Coscivian civilisation
Coscivian civilisation is the heritage of values, norms, customs, ideas, social and political movements, and artifacts associated with the peoples of the continent of Éorsa. Coscivian civilisation spread beyond its home continent during the 9th and 10th centuries anno Domini to encompass new lands and peoples through migration, colonisation, cultural exchange, and assimilation, and today forms the dominant cultural paradigm in several nation-states, including Kiravia and Livensóla, as well as the way of life of Coscivian minority and immigrant populations in many parts of the world, particularly Umcara, where Coscivians comprise some 40% of the population.
Coscivian civilisation and a common Coscivian identity were consolidated under the First and Second Coscivian Empires that united the various peoples of Éorsa, who despite sharing certain ancestral, linguistic, and limited cultural affinities did not previously have any common consciousness, into a single overarching cultural and political system. This civilisation continued its independent social and technological development over the subsequent centuries, and remains a distinct, if comparatively minor, cultural sphere in the world today.
People
 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 30 billion approximate | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Kiravian Federacy | 18,945,000,000 |
 Livensóla | 6,122,000,000 |
| File:Usna.png Umcara | 113,040,000 |
| Carthinova | 85,324,000 |
| File:HekuvianFlag.png Hekuvia | ~51,000,000 |
| File:Flag of Cartadania.png Cartadania | 21,174,000 |
| File:RumeliFlag.png Rumelistan | 11,291,540 |
 Cærulean Archipelago | 619,000 |
| Languages | |
| Cosco-Adratic languages Elutic languages Austroventic languages | |
| Religion | |
| Monotheism Christianity, Coscivian religions, Deism | |
Coscivians are not a biological race, and do not constitute a single ethnic group. Communities living Coscivian culture come from disparate genetic, ethnic, linguistic, and national backgrounds, and usually have strong ethnic and communal identities nested within a broader Coscivian cultural identity. The existence of a Coscivian people (Koskiplānon, Koskidérum) is widely recognised both within and without the Coscivian world, though how "Coscivians" and "Coscivian people" are defined can very greatly by context. In modern Western sources, terms such as "Coscivian people" or "ethnic Coscivians" most often refer to Éorsan people (see below).
The primary bearers of Coscivian culture throughout history have been the Éorsan peoples, the historic inhabitants of the continent Éorsa where Coscivian civilisation arose. Modern studies of DNA markers have shown that there is significant genetic diversity among Éorsan peoples and considerable variation across different sub-populations. This corroborates with archæological, historical, and mythological/folkloric evidence that...Genetically, the Éorsans are descended from the Cosco-Adrates, the autocthonous P'ter aboriginals of Éorsa whom they culturally assimilated in the process of their westward migration, and - to a much lesser extent - the extinct hominins Homo sapiens sariporensis and Homo vetus montanis. Upon settling in Éorsa, these Cosco-Adratic peoples began the process of forging Coscivian civilisation's core cultural (monogamy, nesting group identity), philosophical (idealism, monotheism), and political (the Coscivian Empire) foundations, which developed over several milennia before being exported from the continent in the 10th century anno Domini. Today, Éorsan Coscivians constitute the majority in most major Coscivian nations, including Kiravia, and most Coscivian or Coscivised groups of non-Éorsan origin have some degree of Éorsan Coscivian admixture among their populations.
Peoples of non-Éorsan origin who have come to consider themselves Coscivians (and are recognised as such) and participate fully in Coscivian transnational society include the peoples of the Austroventic archipelago (Páuanem, Coldoriem, Kýanem) and Tiluria (Krôsanyem, Díopsem), as well as the Híronem, all of whom have been subject to Coscivian cultural influence and ascendancy for multiple centuries. Certain Kiravite Aboriginal groups, for example the Kheokwém, have adapted their cultures to the Coscivian framework and generally regard themselves as Coscivians, though they continue to speak their traditional languages.
Other groups regarded as "Coscivised" or "quasi-Coscivian" include peoples subject to more recent Coscivisation as a result of Kiravian or Livensólan expansionism include the mixt Éorsan-Funapec Isōmiktem of Oceantropica and the Coscadem of Seawind Territory. The Ixōllem of the Mixogan highlands have no Éorsan blood to speak of, but have adopted the Coscivian religion Ruricanism and many other Coscivian customs. Livensólan missionary activity in Usaya has led to the adoption of Coscivian Christianity and Coscivian religions by non-Coscivians, as well as other trappings of Coscivian civilisation such as the Iatic script and calendar. Coscivised natives of Kiravian colonies are usually considered non-Coscivians for official purposes, but occasional exceptions have been made by legislation.
