M is for Miscommunication

Throughout Eifelheim I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. From the first moment that the Krenken started becoming interested in Jesus Christ and his proposed return to Earth, it was pretty clear that Dietrich and the Krenken were not on the same page. I was, frankly, surprised when nothing serious arose from this miscommunication. It is a pretty severe difference to see Jesus as the son of God and humanity's savior and to see him as a being from space who can help a group of aliens get back home. The worst part about this confusion was that their interpretation made sense. If you read Dietrich's explanations while imagining that you have no knowledge of Christianity or the One God, but have a good understanding of space travel, the Krenken's assumptions are completely reasonable. Taking religion literally rather than figuratively is a problem even within human society. And misinterpretations of religious ideas and messages are a common source of problems and conflicts.

One example of one such unfortunate misinterpretation can be found here. Basically, a sect of churches in South Korea had predicted that, on a specific day in 1992, the faithful would ascend to heaven. This would then be followed by seven years of trials and, finally, the Armageddon. Clearly, this is a pretty serious claim to make. It led many followers to sell their belongings, leave their jobs, and abandon their families. The church simply apologized, saying that they misinterpreted the Bible. That's one extreme misinterpretation..."Oh, sorry...we thought the world was going to end. Our bad."

It's examples like this that made me think that Eifelheim was going to end badly. I was honestly underwhelmed when the remaining Krenken just stayed peacefully among the villagers. Since most of them were expecting Herr Jesus to appear any day, it seemed that they would become frustrated when that didn't happen. And somehow, the majority of them managed to fly off without the Second Coming. What did that mean to the Krenken believers? In any case, the Krenken who were converted did demonstrate that their manners and attitudes were, to some extent, altered by their newfound religion. However, it still seems that they could never truly understand the Christian belief system because of its basis in human culture, and even human biology. As the book points out, God made humans in his image, and the Krenken clearly do not fit into this image. So, while the Krenken adopt some of the practices and attitudes of Christians, they do not truly understand what it is they are incorporated into. It's impossible because of their vastly different points of reference and cultures.

Send Someone Else?

Could the harm done by the Jesuit parties have been stopped if another group had been sent instead? This is the question we found ourselves asking after finishing Children of God. Although the sequel ended much better than The Sparrow, the fact remains that the entire Jana'ata species was almost wiped out by the Runa and their society has been drastically and irrevocably changed. So the question remains, could anyone else have done things differently? I voiced my opinion in class and it has not changed. I believe that any interaction with another species will cause changes in both societies because of the simple nature of discovering something completely new. We saw clearly in Todorov's book the effects of the Europeans' interactions with Native Americans. Even two human cultures cannot meet for the first time without effecting some long-term consequences--whether good or bad.

Furthermore, even if the Rakhat party had not been exceedingly religious, basic human morality goes beyond religion. I say this because I think that the turning point of the whole expedition is when Sophia attempts to save the Runa children from being killed and eaten by the Jana'ata. Her reaction is not thought-out, it is her instinct to try to protect the children of a group that they have lived with and come to love. Even if Sophia was replaced by a scientist who thinks rationally and impartially, I believe it would have been very difficult for this person to simply watch children they know get killed. The only I can see things going any differently is if the party had not lived with the Runa for such a period of time and had tried harder to separate themselves from the Rakhati cultures. Even then, some change would have been inevitable, but maybe it would not have been as extreme.

And extreme is certainly what it was. Sophia took something that could have been a simple rebellion for freedom and made it into a genocide. This is because she projected all of her own experiences of oppression onto the Runa and the Jana'ata. As someone pointed out in class, she made the Runa into Jews and the Jana'ata into Nazis. Although Aaron makes a good point in his post about whether intervention is right or not, this is not exceedingly relevant in Sophia's case. She turns moral intervention into a war that is meant to make up for all the wrongs made against herself and her people. It goes past when it is acceptable to intervene into the territory of how far can one wronged woman go?

The Galactic Clash of Civilizations?

Similar to Jackie, I was left with a much more contented feeling after finishing Children of God. I was also left with a burning question: can one species or race thrive without it being at the expense of another species or race? If we look at most of human history, the answer would be a resounding no. If you look at humanity in the present from a purely objective standpoint you see a species that has risen to dominance on the subjugation and domestication of the natural world, including animals.

