The Sirian Experiments

by Doris Lessing

  My colleagues and I were facing a first-class crisis – not immediately evident as one, but with the potentialities of social ferment that could affect everything.

  And my request for the thirty-seven Battalions, and the resulting re-organization and rapid re-training, had not gone unobserved by our people.

  What was Rohanda, why was she of such importance to us, that so much disturbance was being allowed on her account?

  We, the Five, sat together, now Four and One, as on the last occasion, and they wanted to know if I had seen Klorathy again. I said I had not, and that that was not the point. But how could I expect them to understand what had taken me so long?

  They waited, regarding me in an expectation not untinged with anxiety. They were feeling, even if they had not formulated this, that their destinies, Sirian destinies, were in other hands. That this had always been so, they did not suspect. Nor could I easily think along these lines, even now.

  They were waiting for me to say something as simple as ‘I believe this Canopean bond will benefit us in such and such a way.’

  At last, they demanded, having heard of the developments on the Rohandan moon, if I proposed to send a report to Klorathy. This was because they wished to read it and to assess our relationship from it. I said I did not believe a report was indicated yet.

  This ended our meeting. I can see now their faces, turned as one towards me, and feel their fretfulness, their distrust. I don’t blame them: I have never done that! In their places I would have been, I would have done, the same.

  SHAMMAT

  I was summoned back to the Rohandan moon. Fighting had broken out in the Shammat territory: civil war on Shammat was being reflected here. It was ground fighting. All over their territory were explosions that made new craters where their underground dwellings and factories had been; and wrecked crawlers, their limbs torn off, sprawled over the workings of the old craters. That the factions had not yet dared to make an aerial attack seemed to us a sign that they had not entirely lost a sense of their position. We took no chances; another show of our strength was arranged over their battlefields so that they would not be tempted to forget our presence, and that of Canopus. The details of this war do not concern this narrative.

  On Rohanda was a similar state of affairs. That planet was now into its Century of Destruction, with the first of its global wars. Most of the fighting took place in the Northwest fringes, where the nations tried to destroy each other over the question of who was to control – mainly – Southern Continent I. This war combined the maximum of nastiness with a maximum of rhetoric. It was a disgusting war. I caught glimpses of Tafta. Even more inflated with self-esteem than he had been when I had seen him last, he was at work inflaming national passions, as ‘a man of God’, the term given to the exemplars of the local religions. First on one side, and then on the other, he announced God’s support for whatever policy of mass destruction was being implemented. I shall not easily forget his evil unctuousness, his face all inflamed with sincerity, as he urged on the poor wretches who died or were wounded and crippled in multitudes.

  My recall to Sirius was by the Four, who wanted to know ‘what Canopus thought it was doing’ – allowing such carnage on Rohanda. They believed I had been meeting Klorathy and that for some reason connected with my inclination towards Canopus, was not telling them so. I could only repeat that I had not met Klorathy, nor had ‘instructions’ from him; but that for my part I was disposed to trust in the long-term purposes of Canopus. This was not a happy meeting; and I was relieved to get an urgent message from Rohanda. The Shammat war on the planet’s planet was at an end; the faction that had won on Shammat had imposed itself there, too: it was a matter of indifference to us – for nastiness and baseness there was nothing to choose between the factions. Tafta, the Shammat representative on Rohanda, had been compromised by the civil war in such a way that his personal position on Rohanda was weakened. It was known to us that on his return home he might face arrest or assassination. This was possibly not known to him.

  The destructive processes on Rohanda were hastening to a conclusion. The second global war was in progress. Again, this had originated in the Northwest fringes, as an expression of national rivalries, but had spread everywhere, affected every part of the planet. It was this war that weakened, finally, the position of the white races; they had dominated the planet from end to end, destroying every local variation of culture and civilization as their technological needs dictated.

  The changes in the balances of power made by the second war are fully documented; but the details of these local struggles – which after all was all they were, looked at from any reasonable perspective – did not concern me nearly so much as the lessons that could be drawn from them and that could be applied to our own problems.

  I was watching the changes in the sets of mind throughout our own Empire, on our Mother Planet and on the Colonized Planets. Every planet had different attitudes and ideas, which were stubbornly defended, always passionately, often violently. And each took in new facts and ideas at a different rate. I did not at first understand that this was my prime preoccupation: it was one thing to have seen that to cause changes in the Sirian Empire was a long-term aim of Canopus, and that I was their instrument – I have done my best to chronicle the slow, difficult growth of my understanding – but to comprehend a process fully, it is often essential to see the results of it. And this is true even for skilled administrators like the Five.

  What I was doing during this period, which turned out to be a short one, was to stay quietly in my quarters thinking. It occurred to me that it was a very long time since I had done anything of the kind. I have been almost permanently on the move, or stationed on another planet. But it was not only my remaining at home that was unusual: I understood that the state of my mind was one I did not remember.

