Reflection on God's Children

I seem to have a knack for doing these things at the last possible moment. This time I have a pretty good excuse though; I just had no clue what to blog about--reading Windward however, I came to reconsider a point that was brought up in class and reiterated by Kristen. This is the idea of outside influence as the cause of social turmoil/civil war/revolution/etc. In class I went along with the suggestion that ultimately without Sophia the Runa would have not revolted. While, as I will explore below, this may have been the case on Rakaht I am not sure this is the rule. The outside influence and or superior leader concept is one that is cited rather frequently to explain large shifts in civilizations and societies. I am becoming less convince (especially after thinking about this while reading banks) that these outside influences can ever be considered the cause of societal shakeups (I explain my reasoning with regard to the Runa in a moment), instead, I would argue that while the sudden presence of the other may serve as a catalyst to a specific reaction the actual cause of this reaction was already present in the society. I am not sure that the mere introduction of someone with a different perspective is enough to completely transform a society.

Admiral Perry/ the forced introduction of the west is largely credited with the shakeup of the traditional feudal system in Japan. Suddenly the Japanese realized just how "backwards" they were and felt the need to completely reinvent themselves. If we look more closely, however, the makings of an unstable society were already there--misapportioned wealth, a largely superfluous military class, and an emergent and increasingly powerful merchant class are all things that are also associated with the French Revolution and the slow demise of feudalism in Great Britain. Neither of these societies saw the sudden introduction of an outside force, yet both transformed (one rather quickly and violently) there is nothing to indicate that without Perry presence the Japanese would not have been set on a similar course.

A more extreme example is that of the overthrow of the Aztecs by Cortez. I will go so far as to suggest it was not Cortez's doing, but the internal characteristics of an unstable empire. The Romans, without the assistance of a funny looking god-like ruthless Spaniard managed to fall apart because of some of the same issues that were beginning to plague the Aztecs--Overreaching in conquest, a large number of seditious conquered peoples, and a system of ruler selection which was not designed to pick the best individual for the job (sound like any empires you can think of now). I again argue that if Cortez/Columbus/stupid spanish had not appeared the Aztec Empire may have fallen apart (either quickly or slowly) of it's own volition.

I realized that over the course of simply writing this post I have once again switched positions on my view of the Runa revolt I once again do not believe that it would have been possible without the Jesuit presence, but I believe this is because the situation was designed to mimic the ideal--the outside influence concept was taken to the extreme in this circumstance. The civilization created by Russel was so perfect for the scenario that it could have played out no other way. The VaRakaht civilization was so perfectly constructed as a ecologically feudal society that there seems to be no way of destroying it internally. It reminds me of the mistake so often made in assuming that the actions of Humans are "not natural" we assume we are somehow capable of destroying the balance of the planet because of our Moral ability to folly or something of the sort. In the same way she seems to suggest the runa and Janata are inhuman---truly other--in that they do not share this quality. Only humans were able to step in an disrupt this balance previously the society was perfect (exactly opposite of what things should really be or even how Banks portrays the Chel civil war). Not only that, but the society was also perfectly set up to be formerly balanced yet completely susceptible to outside influence. The social mimicry of the Runa makes the whole thing spread like wildfire. Yet in most earthly examples of the outside influence the civilization is already messed up enough that the slightest little disturbance from the other is enough to bring it down. THIS IS NOT THE CASE ON RAKAHT. THE SOCIETY GOES FROM PERFECTLY STABLE TO COMPLETELY INSTABLE IN JUST A FEW YEARS.