Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War

by Jerry Pournelle

  As a rough guess, it's highly probable that the next stage of cultural evolution will appear, to us, to be Barbarism, and be a horrible, degenerate, loathsome system indeed.

  Just as the Civil system appears, to the Barbarian, to be the Tribal system, in which the individual has no dignity, and a man is not a Man, for he lacks the courage to express his individual worth and will.

  In a previous editorial, I discussed the effect of the cultural system of the local natives on the type of relationship that grows up between colonists and natives.

  Notice that the root philosophy of the ritual-taboo tribesman is such that it is inherently impossible to cooperate with him in establishing a colony. So long as the natives are true Tribesmen, Change is Evil—and the colonists are introducing change. There is no such thing as "a good change" in a pure-tradition system: "Change is Evil; Evil is Change."

  More immediately, the Tribesman's sense of security stems entirely from having a sure source of Answers. The Tribesman has no answers himself, and has no sense that he can be a source of answers. His sense of security, his defense against the Unknown, is a Source of Answers. He expects to be told what to do, when, and how; if his Tribal Traditions don't do so, then some other source of Answers must. He has no expectation or desire to be responsible for his own acts; that way lies the terror of the Unknown.

  If some colonist comes in and overthrows the Tribal Traditions—then the Colonist must be the Source of Answers. The Tribesman cannot cooperate on a man-to-man basis with the colonist, no matter how the colonist may seek to establish such a system. The Tribesman doesn't know he's a man; he knows only that he's a Unit of the System—that he has to be a unit of some system.

  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And you can lead a Tribesman to Liberty . . . but you can't make him free.

  If the colonists move in to an area where there are Barbarian natives . . . again, cooperation is strictly impossible. Barbarians can't cooperate among themselves; they do not operate as a cross-linked, integrated team in any operation, but as individuals heading toward the same goal, and hence incidentally traveling parallel paths. Like the pellets from a shotgun charge, they produce a net group effect, but not by reason of being in a cooperating system.

  The colonists, seeking to set up a civilized colony, are presenting the Barbarians with an irresistible challenge; the colonists are showing the weakness, the spineless cowardice, the slave mentality, of allowing themselves to be pushed around by their masters. And they're demanding that the Barbarians give up their self-respect and crawl among them!

  He'd rather die in honorable battle, than knuckle under, than crawl before masters, like that!

  Of course, if the natives have already reached the Civil level of culture themselves, cooperation is not only possible, but practically inevitable. When there are free men who can and will work, slaves invariably prove too expensive.

  The Citizen can be enslaved; on that, the Barbarian is right. The Barbarian cannot be enslaved; he'll either kill himself trying to rebel, or die of psychosomatic illnesses brought on by hopelessness if rebellion is impossible. He loses the will to live, if he cannot live as a Free Barbarian.

  A Citizen can be enslaved, because, with him, freedom is not an absolute thing, as it is with the Barbarian. But such men are more efficiently productive as free men than as slaves—and they will, therefore, wind up free-in-fact, whether slaves-in-name or not.

  If the natives in an area being opened for colonization by a civilized people are themselves civilized—the result will be a hybrid civilization, with mutual respect between natives and colonists.

  If the natives are Barbarians, they cannot be enslaved, and it is impossible to cooperate with them, or establish any form of peaceful co-existence. But the Barbarian is only a short step from civilization himself. After those "sniveling, cowardly slaves" of Citizens have repeatedly defied all the certainties of Barbarian ideas by shellacking every Barbarian attack, the Barbarian—who is not stupid!—starts re-evaluating his ideas.

  At this point, cooperation may set in—because the Barbarians have ceased to be Barbarians.

  The Spanish Conquistadors represent a very unusual sort of "Colonization"; they were, actually, typical Barbarians themselves! Like the Barbarian, each of them was a force unto himself. He may not have thought that he was, himself, God, but he definitely acted on the basis that he was God's Chosen Instrument. They had unlimited faith in themselves—right up to the instant of death. Nothing had ever been able to kill them; they were invulnerable! Death and disaster was something that happened to others.

  The resultant personality made possible a level of achievement that was, quite clearly, far beyond any reasonable man's level. Their self-will and self-importance absolutely dominated anything else.

  They came from a Civil system, and had many aspects of the Civil system—but they were, individually, Barbarians.

  The Barbarian is not a worker; he's a looter. He's a high-risk gambler. He will never develop a land; he will only loot it. For him, vast, rich farm lands, just waiting for an industrious population to develop them, are of no value whatever.

  The Spanish Conquistadors never achieved anything whatever in the United States area; all the natives in this area were Barbarian-level themselves—and nothing is less profitable to a Barbarian than getting into a clawing match with other Barbarians.

  The Conquistadors did just fine in Mexico and in the Inca empire; there, the natives had recently developed a civilization—they were very-late-Barbarian early—Civilization. They could be enslaved . . . and were.

  Spain never established a foothold anywhere where there were no enslaveable natives.

