The civilized have a duty to guide, educate and develop the primitive. Science and technology can eliminate handicaps and horrors of preindustrial societies. Every new member planet of the League increases its strength and prosperity.
However:
"...imagine atomic bombs in the possession of Stone Age savages!" (p. 6)
This happens in Poul Anderson's Technic History.
"...imagine natives becoming dependent on the products of an industry which they are unable to operate themselves." (ibid.)
There is an early Anderson short story about this. Title anyone?
"Finally, by far the most important, is the right of every people to freely choose their own destiny." (ibid.)
Asimov's robotic Brains controlling society for the good of humanity judge that self-determination is the highest human good and therefore phase themselves out so that the sequel begins without them.
"...to freely choose...," like the more famous "...to boldly go...," is a split infinitive. Grammarians modelling English grammar on Latin where an infinitive cannot be split because it is a single word devised an unnecessary "rule" that infinitives should not be split in English.
Local lords welcome a League base because it will bring trade goods which, for the League, are a means to the end of civilized ideas and ideals. In the Polesotechnic League, profits are the end whereas ideas and ideals are a byproduct.
Poul Anderson covers every possibility.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Well, the Gorzuni, Scothanians, and other barbarians who obtained advanced technology and nuclear weapons too soon in their history were not exactly Stone Age savages. They had, after all, learned agriculture, metal working, basic literacy, etc., before Technic civilization contacted them. And I question how soon or easily a race at a literal level of Stone Age technology could learn how to use advanced technology in any but the most superficial ways in a short time.
As for the second point, about the danger posed to a race becoming dependent in bad days on a technology they are unable to operate themselves, the example from Anderson's early stories I thought of was "The Helping Hand."
Some merchant princes of the Polesotechnic League, such as Nicholas van Rijn, did understand that for a less advanced planet to begin trading with a more technologically advanced society meant that the ideas and ideals of the latter would necessarily affect the former. As we see in stories like "Territory" and THE MAN WHO COUNTS.
Sean
Sean,
I think some PL merchants unscrupulously industrialized literal barbarians, then gave them spaceships and atomic weapons, in return for being able to mine and plunder their planets without being hassled by natives.
"The Helping Hand" sounds right.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That was a real danger or possibility, as "A Little Knowledge" shows. Even better, get the natives to willingly help such unscrupulous persons.
The basic point of "The Helping Hand" is that sometimes very bad results can happen from being "helped" by another, very different culture.
Sean
Weapons technology spreads very fast, but not necessarily the social organization necessary to use it effectively.
For example, Indians started using firearms about the same time that Europeans did, and until the 1850's, theirs were about as good as those Europeans made, but European and European-organized armies (specifically, British ones) repeatedly beat the stuffing out of Indian forces many times their size, because they had ways of using the same weapons that were very difficult for Indian rulers and their armies to match.
Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler of the Punjab, did manage to train a force to roughly European standards, using mercenary officers to command and train, and it gave the Company Bahadur a hard fight in the Sikh Wars.
But if you examine those in detail, the European-style army was incompatible with an Indian-style patrimonial despotism; the Punjab state couldn't pay, or control, the regiments it raised -- in fact, there's some evidence the Sikh government deliberately "threw" the war with the British so that the Company would destroy their own uncontrollable and unaffordable army.
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