(Untitled)

[theartfuldoger1]

I've been wondering for the past week this:

What if the continents had never seperated, what if today we lived on Pangea (which was basically all of the coninents combined into one supercontinent.) What would our culture be like? What would be our ideal? Hey! What would everything be like?!

Comments

[vnsplshr]

More fences and walls.

[theartfuldoger1]

Just to divide them?

[vnsplshr]

I think our current countries like many of their natural boundaries quite a bit.

[corbistheca]

but if pangaea had never separated, "our current countries" wouldn't exist -- they would have developed differently. for one thing, the divisions of what we call "race" would be a lot less distinct, without separate contintents to enforce isolation. which isn't to say there would be no concept of "race" or racism. though i do think the idea of an "other" would be different in a world where "other" was never an ocean away.

though you could argue that africa, europe, and asia functioned for many millenia as pangaea would -- from the time that the land bridge to alaska was flooded until colombus or somebody discovered that the western hemisphere could be a great source of wealth -- and in the middle ages they certainly managed to "other"ize each other well enough without any oceans between them. land can be a longer distance than water.

anyway, interesting question!

~ c.

[sexyvanilla]

Im pretty sure there would still be PLENTY of culture. Look at the US and Mexico.

[theartfuldoger1]

elaborate on pangean culture?

[onezeronothing]

But US culture was highly influenced by British culture. I mean... we were English until the American Revolution. A better example would be the Cherokees and the Aztecs but... they were all pretty much eliminated by the development of colonialism.

[theartfuldoger1]

I don't know I think that since everything was together from the beginning people would have learned to coexist. This was the whole entire world crammed into one. I don't know how they would have discovered that it was like this but I think that maybe there would have been a reign similiar to Alexander the Great; where there was one central power and then there would be little kings (though they wouldn't be kings since history shows that monarchies and dictator's don't work. Maybe a republic.)

Whatever culture on Pangea had the most power would have determined what was beautiful or not.

This in itself is a dictatorship. There would be total anarchy!
Also what would have determined this? Population? China and India would be firm competitors.

[onezeronothing]

I think... to answer that, we'd have to look at Europe and Asia. They're all squished together but they have distinctly different cultures. Granted, there are mountains that separate Europe from Asia, mountains that wouldn't be there if the continents hadn't rejoined after Pangea split up... but the fact of the matter is, they're still different. France is different from Spain is different from Germany is different from all the other countries that are barely separated. Oceans or not, people would still have developed their own cultures and societies, they still would have learned to hate eachother for trivial reasons... It just would have taken less time for the first and second world wars to happen.

Would our conception of the beautiful as anorexic blonde white girls still apply?
I'm going to steal something from sexyvanilla... I live in Houston, there are a good deal of hispanics here and a large chunk of them don't see anorexic blonde white girls as the most beautiful. So... I'm going to say, Pangea's ideal of beautiful would be developed

[theartfuldoger1]

I don't know I think that since everything was together from the beginning people would have learned to coexist. This was the whole entire world crammed into one. I don't know how they would have discovered that it was like this but I think that maybe there would have been a reign similiar to Alexander the Great; where there was one central power and then there would be little kings (though they wouldn't be kings since history shows that monarchies and dictator's don't work. Maybe a republic.)

Whatever culture on Pangea had the most power would have determined what was beautiful or not.

This in itself is a dictatorship. There would be total anarchy!
Also what would have determined this? Population? China and India would be firm competitors.

[onezeronothing]

o.o Which post were you replying to? Only one came to my inbox.

[theartfuldoger1]

The longer one. :)