  Wherever the enslaveable natives were early-civilization level people . . . the slavery lasted just long enough for the natives to learn the higher-order techniques of mid-civilization. Whereupon the now-educated natives dumped the conquerors: the result is a hybrid civilization.

  It's interesting to wonder what would have happened if the British, instead of the Spanish, had been first into those areas. In the areas where British colonists met natives of early-Civilized level—the Polynesians in New Zealand and Hawaii, for example—hybrid cultures grew up from the start.

  It's also interesting to wonder what will happen if we go in to some planet, and find what seems to be a Barbarian culture . . . which isn't. It would certainly be baffling, and almost certainly be disastrous in a way we cannot dimly imagine.

  It would mean the destruction of our very souls. Just as Civilization, by merely contacting Barbarians repeatedly, brings about the corruption and degradation of their dignity, their self-respect—their very souls. And turns them into cowardly, weakened, crawling things that actually cooperate with another human being.

  We can't, of course, guess just what form of loathsome corruption of our selves, our dignity, looms before us.

  It doesn't really matter; we're going to get it anyway, whether from outside, or from our own unwanted, yet inescapable, evolution.

  But we won't like it. Any more than a Tribesman likes becoming that essence of corruption and evil, a Barbarian. Or a Barbarian likes becoming that sniveling thing, a Citizen.

  The Barbarians From Within

  John W. Campbell

  When the Lion shall lie down with the Lamb—the Lion is going to be in serious trouble. The Lamb, of course, can baaaaah happily as it goes gamboling of through its breakfast, lunch, and dinner supply—but the Lion's in a different spot. He can't live on grass. His digestive system is intrinsically incapable of extracting nourishment from herbal food supplies. It's no good trying to persuade him to learn a new way of life, and be happy eating grass, fruits, and twigs; he can't.

  During the hot summer nights last year, race riots broke out in various cities in the Northeast. New York—Rochester—Jersey City—Chicago—Paterson—and other towns had their riots or near-riots as emotions boiled over.

  These were undoubtedly true race riots—b
ut I want to suggest that they were not Negro-vs-White riots. They only had that surface appearance.

  For one thing, remember that only about 0.05% of the Negroes of Harlem, for instance, participated in the rioting. Moreover, while the New York City riots were essentially 100% Negro, this was not the pattern in Rochester, Chicago, and other places. There white juveniles did their rioting, looting, and destroying, too. Once the riots got started, it was a happy orgy of looting, destruction, and outlawry in which all interested were joining the party.

  They were race riots, all right—but the races involved were Barbarians vs. Citizens—and neither skin-color, religion, or home-background had anything whatever to do with it.

  Dr. Kenneth Clark, Harlem's Negro psychologist, of course maintains that it's the poor home environment of the Harlem Negro youths that leads to such behavior—the frustrations and tensions of rejection, poor education, and slovenly home environment.

  That's open to argument, of course, since it's proper to ask "Who makes the slovenly home environments?" But skip that problem for a moment, and recognize that full-fledged Juvenile Delinquents come from fine homes, with excellent economic, educational, and social backgrounds.

  The Barbarian type is a genetic type—he's born that way. True, he can be influenced to some degree—but he's inherently a Barbarian, and he'll be a Barbarian no matter what his economic, educational, or social background may be.

  First off, let's stop pretending that "all men are born equal"; they aren't, never were, and never will be. They're born with vastly different potentials, and vastly different inherent motivations. It's currently fashionable to say that it's lack of educational opportunities, economic opportunities, et cetera, that keeps the poor man poor and hopeless. This is utter nonsense, as history proves in any number of instances you want. Abraham Lincoln, maybe, had excellent educational, economic, and social background? Or what's your particular choice of field of accomplishment? Science? Then how about Michael Faraday? Or try another type of handicap; how about Charles P. Steinmetz? And, on the other side, every millionaire's son becomes a genius in his own right because of his educational, economic, and social advantages?

  The men of great personal accomplishment aren't necessarily beneficial to the race, of course. But to see that the much-discussed educational, economic, and social advantages don't seem to matter much—consider Adolph Hitler and Genghis Khan.

  Those advantages are helpful—to individuals with the right kind of potential. But the individual must have the potential as a genetic gift.

  It's currently popular to hold that Nurture is Everything, and Nature is an unimportant accident of no real importance. The argument is usually advanced on behalf of the poor, down-trodden, dispossessed, rejected slob who never did anything useful for himself or anyone else.

  O.K.—try applying it to the millionaire's sons. By the nature of the argument, it follows that every millionaire's son should prove to be a genius. Since they quite obviously don't, despite having every possible advantage (except inherent nature!) it's essential for the social-liberal who claims it's lack of such advantages that makes the poor man poor, to explain why the rich man's son so frequently turns out to be simply a rich slob. The social-liberal is always quick to hold that the rich man's son is a selfish, egotistical, useless parasite; is that the effect of every educational and economic advantage? Is that what he wants for the poor man's son?

