9 Cultures (part 4)

"Little Cactus, four primal emotions emerge from the second primary duality of known | unknown. After all, the concept of something becoming known and something remaining unknown is only possible if there is a witness. In solitude, the witness becomes an individual. In multitude, the witness becomes a social group. Of course, whether this social group can consolidate itself into a civilization depends on whether it can channel these primal emotions into useful institutions."

"What are the four primal emotions grandfather?"

"The four primal emotions born of the most basic, primary duality are love and rage, fear and confusion. Love-known will sublimate into devotion. A culture born of it is dominated by religious passion and many great sages that travel the world have born out of it. One such culture exists in the northeast, beyond the mountains that border the eastern prairies. It is a great and ancient imperial power, whose arms stretch over mountains and seas. It coexists with another culture where fear dominates, which is the main reason its power remains in place despite being open and free, soft and gullible. The two cultures alternately reign that great land generally known as the central plateau, and are each responsible for generating the two mighty races Sura and Asura. Of course, nobody calls them that anymore, since the second great war…" his grandfather mumbled to himself before continuing, "Rage-known will sublimate into righteous anger. A civilization that prioritizes this emotion will pursue truth and justice as the ultimate ideal, giving rise to many heroes. In the south, situated within the great valleys, is this kind of culture full of hot blooded heroes. There their martial gurus and sages also encourage them to go around the world and become examples of chivalry and heroism. Confusion-known, gives rise to a rather noisy culture, ha ha. There, nobody agrees on anything, yet they somehow manage to make it as a group. In the north, there lies an advanced civilization where the governing body is actually a university. That civilization has no king and they do not agree that it is necessary to have a god. All kinds of intellectual collect in the arena once a day and make decisions about national policies. The populace doesn't produce any grain, but depends on the promises kings of various lands made to their ancestors to provide them with grain! The men of this culture as well travel far and wide to propagate various shastras (sciences) they have researched and of course, trade some of the secrets in chemical, metallurgical, agricultural and various other areas that they have managed to glean.

"Fear-known, is the last of the cultures born of known primal emotions. Fear-known is channeled in society in the form of caution and cultures where this primal emotion is the prominent force develop upon the idea of deterrence. They are powerful, extremist and unwelcoming of outsiders. In this wide world, there are several highly sophisticated cultures reliant on this model of supreme deterrence. They are further characterized by monolithic forms of religion. Here, strength rules. All else is secondary. As such these cultures are typically male dominated. The female not only gets a say in anything, but is also routinely abused in unimaginable ways…Sigh, little child, there is no need for you to hear in depth about this type of culture. Although they are not all disgusting at first sight – indeed, they can be quite fascinating – it is next to impossible to gel with people from those types of cultures. Obstinate, suspicious, backstabbing and lawless, they are also typically vengeful, unable to put up with the smallest grievance! These type of people can either live above all or not live at all. They would rather be grinded away into nothing than to try fitting in with others. If they are suppressed, they'd rather be suppressed to death! These people are the ones that are actually prideful. The chivalry of the righteous faction doesn't half compare to the obstinacy of these asuras. They will lower their head at nothing and will live gruesomely, forever causing fear in those that know them. The barbarian tribe your father is fighting in the western border is one example. But more prevalent in the Aryan mainland are those Asura sects of the dark faction. Usually martial gurus take only a few disciples each to inherit their arts in each weapon. But the Asura sects accept as many disciples as they come, causing havoc in the mainland. After all, there is a difference between learning from a sage and learning from the military instructor. Weapon arts passed through a sage are hundred times more potent than what an average soldier is capable of, maybe a thousand times! Unfortunately, these arts are not applied for righteous causes because of the culture from which these sects are born. It has nothing to do with the teacher, nor the background of the student, but the culture itself has led them into the lawless path."

Little Vajradandaka did not know about these martial sages and free warriors. There were very few of these institutions in the arid lands with the majority of martial gurus enjoying the patronage of a king or a noble clan. All great warriors belonging to a Kshatriya clan, which is completely different from a sect, so he didn't get it.

"But what are the four other types of cultures, grandfather?"

"The four other types naturally refer to a culture's insensitivity to the primal emotion that dominates it. For example Love-unknown is a combination of three types of institutions arising from channeling together 1. love and rage into devotion to state, patriotism; 2. love and confusion into an institution of arts and literature, and 3. love and fear into institution of nurture such as large and close-knit families and ancestral clans. Similarly, Rage-unknown type culture is defined by once again rage-love channeled into devotion to state, family or sect; rage-fear sublimating into righteousness in the form of pure systems of law; rage-confusion channeled into a tendency to carry out deep explorations, whether in science, philosophy or even beyond the seas. Ha ha ha Little Cactus, if you go around the world as much as I did, one day you will come across 'the voyagers' who nobody knows where they came from. They have oblong faces with tattoos all over their bodies, their hair in dirty braids as tall as their ankles. They wear red or grey turbans and carry sharp knives and sickle shaped swords, with sea shells and pearls decorating their chests and hair. They say these people live on the ships and have travelled the Earth for many round trips through generations! Who knows what they are looking for? One thing is for certain though. If you can make friends with one of their chiefs, you are sure to get a chance to buy some of the world's most exotic goods."

"But grandfather…which type of culture is ours? Which type of culture do the six major kingdoms and thirteen minor kingdoms of the Western Drylands share?"

"Why don't you guess?" grandfather pinched Vajradandaka's cheeks in response.

Now, falling into the trance of blissful laughter, he realised it should be none other than the love-unknown culture that his Rtadhara belonged to, the lovely land being witness to hundreds of thousands of displays of uninhibited love such as these every day.

A mild curve adorned his lips when Vajradandaka thought about that.