Major Themes
Coscivian Universals
- Monogamy and Patrilocality- From the time of the Adraīan Empire (and possibly before), the Cosco-Adratic peoples distinguished themselves from their neighbours by their strict adherence to monogamy, and may have been the first people in Éorsa to institutionalise marriage in any form, monogamous or otherwise. The word Coscivian itself may originate from the Old Kasavic root *gxasvē, mreaning "spouse". Traditional historiography has traced the Coscivian self-conception as a society oriented towards ethical ends and a well-ordered society to the institutionalisation of marriage. Coscivians also practice patrilocality, meaning that a bride becomes part of her husband's community (not only geographic but also tribal, ethnic, and in modern times national and class) upon marriage.
- Monotheism- The Adraīans were a selenolatrous and henotheistic people who believed in a multitude of spiritual beings but worshipped only the Moon. The religious beliefs of the Kasavs are less clear, though it is known that they believed in an impersonal force called the Wàz, which survives in modern Kiravian superstition as ūsa. The worship of celestial entities continued among the Ancient ʔptovi and other West Kasavic peoples, and though it is unclear when monotheism coalesced as a popular belief, it was the Ancient Helskan philosophers (particularly the Strabians) who argued in favour of an aphysical, conscious Supreme Being. A diverse assortment of monotheistic beliefs proliferated outward from Helska across the Intheric Basin, eventually giving rise to the organised religions now classified under the umbrella of Coscivian Monotheīsm. Even today, monotheistic religion (or at least belief) remains ubiquitous in Coscivian countires, with both neo-pagan revival movements and staunch atheism being extremely rare.
Worldview and Philosophy
- Shaftonism and related emergentist, transcendentalist, holistic, and personalist philosophies emphasising ethics and virtue as life's central questions, focusing on humanistic aims and action according to higher principles.
- Deterministic schools of thought, particularly parametric determinism, as developed by X, Y, and Z, and reconciled with Shaftonist philosophy by Q.
- Reliance on deontic logic, with a strong sense of duty, jurisdiction, rights, property, and "standing" in both the personal and political spheres.
- Non-dichotomy and a general rejection of dualities and binary oppositions common in other cultures (e.g. the Left-right spectrum, yin and yang).
- An irrealist conception of time, viewing time as neither a linear progression nor a cycle, but rather as a medium for change or a mere mental construct.
Civics
- A legacy of several inclusive, decentralised empires and a translatio imperii from the Adratic Empire to the Cyptom Empire, to the First, Second, and Third Coscivian Empires in succession, the Akuvaric Empire, and ultimately to the Kiravian Federacy.
- A longstanding principle of helvikor patrá or "liberty of worship" maintained since the 2nd century BC, long predating Western ideas of religious freedom.
- Strong traditions of local governance and a tendency towards subsidiarity.
- A path of political development that largely bypassed the absolutism of the Mediæval West and generally falls short of liberal democracy.
- The Coscivian legal tradition, which developed from the efforts of successive Coscivian Empires to maintain their rule over a vast and varied territory. A key feature of this tradition is the application of Réstiálda or "Cultivated Law", a body of non-statutory law derived from customary law, ancient juristic maxims, and a growing body of tōngan or "points of consensus" established by patterns in case law.
Art, Literature, and Design
- Millennia-old tradition of rhetoric (Iatic: vūroska, Kiravic: kísrūkrāsta), which is considered its own discipline and applied across genres and even media.
- Great attention to symmetry, order, and cohesion in æsthetics, following from the emergentist, holist concepts of Shaftonism.
- A fondness for synæsthetic expressions, reflecting unusually high incidences of synæsthesia among Western Éorsans.
- Recurring polygonal motifs, especially regular pentagons and octagons, parallelograms, and stars (especially four-pointed) in art and architecture.
- Several distinctive schools of architecture, most prominently Coscivian Historicism, Coscivian Modernism, and Kiravian Exurbanism.