It makes me wonder if advancement always means someone or something else’s sacrifice. Russell characterizes this as a “tragedy…the fall of the Jana’ata and their replacement by the Runa…a catastrophe for the Jana’ata but…the best thing that ever happened to the Runa” (Reader’s Guide). Does this mean that, as with the expression ‘what goes up must come down’ – that whenever something is ‘coming down’ something else is ‘going up,’ and vice-versa? It is an interesting thought, unfortunately I do not have the answer…Perhaps if I did we could finally move beyond war.

Throughout the Children of God I also kept thinking, which species are the Aztecs and which are the Europeans, as discussed in The Conquest of America? The Jana’ata certainly seem the more past-looking race, focused on ancient traditions rather than adaptability and man-to-man communication. On the other hand, Emilio and his crew came directly from the Judeo-Christian world, yet they do not prove too swift in man-to man-communication. Rather they get caught up in trying to reform Runa - Jana’ata relations, which perhaps distracts them and leads to the “misunderstanding” that occurred when Supaari gave away Emilio, interpreting the word ‘service’ quite differently from Emilio. There is an interesting mix in both parties of attention to spirituality and/or tradition and focus on human interaction. It seems in this case both parties were caught up in a web of misunderstandings.

The Discovery of Aliens and Religion

I finished Children of God feeling much happier than I did after The Sparrow (although the book seemed to wrap things up a little too happily-ever-after for my taste) and the book also left me with even more questions about what an encounter with another sentient species would mean for humanity. I would like to move on to a topic other than comparative moralities--I'm feeling that this one has been a bit overworked lately. With a title like Children of God, my thoughts did frequently turn to the (supposed) big guy in the sky. In considering the meeting of the religious and the (literally) otherworldly, there are so many questions. Let's start with the basics: what would the discovery of aliens mean for the religions throughout the world? On this topic, it may interest you to know that the Vatican actually has its own observatory and has considered the implications of the discovery of aliens for Christianity. One of the staff members, Guy Consolmagno (who is, incidentally, a Jesuit) wrote a book entitled, Intelligent Life In The Universe? Catholic Belief And The Search For Extra-Terrestrial Life. A blog focusing on the interesting author of this book explains that it is his job to examine such questions as: "...if aliens were discovered, then why would the Bible--supposedly the word of God--contain no information about his non-Earthly creations? If they turn out to be green blobs or sentient gaseous spirals, what's all that talk in the Bible of humankind being created in God's image? What if the aliens wanted to convert us to their God? And do ETs go to heaven?" This blog also brings up other questions that I had not thought of, but Catholics had, such as: is it possible that the alien species had their own version of Adam and Eve and Jesus Christ?

I can see how religious scholars such as Consolmagno might be consumed by such questions; they truly are fascinating. Returning now to fiction, in Children of God we see that the Jana'ata and the Runa do not have their own monotheistic religion. But that does not take anything away from the question of what their existence means for our own religious and spiritual beliefs. The search for meaning engulfs the Jesuits in the book (even the ex-Jesuits like Emilio) and is the true reason for their trip--they need to understand. Emilio needs to know if there is a reason for his suffering, a reason that is implied to be of a higher power. It would take someone with extremely strong spirituality to take the discovery of aliens as a sign from God. I say this because, as the questions presented above show, the discovery of another sentient species would probably raise more doubts than convictions about God's providence. I mean, think about it...the existence of aliens would mean that we're not special, we're not God's only children. As it mentions above, what does that mean for the belief that we were created in God's image? And what if the aliens have their own unshakable beliefs? How do we know that our God is the real God? I find it hard to believe that finding an alien species would immediately lead people to see them as God's other children. It is inherent in human nature to want to feel special, like the human race is one in a million, and who knows how religion would hold up to a discovery that challenges this view.

Discovering the Other

I think more than anything else this class has impressed upon me the difficulty of truly discovering the other. Todorov’s Conquest of America has captured this theme, which prevails throughout the books we have read. Discovering the other is not merely meeting face to face, it is really getting under the others’ skin and understanding their own distinct logic and perspective. As Jackie writes, for true discovery there must be that “unique ability of both characters to see things from a different perspective… (and) maybe they can never completely relate to the practices of the aliens, but they have an understanding of why things are done that way.”

What appears to us as irrational behavior actually follows its own logic, it just may come from a place so different from our own cultural standpoint. There are so many opportunities for miscommunication and failure to understand. In each of the books we have read the characters in some manner fall prey to these misunderstandings.

