Next up in our journey of fractalling you fantasy culture’s worldview we will take a look at your culture’s socio-cultural identity. I know I promised this step quite a while back, but it's been a real monster and taken more time and effort than I originally thought it would. But here it is at long last, the final step in exploring worldview. And in my opinion, one of the most important steps.
However, as important as understanding the social identity of your cultures, it’s also one of the most difficult concepts to breakdown for a fractal. The main reason for this is because of the complex nature of social identity. I banged my head against the problem of how to break this down for several days and in the end it took several attempts and two mind maps to help clear things up.
For our purposes, I think it most helpful to think of Social identity in two ways. The first is to look at it as a series of concentric circles, each representing a group that we as people identify with.Something like this:
Now you’ll notice fairly quickly that I have a solid line separating “Humanity” from “living things” while the other layers have broken lines. The reason for this is that there is a fairly clear distinction in our minds between people and other living creatures. We only identify with animals and fish and the like on the very lowest level that we’re all alive. The other spheres with which we identify ourselves have less measurable distinctions in our worldview. Our cognitive mind can identify the distinctions but intuitively, the further in you go, the muddier things get until you get to family, which is a dotted line because family identity is fairly distinct from identifying with the other levels of society. And then of course, there’s our identity as individuals at the core, but that’s not the focus of this fractalling system. There were many potential groups that I decided were best lumped under the collective name of “Peers” which basically is any smaller non-familial identity group that doesn’t really fit in any of the layers. Also, there are some identity groups that I couldn’t quite figure out where to put. For instance, would gender go between Humanity and Race or between Race and Society/Culture? Do people identify themselves as humans, and then as men/women or as men or women of their culture? Religion was another tricky one because there are a lot of religions that transcend individual cultures, but religions are also integral part of cultures…. In the end, the real helpful part of this diagram is that it helps you think of social identity as shrinking spheres of influence. If only that was all there was to it.
Unfortunately, though the spheres with which we identify are concentric, their influence in our overall identity is a lot more fluid and harder to trace. So while the concentric circles model is helpful for identifying the different layers of social identity, it’s also helpful to think of these different layers as all thrown together and overlapping and mixing with each other like so:
So we see how complex social identity can be. Enough so that it almost warrants it’s own fractalling system in and of itself. But all we’re wanting to do is fractal cultural identity, so how do we home in on cultural identity without getting bogged down by all the other aspects? Quite honestly, I’m not 100% sure at the moment. The thing is that racial identity and cultural identity are pretty close. And city/communal identity also impacts cultural identity. This is especially true of primitive cultures. So what we’re gonna do is try our best to pull out the main ones and then you can adapt as needed until I get my act together and get the social identity fractalling system written.
- Socio-Cultural Identity
Here we’re gonna do our best to look at who the members of your culture say they are.- What role does race play in the group identity of your culture?In the ancient world it tended to play a pretty big role, and still does in some ancient societies. I remember reading the story of a missionary to Africa who became as culturally like the people as he possibly could but was still called a term used for outsiders because he didn’t have a black mother. However, the Ancient Egyptians cared less about your race than they did about you living according to their cultural norms. But simply put, if you asked a member of your culture who they (the culture) are, would part of the answer be “we are race X”?
- Who are the men of your culture? Now obviously I’m not talking about the race of Man, nor am I talking about the males. Who does your culture view as being a “man’s man”? We’ll look more at this in the Beliefs and Values stages, but it’s a good thing to look at early on here. Who do the men of your culture say they are?
- Similarly, who are the women of your culture? Who do the women of your culture say they are?
- Who are the esteemed/admired/trusted members of your culture? This is more a question of Values than of Worldview, but it factors into the group identity of your culture so give it some broad thoughts here.
- Similarly, who are the untouchable/scorned/not-trusted members of your culture?
- How does the shared history of the members of your culture shape their identity?Think back to the previous step where we looked at the events in your culture’s history that helped shape its members worldview. Now we’re going to look at which of those events the members of the culture identify with. Do they see themselves as the people who survived X? Are they the people who overcame X civilization/tribe? Are they the people who have been conquered by entity X? What events in your cultures past shape the group identity of its members?
- Communal Identity
Here we’re going to zoom in beyond the broader concept of cultural into the individual communities within your culture. If you’re fractalling a city-state culture or just the culture of a city, you’d want to look at the city-wide identity and then break it down into the community identity. Or just stick with the broader city-identity depending on what suits the needs of your story. But here you’re just going to pick each community in your culture (which is really easy if it’s a small community-based culture), and look at who the members of the community say they are as a community.- How cohesive is the group identity of the community? In earlier times when travel was more difficult and dangerous, communities were smaller and tight-knit. You still find rural communities like that today in our world. But even in big cities you can find a strong communal identity, particularly in rougher neighborhoods where people share the identity as “those who survive(d) community X” Think of people from the Bronx in NYC. On the other hand, communal identities can also be fairly loose, I interact with you only when necessary/convenient and you do likewise. Such loose identities may be forged into a stronger bond by a time of crisis, or be shattered by it. So how closely-knit together are the members of the community in question?
