Honestly? If using words as they are meant to be used, as they are used in scholarly papers, and as the devs intended them to be used when applied within the confines of the game is being obtuse?
I’m fine with you thinking I’m obtuse. As a trade-off, I hope you’re fine with being labelled illiterate and unable to back your claims.
I asked for a source to back up your decision that matriarchal sociaties are a sliding scale. You provided none. I have been providing the definition of the word that some of you have chosen to pretend means something else entirely.
Show me the evidence. Show some proof. I’ve shown you mine, now show me your’s.
Yes. The actual one. The one used by dictionaries, scholars, encyclopedias and so forth. They did not know that some of you had created your own definition to ignore the real one.
Come back without the bad faith arguments and bring your sources if you want me to believe you’re right.
Where’s the dividing line then? The owning class in this country wants you to view anything that doesn’t have as it’s primary purpose of fattening their wallets as socialism. And they want you to view it like some lurking wolf in the woods along with the spectere of Karl Marx. That’s why in the West we are the only nation have a medical system that sends it’s patients to the poorhouse if they aren’t gilded with silver spoons.
But now I think I’m beginning to understand you. You have a binary view of things one and zero. Either something is something all the way or it’s the other thing all the way… Facts that mitigate your view aren’t facts, because they don’t exist.
I’ve dealt with people like you who subjected my spouse to the same binary analysis. He’s a transman, not some binary thing because of certain physical aspects. There are people who ignore other equally physical aspects about him because their vew of gender like your view of gender and government is fixed on a straight one/zero binary evaluation.
I enjoy working with computers. but I pity those people who narrow their world views like them.
Drahl, if you want me to engage you in a full political discussion where we discuss the various nuances of the American governmental structure, and the importance it places on commerce over people?
It’s not happening. I’m too busy getting some of y’all to just use words properly. Without a solid foundation of “words mean what they actually literally mean”, nuanced discussions just aren’t possible.
I mean, I’ve already agreed they’re a matriarchy based on what I’ve seen in the lore. So I don’t think mine is going to necessarily match up with their own.
I go off of general use as I understand it. That’d be my source. Which is more or less a society that heavily favors / is rule by women. But clearly a few people here have different ways they understand it to be used here in general.
Uhg. Sorry, my mistake. I do recall that from earlier, but must have forgotten in the moment.
General use is how I typically use words, but the way people were throwing extra added things on to what a “matriarchy” must mean, I had to go and look up the actual definition to make sure I’ve been using it right.
Thus far, I haven’t found a single instance that disagrees with both of our common use understanding.
I’m both doubting the existence of, but also curious to see, what these other mysterious set of definitions might be.
Yeah, and ultimately, my issue would be that the arguments I’ve seen rely too heavily on implication to overturn what seemed like pretty clearly stated fact. Few people disagree they were never a matriarchy based on the dev’s statements. But the arguments have seemingly amounted to what NPC’s we see or what feels like a very stretched phrasing to say it isn’t the case. Not something I’d really find good unless a dev was very explicit on the matter given it isn’t a conclusion that’s necessarily easy to see on the ground.
Except that is already slowly eroding. The fact is, males can be priest and as of BfA, it looks the sentinel army is now composed of a mixture of male and female warriors. As mentioned earlier, a race that is on the decline can hardly be picky with their recruits.
As for Elune herself, she doesn’t seem to particularly care either if you are a male or female and just considers her followers as her children.
I can’t post links. Vocabulary. com says “A matriarchy is a social system in which women have more power in the community than men.”
More power. How much more? Is it a 55 to 45 percent ratio? Or 75 to 25? Those are part of the spectrum.
As I’ve said: Night elves are a matriarchy, but since that is a spectrum—which, literally translated, means that multiple slightly-differing models of society can all be considered matriarchies—it doesn’t necessitate that the men be second-class citizens or something.
We’re both aware of the common definition “a society where women hold the power/authority.” All of it? Because the women of night elf society certainly don’t hold all of it.
Britannica. com says “matriarchy, hypothetical social system in which the mother or a female elder has absolute authority over the family group; by extension, one or more women (as in a council) exert a similar level of authority over the community as a whole.”
That specifies the familial side as a base and a female council for the rest of society.
And of course wikipedia notes: “Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property. While those definitions apply in general English, definitions specific to anthropology and feminism differ in some respects.”
A society that is egalitarian save for women holding the moral authority; or social privilege; or control of property; can all be considered matriarchies.
The fact that words are flexible I do not consider controversial. Still I don’t know what you were trying to accomplish by disagreeing with me.
See, this is where we’re having a disagreement. You’re saying this makes it a spectrum. I’m saying it still is a matriarchy. At least we’re in agreement with the definition, so we can come to some kind of understanding.
I’m in disagreement with the idea that the night elves only count as “kind of, sort of a matriarchy” which… I admit, I now don’t think you were making and that’s just an assumption I’d jumped to because of the nature of how this whole thread has gone. I’ve been spending too much time arguing with people who have stated that because Malfurion, the husband of the night elves’ leader, gets to be second to her, suddenly the matriarchy has been abolished.
So. Yeah. I don’t think we ever had a disagreement, beyond my own perspective. I apologize for that and for the misunderstanding.
I am making that judgement based on the fact Thiernax, a male, was able to become the night warrior and actually managed to channel what is arguable the most powerful aspect of Elune. Something even his mother failed to do.
Well thank you for that. This is why I saw you as purposefully obtuse. However, it’s understandable that one would be defensive after arguing for a long time. No hard feelings.
Still, I don’t see eye to eye with you on that note. Maybe. To me, “kinda sorta a matriarchy” is meaningless. It is a matriarchy, period. It can be accurately described as such. And also some matriarchies are more matriarchal than others, because there are different levels of power or dominance that the women might have. Period. This is nuance, and it should scare no one.
Except we have already skipped a few years as of Dragonflight. So for all we know that process is already complete. That is one issue I have with DF though, with the lack of any focus on the playable races we don’t actually know the status of them right now.
Success or failure doesn’t seem related to Elune’s favor. Unless you think Elune is trying to kill her followers. By that metric, she killed Thiernax but not Tyrande.