  It was when the other members of the Five had been to see me, separately and almost furtively, and with that apologetic air caused by not understanding fully why one is doing something, that I began to comprehend. For one thing, I have only too often observed that this type of apology easily becomes irritation and then, very quickly, worse …

  We had seldom visited each other in this way. Our formal meetings were necessary for the records, and so that citizens’ groups could have reassurance for their anxieties by actually watching us at work in the council chambers. We had known what we were all thinking, were likely to think, had formed something like a collective mind … The uneasiness of my visitors was partly because they did not like the necessity they found themselves in, to come to my quarters so as to find out – but find out what? They did not know!

  Each of them arrived with this aggressive and embarrassed manner, and then inquired most solicitously after my health. Which I assured them was, as always, excellent. The visits were all the same. We agreed that we were seeing Sirius in ferment, beliefs and ideas held for millennia being thrown out, new ones being adopted. When this upheaval was over – and as usual during a period of tumult it was hard to believe it could ever be over – there was no means of foreseeing what our Empire would have become.

  Our talk then turned to Rohanda. ‘Paradox, contradiction, the anomalous – when a planet is in a period of transformation, these are always evident. Well then, in your view, Ambien, what is the most important of these? Important from the point of view of illustrating mechanisms of social change?’

  ‘First of all, I am not equipped to talk of the real, the deep, the really fundamental changes that are taking place.’ I said this firmly, knowing it would exasperate. But looked my visitor calmly in the eyes, insisting that I had to say this. And when it was accepted, with good grace or not, I said: ‘But as for the immediately evident and obvious paradoxes, I would say that it is that Rohanda has perfected techniques of communication so powerful that the remotest and most isolated individual anywhere can be informed of anything happening anywhere on Rohanda at once. There are millions of them engaged in these industries t
o do with communication. Through the senses of sight and sound and through ways they do not yet suspect, each Rohandan is subjected day and night to an assault of information. Of “news”. And yet never has there been such a gap between what this individual is told, is allowed to know, and what is actually happening.’

  ‘But Ambien, is this not always true, everywhere, to an extent at least?’

  ‘Yes, it is. For instance, if a Sirian were to be told that our Empire is run by a Dictatorship of Five, he would laugh or call the doctors.’

  ‘I am not talking about that, Ambien – and I don’t like how you put it. If we are dictators, then when have there been rulers so responsive to the needs of their subjects … so compassionate … so concerned for the general good … Very well, you look impatient, you look as if I am quite ridiculous – we all of us recognize that we Five no longer think as one. You have your own views … but I was not talking of any specific problem we may have. I was suggesting that what can be taken in by an ordinary individual is always behind the facts.’

  ‘It is a question of degree. But are generalities useful at this point? This dangerous and crucial point? Very well then, let me put it like this. When what the populace believes falls too far behind what is really going on, then rulers do well to be afraid. It is because a mind, individual or collective, can be regarded as a machine. From this point of view. Feed in information too fast and it jams. This jam manifests in rage – riots, uprisings, rebellions.’

  ‘Which we are seeing now throughout our Empire. All kinds of new ideas fight for acceptance.’

  ‘But how many more are there that are not yet seen at all? But you don’t want to talk about the particular. Very well then, though in my view we – you – are making a mistake. We ought to be talking about the Sirian situation. And about our situation. We ought to be thinking of ways our populations can be told: you Sirians, you, the Sirian Empire, have been ruled by an Oligarchy of Five, and this fact does not fit in at all with what you have been taught … oh very well then, let us stick to Rohanda. I shall make a very general observation. We all know that the central fact in a situation is often, and in fact most usually, the one that is not seen. We may say even that there is always a tendency to look for distant or complicated explanations for something that is very simple or near at hand. I shall say that as a result of watching the mental processes on Rohanda, I have concluded that they do not understand an extremely simple and basic fact. It is that each person everywhere sees itself, thinks of itself, as a unique and extraordinary individual, and never suspects to what an extent it is a tiny unit that can exist only as part of a whole.’

  ‘And that is a really new idea for you, Ambien? Ambien of the Five?’

  ‘Wholes. A whole. It is not possible for an individual to think differently from the whole he or she is part of … no, wait. Let us take an example from Rohanda. There is a large ocean vessel of a new and advanced design. It is struck by a lump of floating ice and instantly sinks, though it has been advertised as unsinkable. They appoint a committee of experts – individuals, that is, of the highest probity and public admiration, with the longest and most efficient training possible in that field. This committee produces a report that whitewashes everyone concerned. But this same report, studied only a few years later, strikes a new generation as either mendacious or as incompetent … well?’

  ‘You occupy your mind with the minuscule! It isn’t what we expect of you.’

  ‘It seems to me that the minuscule, the petty, the humble example is exactly where we can study best this particular problem. What happened in the interval between the first report and the reassessment of it?’

  ‘Change of viewpoint.’

