: Re: Non-fictional ideology in a fictional culture One of the themes in my book is Good vs Evil. I have chosen to portray the south African Idealogy of Ubuntu in a fictional culture in my book.

@Tiffany377

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The problem with taking a real-world believe system and implanting it in a fantasy world is that it greatly stretches the suspension of disbelieve when you use the same terms the real-world believe system is using.

The terms are usually the result of cultural circumstances during the founding of the believe system. When your believe system is indeed universally applicable, it might be plausible that a completely different culture which invented the believe system under completely different circumstances. But it is quite hard to imagine that they would come up with exactly the same words for everything.

A justification might be when you personally believe that your believe system is inspired by a divine being which stretches universe boundaries and exists both in the real-world and in the fictional universe you created. This would be appropriate for the Abrahamic religions, for example. But I don't know how well it would be applicable to the Ubuntu believe system.

However, when you would like to explore the Ubuntu believe system in a fantastic context, you could easily camouflage it by just using different terms for everything. You would then have a believe system which is in every way identical to the Ubuntu philosophy, but just uses different terms. This would also give you an excuse for any personal liberties you take with the interpretation of that believe system (both intentionally or unintentionally).

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