Describe ADF’s utilization of Dumezil’s “tripartition” and its affect on ADF’s structure, study programs, and the religion of ADF members in general. (200 words min.)
ADF’s utilization of Dumezil’s “tripartition” to me is fairly insignificant. Clearly it was an inspiration for developing certain guilds and groups within ADF, but by no means do I see it being a concrete guideline for which ADF views importance of its members and subgroups. I have never heard of one Guild being more important than the other, though I’m sure some people will make that assumptions. ADF is more on a level playing field than was assumed in prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society.
What Dumezil wrote about the tripartition of ancient society, is that we were divided into three societal groups or “castes”. The first caste represented sovereignty and consisted of priests, magicians, and those in more of a guidance role. The second was the warriors and protectors who served as enforcers. And the third was a caste of producers who were the laborers and craftsman of society.
These groups still exist in a broad spectrum, even in modern society if you compare them to Government, Military, and Laborers. Within ADF they could be easily viewed as the Clergy, Healers, Scholars, and Councils for the first caste, the Warriors and Naturalists for the second, and the Artisans and Brewers Guilds acting as the third caste. But ADF does not function in a way that sees one Guild over the other in terms of importance. We act more as a conglomerate society, where everyone has an important purpose. I’ve seen a lot of emphasis put on Clergy as an important role in ADF, and I support that because those individuals have put a significant amount of work into their training, but overall we all try to stay on that same level playing field. If nothing else Dumezil helped provide structure, and we simply evolved beyond that.
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