Aiien Racism... Why It Would Exist In A Scifi Setting

[Tamri]

Not quite yet. Racism requires one other element, which I neglected to mention earlier.

You forgot, but I wrote about it a page or two ago. I clarify that in the modern interpretation, racism is precisely the offensive or humiliating relationship between people on the basis of race. In itself, unequal treatment is not considered racism, i.e. if you just think all blacks are stupid, but this does not affect your social relations in any way - these are your personal beliefs, not racism.

Of course, now (once again, oh) some are trying to equate these two concepts, but I can't call it a smart idea.

And yes, I also think it's stupid to use Loroi as an example. They are practically a race of humans, at least in terms of psychophysical reactions. The mere fact that Alex (and the reader) is able, without special training, to read their body language, understand thinking and correctly interpret reactions is already a very peculiar signal, and our physiological similarity even did makes this issue out of the question for discussion.

It's just that Liron, creating Loroi, took a modern human from somewhere and completely copied the behavioral basis, and even psychophysiology was almost completely transferred, along the way making a few cosmetic edits.

[Werra]

That's exactly the problem, we are wired to assign people into groups and label them on a subconscious level. Therefore, it is an inherently subjective process that will always be unequal, unless we can get rid of our feelings altogether. Aliens will have other instincts in this regard, or even a lack thereof, it depends on how their society and emotions work.
If they were to try and adopt a foreign concept that they lack the cultural or instinctual background for, it will be a facsimile. Perhaps it could turn out better, less subjective, and thus less racist. Or the opposite.

Let's apply your logic to a hypothetical scenario. A business on earth is applying a discriminatory, race based hiring practice. If it is run by humans, that's racist. If it is run by aliens, it is not racism because those aliens don't have quite the same chemicals swirling in their brains? You are trying to apply a degree of relativism that would cripple you if you weren't a hypocrite.

Racism is not only the mere fact of unequal treatment, it requires said difference to lack an objective reason for it.

We are on the internet. Why would you make such an easily refutable claim? Google it.
Then read this.

SpoilerShow

A belief is in itself neither objective or subjective as one can believe both falsehoods and objective facts.

[Cthulhu]

Let's apply your logic to a hypothetical scenario. A business on earth is applying a discriminatory, race based hiring practice. If it is run by humans, that's racist. If it is run by aliens, it is not racism because those aliens don't have quite the same chemicals swirling in their brains? You are trying to apply a degree of relativism that would cripple you if you weren't a hypocrite.

You seem to love arguing purely for the argument's sake, and then resort to name-calling if this leads you to a dead end.

Let me try it once again. For us humans, racism, or any other group biases, are an integral part of our being, even if we wish for that "ugly" side to disappear. It's simply based upon, and also rooted in our psyche. In order to get rid of that would require us to make every decision that judges someone else to be based upon nothing but emotionless logic (to the best of one's abilities and knowledge). Our current brains are just not capable of such complexity, and we will automatically relegate those everyday tasks to an instinctual routine that works with predetermined biases. Long story short, the current humans cannot not be biased or even being fully aware of it happening.

Contrary to us, Aliens may not have those mechanisms in place by the sole virtue of a vastly different evolution path. They could have something else, or perhaps nothing at all. If they were to adopt this specific concept, however, it won't be the same because they would need to simulate it with conscious effort every time they'd wish to apply it. A racism "facsimile", diluted with reason and applied consciously, is not quite racism any longer. There were cases of us humans deliberately altering old biases or constructing new ones, but they joined the "naturally evolved" prejudices quickly enough. In the end, the artificial ones became indistinguishable from the instinctive ones and worked by the same principles to the same effects. This alien construct, on the other hand, would be a completely different phenomenon, even if the perceived result could be similar.

[Werra]

@Cthulhu
Racism is unequal treatment based on race. That treatment can either be holding opinions about different races, feeling negatively about one race or actually taking different actions based on race. The cause of this treatment or whether it is justified or not is not part of the definition. Thus who or what commits a racist act is irrelevant, thus your argumentation is build on an invalid premise. Relativism can only get you so far.

[Cthulhu]

Not every unequal treatment is actually racism, you see. There are many definitions, a number of them even politically loaded, but they do have something in common. The key is that the reason for the difference must be neither logical nor objective. Even between humans, who are the same species, there might be small variations that could warrant a difference in treatment. For example, medications may vary in (side)effects depending on race, but a doctor that adheres to scientific data and prescribes another one instead is not racist.
The problem is that we are wired in such a way that we cannot be 100% objective all the time, even if we wished and tried to be. This leads to a very specific phenomenon of racism, or other in-group biases. In the end, all that creates a paradox of even the best-meaning attempts to accommodate for (seemingly) objective differences to be tingled with biases. (By the way, a proper definition also needs to define a threshold for this very reason, like in good faith, for example.) Those biases would extend to any different group, including aliens.