At the end of his book, Todorov suggests that the ability to “get into someone else’s head” to grasp the others’ distinct logic and cultural experience is a form of maturity and evolutionary growth. He writes, “for the newborn child his world is the world, and growth is an apprenticeship in exteriority and sociality,” (247). He mourns the fact that it is possible to “live our lives without ever achieving a full discovery of the other” (247) since identification of the other moves from seeing the “other-as-subject,” such as Marjorie viewing the Foxen as animals, “to the other as subject, equal to the I but different from it,” as Marjorie eventually observes the Foxen as equal yet different intelligent life (247).

Each of the characters in the books we read has gone through or is stuck in this process. Those that never come to an understanding of the other as equal yet different were not able to lose their own cultural framework for however brief a moment and step into the others’, thus perpetually “Misreading the facts” (247) as a result of their cultural biases.

Montezuma’s Paralysis

The Conquest of America is a superb scholarly analysis of the Native American - European encounter. Honestly, it is rare to find a book that will make you rethink “established history,” the narrative you are told from grade school. In my mind, the conquest of America had merely been a matter of greater weaponry, the gun is more powerful than the bow and arrow. I had also considered that since most natives did not have a concept of ownership they did not understand how land could be taken from them, since it was forever a public entity, the philosophy being they belonged to the land rather than vice versa.

Never before have I seen such an analysis that takes both the natives and Europeans’ contexts of experiencing reality into account, and compares and contrasts them. I particularly enjoyed the characterization of the Aztecs’ communication as man to world. They were awfully skilled at this form, sensitive to signs and symbols, omens and prophecies. Yet this also leads to their unskilled man to man communication.

Montezuma followed a strict code for man to man communication, while Cortez prided himself on adaptability to ever-changing circumstances. The most revealing nuance or suggestion revealed in this book was that Montezuma and the Aztecs had perhaps surrendered even before the battles had begun. Montezuma’s “paralysis does not merely weaken the gathering of information; it already symbolized defeat since the Aztec sovereign is above all a master of speech…and since the renunciation of language is the admission of failure” (71). Examining the Native – European encounter in this light, I would agree with Todorov that the conquest of America was more a matter of signs than superior weaponry.

Seeing Through the Other's Eyes

To be honest, while I enjoyed the inclusion of a Star Trek episode and I find the debate over what constitutes understanding to be fairly interesting, today's class felt, to me, a little like beating a dead horse. For the first part of class we simply went back and forth trying to determine what communication really means and what real understanding is. It was repeatedly said that one can never achieve true understanding with any other individual. I think that this is a little silly. Of course we can never completely know what's going on inside someone's head (unless we're talking about a Vulcan mind meld). To me, it's kind of a moot point since complete and utter understanding, by definition of the word "complete," would require the ability to both read minds and have the exact same frame of reference of the other individual. Complete understanding is not even possible in a society where everyone speaks the same language. A PBS guide to cross-cultural communication gives an excellent example: "even in countries that share the English language, the meaning of 'yes' varies from 'maybe, I'll consider it' to 'definitely so,' with many shades in between." We touched on such issues of underlying meaning in class and, certainly, the inferences we make about communicated messages everyday may be wrong in some situations.

During the second part of class, we moved past this definition of true understanding to try to place the interactions between different humans and "others" from the books we've read this semester onto a scale of greater or lesser understanding. I appreciated this more concrete look at understanding because it gave us an idea of what promotes more in-depth understanding between cultures or species. Some of the indicators we came up with were: 1) one or both sides are able to "get out of their own head" and see the other's perspective; 2) the communication causes a change in the other's behavior; 3) one or both sides view the other as an equal. Someone also mentioned that, in many of the examples we looked at, a low level of understanding often meant the presence of violence.

For me personally, I feel that the first indicator is the most accurate because of the examples that I see as being more indicative of understanding, such as Ender and the piggies in Speaker for the Dead and Marjorie and the foxen in Grass. These examples exhibit more understanding between the main characters and the alien species because of the unique ability of both characters to see things from a different perspective; maybe they can never completely relate to the practices of the aliens, but they have an understanding of why things are done that way. In this instance, I have a quote that fits quite nicely. Gavin Sanderson writes in his article "Existentialism, Globalisation and the Cultural Other" that, "if it is popularly held that there is nothing that can be learned from the Cultural Other, what possibilities are there for transformative encounters to open our identities to change? To also see the world through their eyes and in doing so, become something more than we presently are (Marginson 1999-2000, p.5), whether at the level of an individual, an institution, a nation, or a civilisation." The only way to have encounters that change one's self (presumably arising from a new understanding of the universe or some small piece of it) is to open one's mind to another perspective.