  ‘Exactly. An assortment of individuals, identically trained, all members of a certain class, came together on a problem. They were already members of a group mind – together they concentrated into a smaller one of the same kind. They produced a report that could not have been different, since they could not think differently. Not then. That is why one generation swears black, and the next white.’

  ‘But you, Ambien, are surely proof that a group mind is hardly inviolable – or permanent!’

  ‘Ah, but here is another mechanism … what we are seeing are only mechanisms, machineries, that is all … let us consider these group minds … these little individuals making up wholes. Sets of ideas making up a whole can be very large, for instance, when they are occupying a national area, and millions will go to war for opinions that may very well be different or even opposite only a decade later – and die in their millions. Each is part of this vast group mind and cannot think differently, not without risking madness, or exile or …’

  Here there was a moment of consciousness, discomfort, sorrow – which I dissipated at once by going on.

  ‘Yes, you said that I have been at odds with you and for a long time, and that this fact proves I am wrong. But what is the mechanism, the machinery, that creates a group, a whole, and then develops a dissident member – develops thoughts that are different from those of the whole?’

  ‘Perhaps this individual may have been suborned? Influenced by some alien and unfriendly power?’

  ‘If we are going to allow ourselves to think like that, then – ’

  ‘Then what, Ambien? Tell me. Tell us. We are ready to understand, don’t you believe that?’

  ‘It is a mechanism for social change. After a time … and it can be a very long time indeed; or after only a short time … as we see now on Rohanda, where everything is speeded up and sets of ideas that have been considered unchallengeable can be dispersed almost overnight – after a period of time, short or long, during which the group mind has held these sacred and right ideas, it is challenged. Often by an extremely small deviance of opinion. It is characteristic of these group minds, these wholes, to describe an individual thinking only very slightly differently as quite remarkably and even dangerously different. Yet this difference may very shortly seem ludicrously minor …’

  ‘And so we all hope, Ambien.’

  ‘But there is a question here, it torments me, for we do not know how to answer it. This deviant individual in this group – he or she has been unquestioningly and happily and conformingly part of this group, and then new ideas creep in. Where do they come from?’

  ‘Well, obviously, from new social developments.’

  ‘Thank you. Oh, thank you so much! That’s settled then, and we need think no more about it! May I go on? When such a deviant individual becomes too uncomfortable for the group mind to tolerate, various things can happen. Commonly, expulsion. Labelled seditious, mad, and in any case wrongheaded, he or she is thrown out … yes, yes, we all agree that in our case this would be a pity. Talking generally though, this individual may start an opposing group having attracted enough people with similar ideas – no, I am not threatening you. Can we not talk about this with less personal reference? Can we not? Yes, indeed, I am concerned about our ancient association, indeed I am anxious for my personal saftey – but can you not believe that brooding about these questions I am still Ambien II, who have with you administered a vast Empire for so long? Thank you! This deviant individual may influence others of this group, this mind, to think differently, when the entity will split into two – and I do not expect this to happen in this case. No. What has caused me to think differently from you has affected, I believe, only myself … no? We shall see! No, I am not threatening! How can it be a threat? We are not in control of these processes. We like to think we are. But they control us. You don’t like that thought! We of the Five don’t like to think that all this long time we have never been more than straws in a current … but may I go on to suggest another possibility for this deviant and so irritating individual? If he or she is not expelled, or does not expel herself, but remains, contemplating her position, then a certain train of thought is inevitable. She has been part of a group mind, thinking the same thoughts as her peers. But now her mind holds other ideas. Of what whole is she no
w a part? Of what invisible whole? It is surely not without interest to speculate, when feeling isolated, apparently alone, on the other little items or atoms who with her are making up this other whole … this line of thought doesn’t interest you? And yet surely I have been seeing indications that it does, it interests you very much – and in fact perhaps your speculations in this realm are why you are here, visiting me, just as the others have done … you did not know that the others have all been? Odd, that! Once we would all have known, we did all know what the others did, and thought. What is happening to us? We don’t know! That is the point! Are we going to be like the Rohandans, quite happy to use social machinery without being prepared to examine the mechanisms that rule them? Are we quarrelling? Does our disagreement have to be seen as such a threat?’

  ‘We are not hostile to you, Ambien. You must not think that we are. Not to you personally.’

  ‘When have we ever seen our relations with each other as personal? Well, I am delighted to have your personal good wishes, of course.’

  ‘I must go. Can we send you anything? Do you need anything?’

  ‘I am not ill! I am not, as far as I am aware, under arrest? But thank you, no, I don’t need anything, and I have occupation enough with what I am thinking. I think day and night about group minds and how they work. Do you realize that one may present a fact as hard and bright and as precious as allyrium to a group of individuals forming a group mind, one that is already set in a different way, and they cannot see it. Literally. Cannot take it in. Do you understand the implications of that? Do you? Well, thank you for coming to see me. Thank you. Thank you.’