-Poul Anderson, After Doomsday, CHAPTER THREE, p. 28. (Full reference here.)
See The Alien As Threat.
Would anyone think that, because some aliens murdered Earth, no alien was fit to live? Yes, many people would. Our race has to mature before it meets any others.
The title of this post refers only to aliens as perceived threats. In this case, the problem is psychological (in us), not physical (in them).
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't believe at all that ALL human beings will be as mature as we would like them to be if/when we finally meet non-human rational beings from other planets. Nor do I think that will ever happen. About the best we can hope for is that there will be enough sensible around that non-humans like Ramri would be protected as he was in case of need. And I believe Poul Anderson held such views all thru his life.
True, in series like Anderson's Technic stories, most humans had become "acclimatized" enough to the existence of non-humans that they were simply taken for granted as PEOPLE belonging to other races. But we still get an occasional glimpse of exnophobia, such as that passage in "A Message in Secret" when, after Flandry had desecrated the Prophet's Tower with his fantastic "message," many of the more naive/ignorant Altaian rodent herders tried to lynch visiting Betegeusean merchants. The Kha Khan had to send the royal guards to rescue them.
Sean
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