As members of a counterculture, we are often under the impression that our choices are right and best for everyone. Everyone should be vegan, everyone should be ok with bi-sexuality, everyone would know perfect happiness if they would only admit theirs isnt the Only Way.
We long for a return to what is popularly termed the 'old ways'. Though it is known now that these 'old days' did not exist, and there was never a prefect Atlantian-like culture where men and women were equal and everyone’s 'quirks' were accepted, we still use this term. "Old Gods" and "Old Ways" are umbrella phrases to describe our goals and our journey.
1. Women would once again become tied to the hearth as wives and mothers, while men would be responsible for fighting wars to keep their families safe. A great many women died in the olden days from inhaling smoke from cooking fires.
2. All advances in medicine would be lost, leaving us only with homeopathic remedies, and prayer, to contend with such things as rabies and epilepsy. Could you have took surgery without pain killers?
3. Church = state would once again be the norm, instead of a legal separation. Our new government would of course be based off our religion, as just about every government of the past was. Can you handle having the religious laws you now claim to follow being made into legally binding laws?
4. Slavery existed in every ancient culture. If these 'ancient valued' reemerged, our modern valued would either have to be sacrificed or compromised. Maybe your religion didnt condone slavery, but the Roman Reconstructionists next door dont have a problem with it. The cool fact of the matter is that most slavers though they were doing people favors by taking out of barbarian lands, introducing them to civilized culture and proper religion. Could you handle people doing that to other people?
4. Lifespan would be shortened dramatically. The very real work that goes into getting up at the crack of dawn and hand-plowing 10 acres of land a day to feed your children would take it's toll on your body, taking it's tolls on your life expectancy as well.
5. Wealth would once again be counted by how much land you owned or how many cows you had. You would be expected to fight to defend them as well, maybe even resulting in the lives of you or your loved ones. In ancient times, when one group's numbers outweighed the amount of food they could produce on their land, they often went looking for it elsewhere. Never was there a time when ancient cultures weren't fighting over farming and grazing lands. It wasn't a matter of sharing because whatever you were letting them keep was another member of your tribe going hungry!
6. Plural marriage would be normal again. Could you stand to share your spouse with 4 other people? How about four people and a few slaves your spouse would be banging on the side? Polygamy is the practice of men having more than one wife, and polyandry is the practice of women having more than one husband. Both are still practiced today.
7. As standards of sanitation decline, disease and plague would start to rise. Remember: no doctors, antibiotics or ant virus medication. No ambulance or emergency room. No life flight to the nearest hospital. Just about every civilization that flourished had sanitation problems. Dont think that just because we have toilets today that we wont forget about them in generations to come. After all, the Romans had toilets in every home, and running water - but Medieval Europe forgot about them and were still shitting for hundreds of years after and then dumping it into the streets!
8. Burial customs would have to be reinvented. After all, some religions created elaborate tombs for their dead and some ate them. Just dont think of display, cause the Christians already did that, and better than you ever could!
9. Cats and dogs would not be indoor pets, but be expected to help hunt or keep the rat population down or they might wind up in the cook-pot. From left to right we have pictured: Food, Food, Maybe Food and Will Be Food If He Doesnt Fetch Stuff I Shoot At So I Dont Have To.
10. Drought and famine would result in mass losses of population due to starvation and murder for food. Circle of life is a bitch sometimes: Eat or be eaten. How's that negotiating for more farming space while your people are starving looking now?
11. Guns would disappear, making the carrying of knives and swords the norm. Only it wont feel epic because, yeah, you got a nice big sword. But so does everyone else.
12. Modern music and books would disappear, making traveling bards a MUST. But since they will be traveling via horse back, you wont be able to hear real music for several months at a time.
13. Only cities would have libraries. Very few would know how to read due to lack of educational requirements. If you had the patience I suppose you could teach your kids how to read. Hope you dont mind having a library that could fit between your nipples by which to do that with.
14. Superstition would run rampant and con artists would be crawling out of the woodwork. Hint: If you ever see a bottle of this, DONT BUY IT!
