"To his Excellency Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen, in appreciation of his gallant efforts, from a member of United Humanity."
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT XII, p. 170.
Eric remembers that United Humanity are:
"A mildly racist association, naturally jingoistic about Babur." (ibid.)
In my experience, racist associations are not mild but Eric will not have had any contact with them. Nor is he about to. The note from a supposed United Humanity member is a cover for a letter from his father, Nicholas van Rijn.
Racist associations proliferate in alternative fictional futures. Robert Heinlein's The Star Beast has both the Keep Earth Human League and The Society for the Preservation of the Status Quo. (Chapter XII, p. 128)
Fiction reflects life.
Decades ago, I knew a church-going Irish medical student who disliked black people and said, "Keep Ireland white!" I hope that he either learned better or failed his exams. (A racist doctor!)
The current situation on Earth is volatile, as we know. How will we respond to aliens?
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We see non-human racists as well, such as the Demonists on Merseia in "Day of Burning." These Demonists might have been among the sources leading to the racial supremacism of the Roidhunate centuries later, after Merseia was unified.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Humans are inherently tribal.
BTW, "race" as it is conceived now doesn't actually exist in any objective sense -- it's a -social- fact, not a biological one.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that inherently tribalist nature of human beings is why the advocates of unlimited "immigration" are rightly facing so much opposition.
What I meant by "race" was that species like mankind and non-human species are also objective facts. Biological forms of life which cannot interbreed with other species.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean,
Tribalist opposition to immigrants is wrong.
Many people flee persecution, war and environmental degradation and want to come here to work.
It is not in fact unlimited immigration or anything like it that governments permit. In fact, they strive to demonstrate that they are as inhospitable and uncompassionate as their tribalist critics demand.
Paul.
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