Re: Was C. S. Lewis the first to say that colonising other planets would be immoral if they had native inhabitants?

Newsgroups	rec.arts.sf.written
From	djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
Subject	Re: Was C. S. Lewis the first to say that colonising other planets would be immoral if they had native inhabitants?
Message-ID	<oEJs4A.3o9@kithrup.com> (permalink)
Date	2016-10-05 00:02 +0000
References	<b1026922-f52d-4c06-8c6c-1d698ed11c71@googlegroups.com> <nsvquc$jm9$1@dont-email.me> <8jm7vb53f3mibk3m4gnh61d57k5771lmhc@reader80.eternal-september.org> <52b5ad0c-72a9-480d-af28-1731bd5f044e@googlegroups.com>
Organization	Kithrup Enterprises, Ld.

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In article <52b5ad0c-72a9-480d-af28-1731bd5f044e@googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie  <rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, 4 October 2016 17:38:20 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans  wrote:
>> On Tue, 4 Oct 2016 02:58:17 -0600, David Johnston
>> <Davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >On 10/3/2016 10:45 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> >> On Tue, 4 Oct 2016 00:49:56 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> In article <nsujeo$ksm$1@dont-email.me>,
>> >>> David Johnston  <Davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >>>> On 10/3/2016 12:41 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> >>>>> On Monday, 3 October 2016 14:30:03 UTC+1, Dorothy J Heydt  wrote:
>> >>>>>> In article <b1026922-f52d-4c06-8c6c-1d698ed11c71@googlegroups.com>,
>> >>>>>> Madawc Williams  <madawcnow@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>>>>> He says this in "Out of the Silent Planet", published 1938. Two human
>> >>>>>>> visitors to Mars seem to intend something like the European
>colonisation
>> >>>>>>> of the rest of the world. The third, whom we are obviously supposed to
>> >>>>>>> agree with, condemns it.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> Well, the first example of *that* idea that I know of is Wells's
>> >>>>>> _The War of the Worlds._  Wells was an avowed Socialist and
>> >>>>>> _TWotW_ was a way of saying, "Hey, Britain, how would you feel if
>> >>>>>> it happened to *you*?"
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Hmm.  Wells also favoured eugenics: I'm not sure if
>> >>>>> his Martians are represented as immoral, even though they
>> >>>>> come - in a desperate struggle to survive the death of
>> >>>>> their planet's ecology - as conquerors rather than guests.
>> >>>>> And treat the impromptu human ambassadors /very/ badly.
>> >>>>> But they have their own morality and they're more advanced
>> >>>>> than us.  In the comics I think they drink our blood although
>> >>>>> I think I didn't find that in the book.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> They inject human blood into themselves in the book although that may
>> >>>> have been an attempt to acquire immunity to Earth diseases rather than a
>> >>>> habitual diet.
>> >>>
>> >>> Well, if that was it, it didn't work.
>> >>
>> >> There is no evidence in the text that they knew microorganisms
>> >> existed; the narrator is pretty clear in Part Two, Chapter Two that
>the Martians
>> >> are injecting blood as food.  (They have no digestive tract, and
>> >> obtain sustenance entirely by injection.)
>> >
>> >I've no idea how the narrator would know that.
>> 
>> From observation, and analysis after the eventual human victory.  The
>> story is told as "here's what happened to me during the war," and
>> includes flashforwards and "I didn't know it at the time, but..."
>> explanations.
>
>I think he says at the start (which you can forget
>while reading) that it's all over and there is a
>Martian corpse on display in the British Museum.
>And we aren't going to give it back.  We never do.

Well, if there are no live Martians left on Earth, and what with
Mars's hability declining (or did Wells ever say that?), there
may be no live Martians left on Mars either.  So who would we
give it back to?

-- 
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

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