuate the family name.) It eventually got to the point that it was more important who your parents were than what you owned. This is not to say that land ownership was not important, it was. Most of the leading men of Athens were from the aristocratic landowning class. Eventually the class of citizen business owners became politically important. These were the politicians that aristocratic writers mostly derided as demagogues. Cleon, Hyperbolus, and Cleophon are examples of these. Nicias was an interesting exception to this. His fortune came from "trade," but he was the leader of the "higher" party (economically speaking) for many years.

Hmm, let's see: The High and Mighty Order of the Yakkidy-Yak, the Last Unicorn, Napoleon III, C.S. Lewis, Disney movies, movie monster techniques, Beowulf, mountains and streams and sea-coasts (just love that analogy, as if you couldn't tell), Homer, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Robin Hood, Sir Lancelot, Poirot, the Norman Conquest, Robert L. Stevenson, Athenian economics and politics, with occasionally some guy named Tolkien thrown in for good measure. Yup, this thread sure covers a lot of territory.

[littlemanpoet]

Yup, this thread sure covers a lot of territory.

Not to mention poetic diction and evolution of consciousness, eh? [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

[Kuruharan]

I was rummaging around in the back tunnels of the barrow and stumbled upon this gem. I thought this thread deserved a resurrection.

And I speak the magic words...

"HerenIstarion"

[drigel]

aaahh
Robert E Howards short story "Marchers of Valhalla" to me is a great example of what the writers skill of capturing wonder can do. In 30 some odd pages, he invokes what others fail to accomlish in a 3-4 hundred page attempt.

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

And I speak the magic words...

"HerenIstarion"

lol

I must confess I haven't seen the thread before, so thanks indeed for bringing it up. I'm on my way through page one. Brief comment before I get to the end - sense of wonder may be worked up by characters too - but not if they act completely out of their character, but in a more half-expected or even hardly expected, but still believable way. Per instance, I never expected Eomer to let Aragorn & Co off, but I knew it could not have been otherwise once Eomer actually did let them go. Yet it was wonderfull all right.

More later. Or maybe not, and I'll keep quiet. Depends on what I'll find on pages 2 and 3

cheers

[Kuruharan]

Brief comment before I get to the end - sense of wonder may be worked up by characters too - but not if they act completely out of their character, but in a more half-expected or even hardly expected, but still believable way.

An excellent point.

There is an interesting train of thought to follow here.

I think there is a fine line between characters acting in character and adding to the wonder and characters acting in character and detracting from the wonder. The danger is that characters could behave in a monotonous fashion.

On the other side, it is sometimes easier to tell when a character just goes berserk and ruins a story. (I mean, you wouldn't have Aragorn pulling out a phaser and yelling at Gimli to ready the photon torpedoes. Or, at least, not this side of the Reunification of the Entish Bow, but I digress.) Bringing this back to reality, I think unpredictability is a good thing, but difficult to handle properly.