Inquiry -- Part Two

As the associations that had formed around the various solutions to the great question continued to contend with each other, quarrels would begin to take place as well between individual members within the leagues. Some would attempt to reinterpret and recreate their solutions to make them stand up better to the competition or even to raise their own personal standing in relation to the others of their own group. Over time the solutions would go through an evolution, mutations being selected or rejected based on their persuasiveness or ability to coerce. Some would be so successful that they would form the foundations for new associations entirely, and these would be as likely to become the enemies as to become the allies of their own parental groups. As mutations and reinterpretations asserted themselves more and more aggressively, people across groups would find themselves, depending upon the perspective and direction of their own loyalties, attached to a notion of tradition or of progress. And the belief in one or the other as an idea would become as strong as the belief in the very principle, which the idea of tradition or progress was defending. The two beliefs in fact would probably mix into a new solution. As an odd but logical result, leagues in conflict with each other would now share an article of faith.

(To be continued.)