- A marked preference for skyscapers and high-rises in urban settings, even in areas where economic pressures do not necessarily demand them. This theme of verticality in Coscivian architecture can be traced back to the Inter-Imperial Period, when the mountainous and forested geography of Éorsa gave rise to the construction of towerhouses as fortified dwellings. Structures inspired by towerhouses continued to be built through the Second and Third Empires, and became strategically useful during the colonisation of also mountainous and forested Great Kirav for protection from Aboriginal and Cromwelute attacks. Contemporary Kiravian cities and towns tend to be noticeably more vertical than Western settlements of commensurate size, with even rural towns typically having a few blocks of lowrises.
- A rich and enduring tradition of engravings, woodcuts, and prints as the leading graphic artform, rather than painting as in Western culture.
Cultural practices
- Affiliation with endogamous ethnosocial groups (túaþaya), within larger linguistic, cultural, or religious cohorts.
- A long tradition of literacy and a critical role for literary canons in establishing the identity of groups and movements. Paper was developed early on in the softwood-rich forests of Éorsa, allowing for the early flowering of a vibrant (and democratised) literary culture. Written language has long exerted dominance over spoken language among Coscivian peoples, with the forms and style of the former acting as a prescriptive force on the latter.
- Use of the Iatic script or related scripts derived from the Ancient Adratic, including Iatic numerals, which reflect a vigesimal system.
- Use of the Iatic or High Coscivian language as a transnational, transethnic prestige language of scholarship, high literature, diplomacy, and law.
- Use of lunar and lunisolar calendars derived from the Classical Iatic (the Calibrated Coscivian Calendar being the most widespread), and an eight-day week.
Religion
For most of the past millennium and up to the present day, a majority of people living in the Coscivian World have been Christians, and in most of Coscivian civilisation a "Christo-Coscivian synthesis" of Christian theology with a native Coscivian philosophical framework, expressed through a primarily Coscivian cultural vocabulary... (shit, Starbucks is kicking me out, bbl)
A large number of people continue to practice religions of a Coscivian origin, whether in their pure form or in some degree of syncresis with Christianity or Islam. Largest among these are Sarostivism, Komarism, Iduanism, Ruricanism, and Læstorianism, though smaller religious communities such as Ēnedrism and Perigantism exist as well.
Some Coscivian communities, known collectively as Kēbavem, have embraced Islam. Coscivian Muslims are heavily concentrated in Sydona, South Kirav, and Rumelistan.
Some aspects of Coscivian religiosity traverse individual faith traditions, and can be found in Coscivian expressions of Christianity, Islam, and other "imported" religions. These include an important place for monasticism and similar separated, acestic, and contemplative institutional lifestyles, and a great deal of attention paid to the souls of the deceased (especially ancestors).
Contact with Other Civilisations
Coscivian civilisation did not develop in complete isolation. Early in its history, it was influenced by neighbouring civilisations, such as the Khars, Asrovids, and the Tongic peoples of more easterly Novērda, as well as by the non-Cosco-Adratic peoples (such as the P'ter and the Bottle culture) that it assimilated as it established itself in Éorsa. During the 8th century anno Domini, missionaries, traders, and migrants from Scotland and Ireland introduced Christianity to the Ĥeldican Coscivians of Northwest Éorsa, beginning the first cultural exchange between European and Coscivian civilisation. However, Coscivia fell out of contact with European Christendom less than a century later.
The first encounters with European-derived civilisation since the Hiberno-Scottish mission occured in the 13th century, as Coscivian explorers, traders, and colonists came into contact with the European peoples of Levantia and other regions in Ixnay and further afield. Civilisational conflict of any sort did not emerge in earnest until the 20th century, when the beginnings of globalisation forced the greater part of the Coscivian world to confront a Western-dominated international society and international order. A number of 20th-century developments in Western civilisation, such as materialism, utilitarianism and secularisation; the growth of totalising ideologies such as communism, fascism, and nationalism; revolutionary and countercultural movements; and the proliferation of consumerism and a homogenised mass-culture, began to stir antipathy towards Western civilisation and arouse fears of assimilation. Both social and political Anti-Western movements gained momentum during the mid-20th century, and exercise a great deal of influence over cultural, language, immigration, and foreign policy in Kiravia and Livensóla.