Ok I've been putting it off for a long time, but here's the Conquest of America post. Even though everyone knows slow and steady wins the race, I really need to get up to speed on my blogging. One of the most interesting concepts that Todorov puts forth in Conquest of America is the distinction that the Spaniards make between themselves and the Aztecs. On page 153, he quotes an account that compares the natives to women, children, and monkeys. Each station denotes a greater differentiation from the status "man."
One of the great difficulties we’ve been having talking about the Jana’ata from The Sparrow is that we have been trying to judge them as we would judge humans. Unlike the Aztecs, who were humans, the Jana’ata and Runa are unequivocally not human. Like the Aztecs, they are alien and, to our sensibilities, sometimes savage. Of course they are not exactly animals either. But the flaw in our approach to the aliens is to misidentify them with humans.
Introducing technology, agriculture, and rebellion to the alien culture was nearly as fatal in The Sparrow as the Spaniards’ introduction of their own culture (and diseases and warfare) to Mexico. What the humans failed to realize is that, as the (potentially) dominant species, their influence would inevitably dominate the other species’ ways of life. Now civil violence and overpopulation are blighting the formerly placid Rakhat civilization. They might have saved some trouble by sending an army.
I'm not sure I understand why the humans should have understood themselves as the potential or unquestionable dominant species. In this statement is a bias that, I'm assuming, has to do with our technology, morals, or ideas. Frankly, I think one reason the humans acted as they did, presenting new ideas and items to the Runa and Rana'ata society, is that they DID think those ideas were better(dominant). They wanted the Runa to farm and stand up for themselves. They thought this was the right thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI also feel the way the humans treated the Runa is exactly the way we should treat "aliens", be they from another planet or Aztecs. They treated them as they would have wanted to be treated. They gave them the technology/ideas they would want to have. They treated them as they would treat other humans, were their situation similar to that of the Runa. Nothing makes the Runa so different that they shouldn't be treated the same way you argue the Aztecs should have been treated: as humans.