RhonanTennenbrook wrote on Jan 19
th, 2025 at 2:01pm:
I personally try to be cautious calling anything primitive. It carries with it an atmosphere of modern "arrogance" and vanity in terms of technological superiority I find distasteful when thinking about history.
I think that very much comes down to the person who's speaking and is not the fault of the word. I do agree that in modern times we tend to get a little full of ourselves when thinking about our intelligence as compared to people of the past.
I'm curious though. What do you feel is a fitting substitute for the word primitive that covers the concepts that it does? It's a bit difficult to find another word because primitive can be a reference to a weapon from long ago, or just something that's simple in concept, design, or the needs of manufacturing. The latter being what Morphy was referencing. Most synonyms for the word primitive will hit one or the other of these meanings, but usually not both.