Meeting New Civilizations

[sanctus]

I am in need of a historical counter-example. In a discussion the other day I said that it would be cool to meet an alien civilization. Then someone replied that she would not want to, because amongst other in the history of mankind whenever a more "advanced" (or maybe better technologically more advanced) civilization met a "less advanced" one, it ended bad for the "less advanced" one. Take for example the native populations of north and south America and the Europeans...or the Aborigines and Europeans.

 

I can even extend make her argument more general: whenever 2 civilzations met, 1 one was off bad afterwards. Take for example the barbarians (less advanced) and the romans (more advanced), where it ended bad for the latter.

 

A weak counter-example might be Marco Polo in China. This is weak though because it was not a meeting between civilaztions, but a selceted few (Marco Polo's entourage) and a civilization.

 

So are there any strong counter-examples?

[joekgamer]

For the 'it ends badly for the less advanced civilization' part, an example is that the Ethiopians (pretty sure it was them, but I'm not 100% sure) repelled the Europeans for quite a while even though they were much less advanced.

[Deepwater6]

I don't have a specific event, but along these lines I would hope the more advanced civilizations would look at us like a rare species that gets discovered deep in the rain forest. Some explorers are only interested in observation and learning what they can about the new species without disturbing it's habitat. Hopefully that is the case with UFO's. That may be why UFO's never stop to say hello. I believe that most UFO sightings are false, but I think about 5% of all sightings have some degree of validity (call me crazy). So with that in mind let's hope they have a prime directive that lets them observe us without disturbing our habitat.

[CraigD]

I am in need of a historical counter-example. In a discussion the other day I said that it would be cool to meet an alien civilization. Then someone replied that she would not want to, because amongst other in the history of mankind whenever a more "advanced" (or maybe better technologically more advanced) civilization met a "less advanced" one, it ended bad for the "less advanced" one. Take for example the native populations of north and south America and the Europeans...or the Aborigines and Europeans.

I defy the conventional wisdom that “things usually go badly for the less advanced civilization” in meeting of more of less “advanced” (in practical terms, “advanced” in this context refers to military capability) civilizations (for which I prefer the term “peoples” over “civilization”, “cultures”, etc.), and offer as examples nearly all of the historic encounters between conquering and conquered peoples, from early historical ones, through the 15th through 19th century conquest of central America and the conquest of North America, to recent “regime change” wars.

 

Let’s start with an examination of what “going badly” means, and to whom it applies.

 

In the simplest, extreme scenario, “going badly” means extermination and erasure from the historic record, involving secret mass graves, destroying and expunging documents, etc. In less simply, less extreme scenarios, it means becoming an oppressed ethnic group, ranging from a true slave class with legal rights nearly identical to livestock through caste systems to informal social discrimination. A conquered people may pass through many of these states on a time frame spanning generations, as evidenced by there being essentially no modern legal slavery today.

 

Where the conventional wisdom fails, I believe, is in failing to give proper emphasis to to whom on the losing side of a conquest “going badly” applies. In practically all cases, from ancient to modern, it goes as badly as it can – the extermination scenario – for the losers’ rulers and military leaders, and in some cases their immediate and extended families and friends. In some – and I believe most – cases, however, thing actually become better for most of the loosing peoples’ people.

 

By definition, “regime change” “wars of liberation” are intended, at least as a secondary objective, to improve the condition of everybody on the conquered (though this term is avoided) side except their leaders, who are usually defined as dictators, oppressors, war criminals, etc. and either killed when found, or captured, tried, and executed. Pre-20th century conquests were similar – for example, the capture and killing of Montezuma II by a small Spanish expeditionary army with the support of local political dissidents.

 

My position becomes controversial when applied to conquered people such as native North Americans and Australian Aborigines, because some argue that, while the official position of their conquerors is that they are better off after than before, others oppose this, arguing that what they have gained, such as their genes being in a larger populations, longer individual lifetimes (more on this later), access to schools and libraries, etc., is less than what they lost, such as genetic isolation (AKA purity, racial identity, etc), cultural traditions, widespread use of their original language, etc. I find one argument in this position more persuasive than others: people who lived in as low-population density hunter-gatherers in places with abundant wild food and comfortable climates often had much shorter “work days” than after their conquest, when they might be effectively enslaved as farm or factory workers. Even the typical “civilized” 40 hour workweek arguably affords less leisure time than is available to hunter-gatherers in places where natural resources greatly exceed the needs of the population, and population growth over many generations is nearly zero, not upsetting this balance.

 

Another important consideration in the dynamic of conquest is the influence that conquered peoples may have over conquering people. To some extent, conquering people “go native” by learning and adopting practices and beliefs of the people they conquer, sometimes in an romanticized, historically unrealistic form, but still in a way that transforms their culture, and in a sense, allows the spirit of the conquered people to continue in the bodies of the descendants of them and their conquerors (despite there often being strong taboos against it, interbreeding is the rule in the dynamic of conquest, not the exception). This influence is especially pronounced when the conqueror is in many areas less advanced by the conquered – for example, in the waves of “barbarian” conquests of the Asian steppes, where militarily effective but effectively illiterate nations conquered, then were “softened” by the literate culture the conquered, to be themselves conquered a generation or less later by another barbarian horde.

