If we apply the insights gained from Egido's discussions of Don Quijote to the underlying conceptual framework that Cervantes constructs for these characters, we find impulsive and headstrong behavior leading to happiness at least as often as anything members of their own communities would recognize as "prudent." Something happens to moral categories in Persiles y Sigismundo which is neither the baroque return to an artificial order nor the free-for-all of modern individualism.

While it may still be possible for some residents of Earth to be part of that wonderful cosmic order of nature which acts as a pointer and a sign to the existence of things beyond the empirical realm, it is becoming increasingly difficult for humans to live in a spiritual, physical, emotional, and psychological space not dominated by an artificial order created by technologies which are radically redefining parameters of human existence.

Like poems and dramas and novels, the alphabet imposes a wholly artificial order on an element of human experience- speech-and therefore puts that element in a new and unprecedented perspective.

I would suggest that the social unrest that takes place in contemporary Hopevale is a function of having the artificial order of the mission removed, leaving radically transformed structural conditions for social life, combined with ongoing conflicts with white regional interests.

Moreover, we are living at a time when various artificial orders have collapsed, whether these orders have been formed by the colonial system, or the bipolar system dominated by two superpowers.