  Of course, there are rich men's sons who have turned out to be fully as brilliantly constructive and creative as their sires—but that's not surprising. There are also poor men's sons who've turned out brilliantly constructive, too. More poor men's sons turn up as great benefactors than rich men's sons, for that matter—which is not too surprising, in view of the fact that there are about 100,000,000 poor men having sons for every rich man having a son.

  In any case, the social-liberal who is constantly insisting that it's educational, economic, and social advantages, and only that, that makes the vast difference must—loathe the idea however much he may—explain why the millionaire's sons aren't consistently brilliant, creative, constructive, and highly civilized individuals.

  Because, quite clearly, despite all those advantages, they aren't consistently what the social-liberal insists good opportunities would make of everyone!

  No—there's Nature in there, as well as Nurture. And genetics plays a role that education simply cannot do anything about. There's one very simple fundamental that constitutes an absolute block on the possibilities of education: You can not teach an organism how to learn.

  The ability-to-learn must be genetically endowed; if the ability-to-learn is not already present, then all efforts to teach must necessarily be futile.

  Now a chimpanzee can be taught many things—more, and more complex behavior patterns than, for example, a dog. But it can not be taught to understand and use word-symbols. It lacks the ability-to-learn speech-symbology. No amount of patient effort can teach what the chimpanzee's mind lacks the ability to learn.

  How long must one expose a piece of film coated with a sodium chloride-gelatine emulsion to get a picture? A silver-chloride-gelatine emulsion will record a picture in a millionth of a second—but sodium chloride lacks the ability-to-respond-to-light. No amount of exposure will ever produce the desired recording.

  Dogs have been selectively bred by Man for about 200,000 years—say 100,000 generations. The modern Border Collie, like other true working dogs, can learn a quite extensive vocabulary of true sound-symbols; they do learn to understand speech. They are not as intelligent as the chimpanzee—but they have one specific ability-to-learn that the chimpanzee simply lacks.

  Point: The existence of a high degree of intelligence has no correlation whatever with specific learning abilities.

  The chief statistician for one of America's greatest public utilities once took a series of aptitude tests, to aid psychologists who were trying to calibrate their tests in terms of aptitudes-shown vs. success in fields of work. That is, what aptitudes does an individual who succeeds as an engineer show? A banker? A research chemist? Or, in the case under test, a statistician.

  One aptitude he lacked with almost incredible completeness was any sense of spatial geometry. Given a wooden cube, which had been sawed up into nine wiggly, irregular blocks, and asked to assemble the scattered pieces—after forty-five minutes of futile trying, they gave up. Most people need about three minutes; mechanical engineers usually succeed in about forty-five seconds.

  Both the psychologists and the statistician were fascinated by this remarkable lack of solid-geometry insight, and agreed to try a teaching program. Over the course of a week or so, the statistician laboriously practiced assembling the wiggly blocks, until he finally was able to do it in about five minutes.

  Then they gave him an exactly similar collection of wiggly blocks, but only one-half the size he'd practiced with.

  At the end of thirty unsuccessful minutes, he went back to being one of the country's greatest statisticians, and they went back to aptitude testing.

  Intelligence has nothing whatever to do with specific learning ability.

  A specific learning ability can be bred into a genetic line, given time enough, selective breeding, and a reasonable mutability of the organisms being bred. (That's why dogs now understand speech-symbols.)

  Some human individuals can't learn to be civilized. Genetics being a statistical thing, the son of five generations of highly civilized men may happen to miss the gene-pattern required, while the son of twenty generations of barbarian warriors shows up with it.

  The essence of a learning-ability is, it seems to me, a built-in genetic ability to enjoy a specific activity. The Lamb can enjoy eating grass—and, incidentally, gets nourished thereby. If we could somehow make a Lion enjoy eating grass, he would happily chew away at grass, worried only by the extremely inefficient job his carnivore-style teeth did on chewing the stuff. (He would starve to death, of course, but he'd starve happily.)

 
; The scholar enjoys studying. The athlete enjoys physical acitivity. The two are mutually exclusive only to the extent that both require time, so we find both scholarly athletes, scholarly nonathletes, and athletic nonscholars.

  The trouble with the Barbarian is that he specifically enjoys fighting, and specifically hates working for a living. To him, working for a living is dishonorable, unmanly, slavery—anathema. He can enjoy fighting, though he is fully aware that it has a high probability of killing him. (Remember that a nuclear physicist deeply enjoys working with materials that he is acutely aware can kill him. The chemist continues to do research on materials that he knows are extremely explosive, enormously poisonous, or viciously corrosive. Risk stops neither the citizen nor the barbarian.)

  The Barbarian can fight for a living, in any variant of the concept of "fight." These include actual paid-mercenary action, fight-and-loot—which he prefers, of course—or through stealing, swindling, blackmailing, extortion, et cetera. He would, by reason of that general mechanism, rather rape a woman than earn her love, rather seduce her by false promises than marry her—because the latter is a form of slavery, in his opinion. He could not enjoy her love—but would delight in his conquest of her. (And don't pity the Barbarian woman; she agrees in full!)