To me, sir, the reason for asking “why” goes to the heart of my identity.
If you look at the typical origins of Achur capsuleers (respected backgrounds tending to have the resources to commit), you can see what our own social values are. Stargazers, inventors, monks: all three are connected by a desire to see, to understand. They’re all “seekers,” all looking for insight into the nature, and perhaps even will or mind, of the cosmos.
The Achura, generally, tend to be a relatively spiritual people, and tend to have this in common whatever the specifics of the matter (there are easily a thousand sects). To a seeker, this universe is a sacred wonder. Exploration is a form of worship. Besides, it’s hard to exercise wisdom without a working model of how things fit together.
(I am not 100% on how this works for our urban kin; I was largely raised at a rural monastery before academy, so the matter’s largely outside my experience. It seems likely, considering that most Achura-by-blood are culturally Caldari, that the quality’s been retained, the same as Civire and Deteis each retain certain cultural characteristics of their own. Maybe it’s just an echo of our tendency towards inquisitiveness. But I don’t really know for sure.)
So, for me, “why?” is a question usually asked because I really want to know. I’m not looking to argue or judge, necessarily. I want to find out. I want to understand. I want to see.
(Being able to recognize us as kin, despite this encouragement, even demand, for curiosity, is one thing I can greatly respect the Caldari Wayists for.)
Probably I’d keep my mouth shut about things that don’t make sense to me for the most part, and just try to work out why and how they work as they do (which is my approach in international travel). It gets hard, though, when it’s personal. And some things at the policy level are very personal to me.
I understand about as much as probably most State citizens why marriages are arranged as they are. I’m not 100% on Ms. Kim’s belief that it’s systematic eugenics, but I find it plausible. At the very least it keeps the populations distinct: Achura, under this scheme, will look possibly even more “Achur-like” a thousand generations hence than we do now, and a half-Civire like me will be hardly a ripple in the gene pool.
But even if I can’t remember it anymore I can’t ignore what my family, and I, went through. So I do, rudely, presumptuously, dissent, and I didn’t even stick around to suffer the appropriate consequences.
Way to discredit myself as a jaalan. But I didn’t have much of a sense of that when I left, so, oh well.
It’s not something I worry about a lot. But it’s why I won’t return.