Our next step in developing worldview the of your fantasy cultures is to analyze their views of the nature of humanity. Now I can hear some of yall saying, “But wait a minute, Seer, not all my races are humans, why don’t you say ‘sentience’?” Glad you asked!
The reason is that “sentience” is a sci-fi word used to communicate the same basic idea as “humanity” without requiring the subject to be human per se and there really is no better word than humanity. But basically this looks at how your culture answers the question: “
What makes a person a person?” That being said, I will for simplicity’s sake use words like “human,” “man,” and “woman,” with the understanding that I’m not referring specifically to humans, but rather to people
- What physical features does your culture equate with being a person? For ages humans made a pretty strong connection between the face and humanity (lots of monsters had human faces). Also, standing on two legs and possessing two hands are commonly seen in attempts to anthropomorphize. If your world is full of all humanoid races (elves, dwarves, men, etc.), then you could honestly just skip this step and probably be ok. But if your world has races that are not humanoid or have noticeable differences (like fish-tails or wings for arms), then you might want to drop inside the mind of cultures made up solely of such races and see if they have any physical features that they view as symbolic of being a person.
- What emotional attributes does your culture equate with being a person? English vocabulary actually helps explain this one. The words “inhumane” and ”inhumanity” denotes a severe degree of cruelty that it’s deemed uncharacteristic of human-kind. While words like “humane” and “humanitarian” devote a kind of compassion and concern for others. Emotions and virtues will be explored more thoroughly once we get to the Values phase, so for this step we’re just going to stay pretty basic.
- Are there any emotions or virtues that your culture views are inherent in all people?
- Are there any emotional experiences your culture views as common to all people?Examples: falling in love, heartbreak, grief,failure… you get the picture.
We could probably go deeper, but I think this is enough for now. - Are there any roles your race views as common to all people?Roles like, father, mother, brother/sister, friend, enemy?
- What mental capacities or processes does your culture equate with being a person?The main ones for us humans are self-awareness (the definition of “sentience” is actually “awareness”), the ability to reason, and creativity. Those are qualities you see in basically all sentient beings in fiction. Are there any of those that your culture does not equate with being a person? Or are there additional mental qualities that they equate with being a person?
- Are there any special abilities unique to a certain race that your culture associates with being a person?Basically, is there any ability so basic and fundamental to the daily life of your race that it flows into their cultural view of “humanity”?
- What makes a “man” a person or a person a “man” in your culture’s reckoning?This is one that I really want to explore to pieces when we get to the Beliefs and Values phases, but I’m introducing it here to get the wheels turning in your mind. Basically we’re looking for the deepest level assumptions your culture has about “manhood”/masculinity. Broad brush-strokes here, we’ll fill in the details.
- Similarly, what makes a “woman” a person and vice versa in your culture’s reckoning?Again, broad brush-strokes here.
There you have it ladies, and gentlemen. Not that elaborate or in-depth, but I think it sufficient. Part of the reason for it’s brevity is because halfway through I stumbled across this quote from my “Beyond Behavior” post:
Quote:
Now, obviously all this could very easily be taken to an extreme philosophical level of complexity that does little more than give the author headaches. So when thinking about worldviews in particular, I would say simply take some time to think about the environment of the race and how that might impact their view of reality. If a race has physical features or special abilities beyond that of normal humans, then think about ways that this might cause them to see reality differently than we do.
This got me thinking that perhaps I was over-thinking this phase and instead of the three steps I originally came up with only two were really necessary. So in the final draft of this whole system, you might see the “Reality” and “Humanity” steps done away with. But for now, I’m merely adding an extra step to the “Worldview” phase and chugging on ahead. Up next is cultural Identity!
