War of Modalities

The 'War of Modalities' is a label that has sometimes been given to the disputes between specialists of the three formally established modalities of Knowledge in Vaestism—internalism, externalism, and socialism—since the 1990s. The dominant positions in these fields have developed in markedly different directions in the last few decades. During and after the Long War, internalists lost much of the official favour they had previously enjoyed, and internalist Scholars proved particularly receptive to the rise of the conservative Sage Precepts movement from the 1970s on. Externalism has seen a reassertion of technological optimism and the power of quantitative methods in the form of the so-called 'Second Dawn' of reformed Strong Externalism—the name originally a derogatory reference to the Second Dawn of medieval Ishtinism, but later provocatively adopted by some of its proponents themselves. Finally, the cynical scepticism and collectivist politics of the Post-Radiance have become ever more entrenched among Scholarly socialists. Different Banners have patronised these positions and rendered them official to varying extents.

Key to the development of the War of Modalities were the emergence of the Sage Precepts as a mass political movement after the Constellation Crisis, the official formulation of a reformed Strong Externalism by Interrex Patamsis Marazas in the 1980s at the same time, and the turbulent tenure and eventual deposition of his successor Ilmar Ko̤iv, a world-leading socialist, from 1989 to 2000. The ongoing disputes were partially, and paradoxically, responsible for the election of Interrex Pilamen Aksys in 2005 as a moderating influence—unlike all previous Interrexes, a Prysostean bureaucrat without ties to any great Scholarly faction. They have also contributed to a recent revival of interest in the election of a new Universal Prophet to wield the seal of doctrinal authority—itself an explicit objective of the Sage Precepts movement—a goal that was given an interordinate platform in the reconvening of the Prophetic Debates at the 2018 Congress of Kozrat.