- What is the dominant level of social status in the community? What level of society do the members of the community identify with as a group?
- What is the overall economic status of the community? What economic class do the members of community identify with as a group?
- Do the members of the community identify with a specific race or cultural heritage (other than the dominant culture)?Think Chinatown for this one. I imagine that in Medieval-ish societies, there would be an even stronger tendency for members of the same race to seek haven together when living in a different culture.
- Similarly to the last question in the previous section, what events do the members of the community identify with as a group?Think about things like community fires, or killings, or happy things like stories in the news of communities coming together to help a kid with cancer or things like that.
- How do other members of the culture outside of this particular community view the members of the community?
- Negative Identity
Negative identity has to do with identifying who you are by identifying who you are not. For this step it could probably have been better termed, “Comparative Identity” since what we’re actually going to look at who the members of your culture say that outsiders are. This can really be done on multiple levels, other races, other cultures, other cities within the same basic culture, etc. But we’re going to keep it simple.- What identities does your culture attribute to the other cultures in your world?For example, and not to play on stereotypes, but some of the associations that come to most Americans’ minds when we think of citizens of China outside of physical associations are manufacturing, communism, ancient empires, etc.
So what are the major associations that your culture makes for the other cultures around it? - What do the members see as their culture’s role in the world?Are they like the Romans, bringers of the peace through conquest? Or maybe they see themselves as most western cultures viewed themselves during the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the enlightened, “civilized” people bringing humanity to the “uncivilized, childish, savages”. Not all cultures view themselves as higher, think about it, the conquering Romans were quick to adopt the philosophy, art, and thoughts of the educated Greeks.How do the members of your culture view themselves in relation to the world?
- What neighboring cultures/races are admired by the members of your culture and why?
- What neighboring cultures are considered inferior by the members of your culture? Why? Is this perceived inferiority scorned or pitied?
- What does your culture view as the strengths/advantages of the other cultures around them?
- What does your culture see as the major short-comings or weaknesses of the other cultures around them?
- What identities does your culture attribute to the other cultures in your world?For example, and not to play on stereotypes, but some of the associations that come to most Americans’ minds when we think of citizens of China outside of physical associations are manufacturing, communism, ancient empires, etc.
- Assimilation
This looks at when someone officially is viewed as a member of your culture/race/community, or in other words, what takes place to make members of your culture view someone as “one of us”. Like the concept of negative identity, these concepts can be applied to various levels of your culture/society, so I’ll lay out the basic pattern and allow you to adapt the process as needed.- What are the major criteria for being identified as a member of the culture?Residence (particularly for city/communities), Race, and Behavior are common ones. Live with us, be born one of us, or act like one of us. Usually it’s a combination of the three with the emphasis lying on different factors depending on the culture in question. Which factors do the members of your culture emphasize?
- How long does one have to live among the culture/community before being acknowledged as a member?Anyone who’s ever moved to a small town can probably identify with this concept.
- How thoroughly does one have to adopt the culture to be identified as a member?
- Are there biological or hereditary factors that block full identification?For instance, I read a missionary’s account of his attempts to adopt the culture of the African people he was working among, and was still called a term for rich outsiders because he didn’t have a white mother.
- Does your culture have a formal process by which outsiders become members?How deeply rooted in the worldview is the process? By that I mean, once someone goes through the process are they instantly viewed as a member of the culture or is it viewed more as a technicality that doesn’t really make someone “one of us”?
- Is there a certain milestone or rite-of-passage at which children of the culture are recognized as members of the culture? Or is being born into the culture an automatic initiation?A hint, usually it’s a little bit of both.
- Under what circumstances if any would members of your culture actually want to bring an outsider in and make them a part of their community?
- What are the major criteria for being identified as a member of the culture?Residence (particularly for city/communities), Race, and Behavior are common ones. Live with us, be born one of us, or act like one of us. Usually it’s a combination of the three with the emphasis lying on different factors depending on the culture in question. Which factors do the members of your culture emphasize?
Next up in the system, we'll be looking at your culture's beliefs. Haven't started even thinking about how to split that one up, and it'll be a doozy, so yall will probably be waiting a while. In the next day or so, I'll be archiving the individual steps of the worldview stage and posting a thread for the stage as a whole. But don't worry, the index will still link to the individual steps even though they'll be in the Archives.
