Thoughts on advancing Social ideals vs advancing technology [in a fantasy world setting]

[Crossroads Inc.]

Let us begin with a common scenario…

A random fantasy world with perhaps a bit of magic, has someone teleported to. What is our standard instinct? Well, by the denizens of this forum, typically to user any knowledge we have to advanced technology as fast as we can! Kick off the industrial revolution! Get science and industry chugging along! And typical mold said fantasy world into a bastion of technological advancement!

Which is all well and good, but then what?

Technology once unleashed moves forward. We may live a good 70 or 80 years, and pass on, and the world continues… Industry advances faster and with it, everything else. Industry breeds wealth, power and the inevitable corruption and inequality that comes with that. As many of us our painfully aware, the pace of advancement for culture, understanding, and equality often seems out paced by the march of money, greed and bigotry.
IE, what is usually called “progress”

So, let us ask the question.
How practical would it be to try and reverse what one imagines would happen to a hapless fantasy world? Instead of advancing ‘technology’ rapidly, what if one seeks to advance ‘culture’. Or to be more specific, a more egalitarian, and progressive social way of thinking of all races and creeds.
The Middle Ages, as we sadly know, was a period of stagnation ruled by religion that lasted over a 1000 years. Roughly from the 5th century to the 15th century with the start of the Renaissance.

Now, before I continue too much more, I can imagine the thoughts of some out there who may say:
“Don’t most fantasy worlds already exist in a state of technological stagnation? Why worry about run-away industrial power when a fantasy world can spend 10,000 years in a placid Victorian setting?”

And yes while this is often the case with many fantasy settings, it is also typically a self-imposed plot device by writer’s fiat… If we are to examine a similar fantasy world outside of the ‘stasis’ imposed by a writer, one must realize at SOME point technology will move forward. Even if it doesn’t move at the same pace we would expect it to, the thought experiments remains of advancing social ideals in an earlier time period.

After all, imagine if the sexual revolution happened before the industrial revolution or if gender exploration happened before the Age of Exploration.

[FaxModem1]

So, the potential idea might be to focus on the printing press and dissemination of Enlightenment style philosophy. Make sure everyone has a chance to read and write, thereby ensuring that the ideas of equity spread, then focus on things like aqueducts, better farming, antibiotics, etc.

That's the big issue though, you need an educated populace for such ideas to spread, and that usually involves an infrastructure, helped by technology. Needing things like schools, literacy, people not embracing superstitions that harm others or themselves, etc. A technological revolution would require a cultural revolution to get off the ground anyway if said culture is locked down into it's caste system.

The technological progress would be a help in ensuring that people listen to you long enough to absorb things like "Don't hit your wife and kids." and "Life gets better when everyone has a voice."

[Crossroads Inc.]

That is inline with what I am thinking thus far.
That if you really want to push the spread of such ideas, it all comes down to education and spreading information.
Getting people to read and write would be paramount, as all the books in the world won't help the literate.

And thank you for mentioning things like farming, medicine, etc. Something I forgot to make a point of was wanting to focus "life betterment" technology vs industrial technology. Of course, I know it is impossible to achieve certain advances in medicine and science without a certain level of industrialization.

In my mind it comes down to trying to lay as much of a foundation of Enlightenment philosophy and egalitarian as possible to try and stave off some of the deep seated intolerance that lead to hundreds of years worth of, hate, slavery, fighting, and basically treating people like "things" instead of people.

[Stewart M]

How practical would it be to try and reverse what one imagines would happen to a hapless fantasy world? Instead of advancing ‘technology’ rapidly, what if one seeks to advance ‘culture’. Or to be more specific, a more egalitarian, and progressive social way of thinking of all races and creeds.
The Middle Ages, as we sadly know, was a period of stagnation ruled by religion that lasted over a 1000 years. Roughly from the 5th century to the 15th century with the start of the Renaissance.

I'd argue you're biggest challenge is that "culture" doesn't have the same agreed-upon development path as "technology".

A modern engineer could write a big book of instructions that would let any copper age village to eventually build a steamship, given enough manpower and local resources. Their clay kilns could smelt iron tools which could build workshops and forges which could build gears and other standardized parts which could harness water, wind, and animal power to build bigger forges and dig deeper mines, etc. etc. There would be thousands of steps, but it should work every time.

Meanwhile, there's no consensus on how cultures evolve that you could use to preemptively chart a course toward the Enlightenment. One evidence of this is that, while just about every nation industrialized once they could, there are plenty of nations that still proudly ignore Enlightenment principles (many modern political movements - fascism, communism, state capitalism - saw themselves as post-Enlightenment). It's easy to convince people that a machine gun is more useful than a spear, but secularism, free speech, and an independent judiciary are not obvious improvements to a lot of people.

[Coop D'etat]

I think your notions of what was going on in the middle ages is more than a bit overinfluenced by some outdated Renaissance notions that they were living in an enlightened age compared to their immediate ancestors. The medieval period wasn't stagnant or particularly church dominated compared to what came after. Things like the Enlightment values, secularism, and technologically driven rising living standards is more what you'd be seeing in the 18th or 19th centuries, not the 16th.

[Stewart M]

I think your notions of what was going on in the middle ages is more than a bit overinfluenced by some outdated Renaissance notions that they were living in an enlightened age compared to their immediate ancestors. The medieval period wasn't stagnant or particularly church dominated compared to what came after. Things like the Enlightment values, secularism, and technologically driven rising living standards is more what you'd be seeing in the 18th or 19th centuries, not the 16th.

Absolutely right. The Renaissance was when you saw practices like witch-burning and slave-trading rise among Western Europeans, while the "backward" Early Middle Ages minimized or forbid them. Also, even if we accept the at-best spotty claim that medieval Christianity was a stagnant repressive force (compared to, I suppose, ancient Roman excellence?), that ignores Orthodox Christianity where during the same period the Eastern Roman Empire didn't fall apart economically or scholastically. Also, during that broad period was the Islamic Golden Age, if your concern is more generally a politically-active monotheistic clergy with censorship power.

[Coop D'etat]

The medieval Catholic Church gets highly overrated as a regressive element, given context they were probably a net progressive element, while the real problem was the unconstrained violence of the military elite.

[madd0ct0r]

Can I refer people to bhudda?
Is a Confucian meritocracy with puppet king counted?
Or historjc kings like Ashoka, who managed to go from grim dark to free hospitals over his lifetime?

[Knife]

A lot of that technological advancement would be needed to advance culture. Keeping in mind a lot of cities were depopulated due to famine and disease. A lot of trade was disrupted with the fall of the Romans, and the influx ever couple hundred of years of displaced populations further east. Basically, if you want to progress a medieval culture, you have to stabilize the society first...through technological advance. Which is what I do believe actually happened. That there was no senses of combined European culture made it fractured and you get some advances in one place and not another, swap around through the centuries.

Honestly, I don't see how you do it unless you made some sort of advanced cult to bring up social living standards in various locations, but then you'll go head to head with what ever religion is dominant.