How not to Cause Disasters.

 

Diplomatic Core Documents.

History Lessons on what NOT to do.

The biography of almost every European explorer from the age of discovery, is a story about encountering unknown people and behaving badly towards them. It is important to understand why this was the accepted and common mode of interaction.

“Go forth and claim new lands for God and King.” this sort of phrase was attached too many exploration adventures and should be examined in detail.

To “claim new lands” infers that the explorer had the right to take ownership of any land he found, regardless of any people who already lived there. Somehow the locals did not have a right to their own territory. As a simple matter of military power, this was often the case. The natives were primitive in their weapons and ability to defend against the invaders. The power to take the lands was simply all that mattered.

“For God and King” offers a validity of authority. You are doing the right thing if you are following the will of God and the commands of your King. This idea was unquestioned at the time. Spreading Christianity to new people was a great and noble goal, a justification for a wide range of actions.

Another phrase of importance is “We sail for God, Glory and Gold.”

The personal motive of gaining fame and fortune can not be underestimated. Sailing into dangerous and uncharted waters is not done without the hope of sizable personal gain. The glory comes from doing a thing that will be remembered, your name going down in history. The gold comes literally by taking it from the natives but also in the rewards given by your king.

In the abstract, nothing is wrong with seeking glory and gold, nothing evil about spreading your religion. However the way these things were often accomplished caused massive suffering to the native peoples the explorers were dealing with.

In some documents we actually see the King ordering “Establish good peaceful relations with any tribe or people you encounter so future ventures can rely on them as friendly. Do not take them as slaves, do not abuse their women. Trade with them but do not take by force the goods you may need. Spread the word of God and the glory of Christ, but do not force conversion with the sword.”

If these orders were followed, we could have seen a morally successful adventure. But in reality almost every mission violated most of these rules. In some cases the explanation was that the captain could not control his men, but usually no excuse for bad behaviour was even offered, it was simply accepted that primitive tribes deserved harsh treatment.

As pagans, they had no right to the civilized treatment that fellow Christians could expect. But as soon as they converted, they were subject to all the rules and laws of Church and Crown. If they did not obey and abandon their previous religious and cultural beliefs, they were subject to proper punishments. It was a situation the natives could not understand.

While we do not aim to excuse the horrible behaviour of the past explorers, a few words need to be said about how dangerous the situations they often found themselves in were.

Having sailed a very long way, often facing storms and uncharted waters, the crew were usually low on food and water by the time they found land and met the natives. Survival was understandably the main thing on the explorer's mind.

The natives were often curious, especially on first contact. They had no idea what to think of these strange visitors. Caution sometimes called for a display of strength, in many cultures posturing in an aggressive way was a normal part of greeting a stranger. However the explorers had stories about head hunters and cannibals, so they were very much on edge over any aggressive display. Better to shoot them first, than risk being captured and eaten alive.

The other key ingredient for disaster was the fact that no one understood the other's language. It is a marvel that any meaningful exchange or interaction was managed at all.

At what point do you use force to defend yourself?

Setting aside the calculated abuse of natives to gain glory and gold as unsupportable bad behaviour, we turn to the more reasonable question of self defence. It may be argued that the explorers would have had no need to defend themselves if they did not intrude on native land. But this is also off topic. What we need to understand is how fear and arrogance are a factor in first contact situations.

Europeans showed a contradictory attitude towards everyone they met. On the one hand they felt superior in their culture and technology. They were better in every way than the savages they encountered, better even than the other civilized nations of the world. On the other hand they felt fear, because the natives were so unpredictable, barbaric and sneaky. The savages might at any moment, for no good reason, turn hostile. If you were captured by them, you would be tortured and eaten.

Fear is a powerful motivator for action. It always has been and always will be.

If you encounter a group who is alien to you, how can you ensure your survival? By being ready to subdue and if necessary kill them, before they do so to you. The problem is that because they are so different, with an incomprehensible language and gestures that may mean different things in their culture, there is a lack of common ground to build trust.

If you believe they are savages who may attack at any moment and being captured will end you in a fate worse than death, well then, you are highly primed to strike first. You want to always have the advantage of ready weapons, to be used at the first hint of trouble.

History shows us that in most of first contact situations the natives were peaceful, until some event triggered their aggression. Only in subsequent encounters, after word of the explorer's actions spread, do we see tribes commonly strike first or lay in ambush.

Relevance of the history lesson?

As we encounter aliens we may see a variant of the past primed and ready to repeat itself. We assume that we are in the role of the European Explorers, so the caution we aim to impart should be obvious. However we may end up in the opposite situation, as the space faring primitive encountering a much more powerful alien race. We need people in command positions and those of the Diplomatic Core to be ware of these potential roles. We need people trained to avoid repeating the horrors of history.

Fiction also provides many examples.

Some classic science fiction shows unintentionally provide great example of the modern egocentric activities we can be guilty of undertaking. The plot generally runs as follows. The mostly human crew of the hero ship encounters a seemingly nice alien race, on the alien's own planet. Things start ok, but quickly the crew discover clues that something dark and sinister is going on. The aliens in fact have some custom that we consider horrible, a thing they inflict on their own people or maybe aim to inflict on the crew. He hero naturally tries to put a stop to this. At a basic level he must get his crew to safety, but at a more advanced level he may try to put a stop to the custom entirely.

In watching a show like this we can easily agree with the hero, what the aliens are doing is wrong. They should change their ways. But this attitude we have is self centred, Human-centric.

We obviously can not allow an alien race to devour us, just because in their culture it is fine for them to eat any creature who is not of their species. These simply is no getting along with some people.

What we need to consider are the grey situations; especially those in which the aliens do something we find repulsive and wrong to their own people, but do not attempt to treat us the same way. This may sound something of a moral double standard because that is exactly what is required.

Slavery is wrong. Slavery under harsh conditions doubly so. But who are we to enforce our ideology on an alien race? We may take the stance that “no human can be a slave”, and thus we validate our actions to free any fellow human from slavery. But this does not extend to freeing aliens from slavery. Certainly we should do so if we have the opportunity, and can do so without creating hostility.

There are potentially many revolting practices aliens may have, which we must learn to tolerate.