 

I’m fond of a description of this given in Piers Anthony’s 1976 SF novel Steppe, in which the main character is taught history by computer-rendered animated cartoon icons that eat one another, in the process the eaters morphing to share the features of the eaten. Though quirky, as is most of Anthony’s writing and fictional, I found this book inspiring, and think its obscurity undeserved.

[Moontanman]

First of all I would like to point out the idea that Native Americans were somehow better off after the Europeans gave us civilization is somewhat less than supportable, besides the fact that we already had civilization, genocide seldom goes well for those who are on the receiving end of it.

 

As for aliens i think the idea they would somehow do the same thing as human explores did to natives whether to take their lands or to trade with them is projecting human fears and concepts onto... well... aliens. We expect them to land on the white house lawn and either tell us to line up for orderly extermination or to set up trade and exchange of technologies, neither of these extremes is probable, it is even possible that stopping people on rural roads and giving them an anal probe is how they communicate and since we cannot communicate through our rectums (well maybe some Fox News commentators can) they assume we are not really intelligent and leave with no traces of them ever being there.

 

What it boils down to is that aliens are not humans and we cannot expect them to be humans or act like humans but i cannot think of any primitive civilization that came out better than they were after contact than they were before except by the standards of the conquerers.

[Deepwater6]

Well if anal probing is the way they communicate then take me the hell off the first contact list. Sure we can't expect them to be just like humans and they probable won't be, but if there is a possibility they will show up in a negative sense then isn't there also a possibility they could show up in a positive one? I'd prefer to hope for a whole star ship full of flirtatious Jessica Alba's to anal probes myself.

[Moontanman]

Well if anal probing is the way they communicate then take me the hell off the first contact list. Sure we can't expect them to be just like humans and they probable won't be, but if there is a possibility they will show up in a negative sense then isn't there also a possibility they could show up in a positive one? I'd prefer to hope for a whole star ship full of flirtatious Jessica Alba's to anal probes myself.

 

 

Well while anything might be possible some things would seem to be more probable than others and there is always the third possibility they will not show up at all. The OP asks if there are any examples of human cultures colliding when one is vastly superior than the other and the inferior culture not being significantly harmed. I think it's more likely that contact be benign the closer you get to our modern culture than it was further back in time. For me it's difficult to see why aliens would want planets to start with and the possibility ours would be useful to them if they were in search of planets seems low as well BUT if they do visit us then they would be here (try telling a lottery winner he can't have won because of how unlikely it was) and we will have to deal with them in some way.

 

For the OP, think of modern contact between our culture and isolated primitives, scientists usually do their best to minimize contact and the problems that might ensue, this is not true for religious contact with primitives in the past or now and might be a factor or even the factor that would make contact with aliens bad for us. I know modern rationalists seem to presume that aliens wouldn't be missionaries but i see no reason to assume that at all and it might be the factor that totally disrupts our culture.

[Deepwater6]

Yes, I agree whole heartedly with you Moontanman. Given the problem of distance alone I think it's very improbable aliens would visit us. I also agree with your point that alien beings having evolved on a different planet would want to or have any use for our planet unless they were looking for some particular resource, but even then they would need to bring the capabilities to get that resource back home which is also very improbable.

[charles brough]

I am in need of a historical counter-example. In a discussion the other day I said that it would be cool to meet an alien civilization. Then someone replied that she would not want to, because amongst other in the history of mankind whenever a more "advanced" (or maybe better technologically more advanced) civilization met a "less advanced" one, it ended bad for the "less advanced" one. Take for example the native populations of north and south America and the Europeans...or the Aborigines and Europeans.

 

I can even extend make her argument more general: whenever 2 civilzations met, 1 one was off bad afterwards. Take for example the barbarians (less advanced) and the romans (more advanced), where it ended bad for the latter.

 

A weak counter-example might be Marco Polo in China. This is weak though because it was not a meeting between civilaztions, but a selceted few (Marco Polo's entourage) and a civilization.

 

So are there any strong counter-examples?

 

If the terminology is refined, it can be shown that a counter-example is impossible. It is the gradual replacing of less advanced societies by more advanced ones that has enabled our social evolution and the resulting accumulation of the vast cultural heritage of the human race. In "The Last Civilization," I show this process and explain what happens to cause one society/civilization to decline and another to displace it. (You may equate "society" with "civilization," for the sake of convenience, but it should be noted that the process also occured before civilization and throughout pre-history).

[lawcat]

A counter example is the Germanic tribes meeting the Roman civilization. (Huns, Genghis Khan, and eastern civilizations. A triumph of one civilization always has the other negative side of the story. The devil lies in the "victory.")