15. What is accepted forms and reasons for murder would be reinvented. Maybe your Roman sect wont bring back honor killing of unfaithful wives - might they bury disgraced Vestial Virgins alive instead? What about ridding the village of children that will only be a hindrance to their families in times of severe food restraints? Will you make the parents pretend it was an accident, or allow them the dignity of a legal cop out? What about killing enemy troops and lining their bodies up for their people to see? What about sacrificing these same enemies to their gods in order to gain their favor for the next battle?
14. Laws from Gods you don’t worshiped may not be pressed upon you, depending on the whim of the neighboring tribe who just won the war with your tribe over cattle pastures. Egyptian women had great freedom of expression - however, Romen women were not only forced into layers of clothing that coered them from head to foot (ahem! see similarity to the recognizable picture below) and not allowed to wear but a few articles of jewelry to stand apart from each other.
15. No vote. For anything. Taxation without representation. Taxation because the hereditary rules decided you had too much bread and wants you to have less. Hope you like wheat too, cause that flavorless processed white bread is *gone* when the new age comes!
16. Hereditary rules that do not have YOUR best interest at heart, only THIERS. If you plan to get anywhere in live, swearing blood oaths and sacred vows of loyalty before the Gods that you will support the monarch is in order. But dont worry, the lectures often have a test at the end. Several in fact.
17. You will never see the world. You will never step more than 15 miles beyond your front door all of your life. You will only ever hear about happenings from outside your community.
18. No pads, tampons or condoms. No reliable birth control or safe abortion. No paternity tests, baby formula, disposable diapers, rocker machines, etc. Men, get used to handwashing poopy diapers and ladies - enjoy stitching your home made reusable pads!
19. Homosexuals would be oddities, not accepted. Men and woman who don’t want to couple and make babies were never accepted in ancient cultures unless they were status holders of some kind (priests, kings, land barons), or the lover of a status holder. Its been like 20,000 years and were still not ok with the gays just yet - if we reverse time, it's not going to get better! (DAMN, is he pretty in this picture!)
20. What is and isn’t acceptable would change dramatically and shockingly. Sanctioned honor killings and revenge, public hangings and dueling. If someone crossed you, or your sister (or husband if you were Egyptian, cause their women were the revenge seekers) then you were either a man (or woman) about it and did something or you were a coward and ostracise's from your community.
21. No electricity and no car. Just to understand this, turn all your lights and electric appliances off (with exception of fridge), and have a friend drive you home from their house so you don’t have a car. Live that way for just three days.
22. Dietary changes. Meat would be scarce, as would most fruit. We’d be living off porridge and wheat cereal again. Malnutrition is one thing that would shorten life spans. Hope you like grain cause it's 70%o f your diet now. That is, if the king hasnt taken it all in taxes and the warning neighbors arnt overrunning your lands today.
23. Hazing would become commonplace again. Tests of manhood and rites of passage for women. Failing would most likely mean becoming ostracized from your community. Back and abdomen slicing to both men and women, genital mutilation for both men and women and tests of fertility for both men and women.
24. Your entire wardrobe could fit in a suit case, all four seasons worth. And you had to hand wash it all, but only once a week since it was such a chore. Let me tell you, from someone who used to hand was their own laundry on a wash board - it gets old. Fast. Especially when you multiply that by 4 to 12 people all living in the same household (you'd be living with your in-laws most likely and taking care of them in their old age). For the record, I only stopped hand-washing my laundry because I moved in with people who didnt believe you really can get clean laundry by hand-washing.
25. 25. The very real possibility of starving or freezing to death during the winter. Just look up Donner Party.
26. Inflation. No minimum wage. No job security due to any job contracts. Best come to terms now about what you will and wont do for money. Especially if children are involved.
27. Salt would be worth its weight in gold again.
28. Arranged marriage existed in almost every culture. Would our mommy and daddy let you marry the person you chose? Who would they have chosen for you?
It's laregly up to us to shape the future, but if we are genuinly trying to reconstruct dead religions, you have to understand the culture they come from. You have to understand the region, the agriculture, the animal husbantry and the enemies.
We are our own counterculture. Fighting to recreate cultures we will wind up reinventing. We'll take the Vikings form what they were and make them what they COULD have been.
Salutations,
Sesh
