Just some thoughts for this morning. I tend to include desert and Arabic-inspired cultures in my works, apparently, so this has some of what Iâve contemplated.
Desert society as one where resources are scarce and waste is unthinkable; but consider some of the biggest wastes in modern culture:
Think of the countless resources and the fathomless time spent raising a human being. The love and care. The food and clothing and education.
Being able to put people in prison and pay for them to be simply isolated and tortured away from society is a luxury in which America indulges. Retribution as justice is a luxury. The farther a culture is from having luxuries commonly available, the harder it will be for them to waste human life and labor in prisons. Or even to write them off completely as an exile.
A culture so focused on using the land around them and the creatures around them sustainably and in balance would probably also not indulge in retributive justice but reparative justice (perpetrators compensating, perpetratorsâ families and tribes compensating. Blood price. Ritualistic raids resulting in something like scalping instead of killing.)
Tribes and families matter. Tribes and families are sources of pride. In Arabic culture, the cultural assumption is that you want children. Why wouldnât you want children? Itâs crazy if you donât. Donât you want a legacy? Donât you want your family to continue? Plenty of room here for tolerance of homosexuality, in adoption or in certain cultural roles to stabilize or enable their larger family.
If there is scarcity, generosity is demonstration of status. Gifts whizzing around like mad. Dinners are not going to be American plates one (1) steak and one (1) potato each; there will be several meats and starches and you better get there Hungry. There is no Puritan self-denial undercurrent. Generosity is to be accepted and shared, thatâs simple goddamn politeness.
Arabic cultures are lousy with poetry. Especially historical cultures. Whatâs the virtue of being logical and unbiased? All things are beautiful. All things can be beautiful.
A general attitude that rules that are âfairâ are rules that are not rigid, that allow for exceptions. Cold logic and being âunbiasedâ are not valued as much as in Western culture.
Scholarship is status. Education is status. âDoctorâ as in person who has a doctorate or as in medical doctor are both extremely important titles and would be emphasized more than in America. Literacy is status. Huge gaps between spoken and written language. Incredible numbers of dialects. Arabic code-switches by practically changing language completely.
Arabic culture responsible for advances in math â algebra, calculus â astronomy, medicine, chemistry, so many more. Historically there have been well-known female as well as male scholars, poets, scientists.
Itâs probably rude to refuse a request or invitation, so there may be an elaborate cultural and linguistic dance required to actually communicate whether someone is available or is going to show up. Or if you do refuse, you have to perform how DEVASTATED you are.
Beware the family matriarch.
Deserts are full of intricately balanced life that has learned and adapted to survive in a million interdependent ways. Plants extract water from nothing and offer it to the animals who scatter their seeds; animals team up for safety and hunting. If it seems empty, the life has evolved to hide, probably because of some fuckin birds or some shit
Okay thatâs all for now, thatâs some of what I considered when coming up with Martian culture as Arabic diaspora and when crafting fantasy culture with Arabic in mind. Also draws on some of my understanding of the indigenous America tribes of the southwest and the plains.
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