Aliens, however, may not suffer from those particular limitations. Of course, both sides would actually have clearly distinguishable differences that should require significant efforts to accommodate for. The crux of the matter is that the aliens may be able to treat those differences more objectively, thus eliminating racism on their side, at least. They may also substitute this mechanism for a completely, well, alien one. Since we are discussing sci-fi, such a logical conclusion can enable the author to have far more creative freedom in his design of an alien race and its culture. Understanding this is what separates generic "rubber-forehead aliens of the week"-level of writing from true masterpieces like Solaris.

[Werra]

Not every unequal treatment is actually racism, you see. There are many definitions, a number of them even politically loaded, but they do have something in common. The key is that the reason for the difference must be neither logical nor objective.

Please familiarise yourself with the words you are using. Try the Encyclopedia Britannica or Merriam-Webster, for example. Racism as a concept does not have to be based on illogical or subjective reasons.

[Cthulhu]

Please familiarise yourself with the words you are using. Try the Encyclopedia Britannica or Merriam-Webster, for example. Racism as a concept does not have to be based on illogical or subjective reasons.

I know them, of course, even though my favorite is this one:

The term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

We are also getting to the core of our misunderstanding here. Those definitions describe the effects of a particular group bias, but we need to analyze its underlying causes in order to understand the whole phenomenon. Wikipedia has a rather good, easily understandable explanation of its roots:

Some may wonder why in-group favoritism takes place, even in arbitrarily assigned groups where group members have nothing in common other than the group to which they were assigned. Research points to unconscious decision making processes that takes place at the neurological level, where in-group favoritism and out-group bias occurs very early in perception.

As I said before, aliens may not have those patterns in place, and would not apply biases at all, or in different configurations. Therefore, after a contact, we would have to redefine "racism". The aliens, though, may need to understand this wholly foreign concept first, or could even fail at that altogether.

[Werra]

A UN resolution on racial discrimination is not a definition of racism. Try a dictionary or two or three
Really, that you have to draw on the UN instead of treating it like any other foreign word should give you pause.

And then you use wikipedia to claim that because human decision making is partially unconscious, alien behaviour can't fit the human definition of racism. That would apply to all alien emotions, believes and actions then. Which you don't believe yourself. Because in your fan story you have taken for granted that the terms for human emotions apply to aliens too. Not that I have read it. Your position is just that comically inconsistent.

[Bamax]

No need to sound harsh.

A debate over words is much ado about nothing.

When you, I, and him are gone, will ANYONE care who won a debate over the mere definition of a word?

[Jagged]

I found this little snippet from the BBC interesting: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/the- ... university

Some sound bites:

• Race as a concept is relatively new (17th century) and only started when we started travelling long distances and felt the need to explain the differences in appearence on different continents.
• Sadly the "scientific" descriptions were bigoted from the start
• Genetically humans are the most homgonous of the primates. Meaning we have less genetic difference between one another compared to the apes
• If you went out on the street and found someone (not related to you) that looked like you and someone from a different race, then did a DNA analysis. There is basically an even chance that the person from the other race would have the greater similarity.

What does this mean for this conversation? If the aliens are wired the same way as humans. They probably have some them/us bigotry but whether or not that applies to a concept of "race" is entirely a cultural thing and probably a matter of chance.

[Cthulhu]

That's what I tried to explain, actually. Racism is only a single expression of a complex mechanism of biases. The dictionary definition of this term is only useful if applied to inter-human relationships. In order to understand the bigger picture, however, something that is necessary if we switch to a situation where there are multiple species involved, we'd need to analyze the roots of this mechanism. Perhaps we'd even need to redefine "racism", or add a new category, "specism". It is also of no particular use in trying to describe how the aliens think of themselves, or how they may perceive us, since they should have different instincts and traditions.

We were also talking about sci-fi, where the author's intention is a major component of world-building. The writer could use the literary "vehicle" of an alien species to explore various points about human "-isms", have the outsiders analyze this concept from a completely different point of view, etc. Since they are not necessarily wired the same way that we are, it should allow for a more creative approach to storytelling. The aliens could compare their own biases to ours, try to understand the evolutionary mechanisms behind it, or even be utterly puzzled about this strange phenomenon. That's a distinction that separates classics from common literature, they do not merely entertain, but invite us to think in new ways and introduce novel points of view.

Sadly, Werra stubbornly refused to understand this part or to listen to my arguments and chose to defend the usage of the narrower, dictionary definition to the death (of this thread). So let us bury it and move on.

[Tamri]

What I suggested else ... page back.

If neither side wants to change its beliefs or does not want to participate in the discussion, the discussion is meaningless.

[Werra]

Okay. Let's say aliens can't be racist because they do not have human instincts. But love, happiness, friendship, hunger and every other human emotion is also based on instincts. Please explain to me why this argument is only brought up with something you don't like to think about?

SpoilerShow

You don't appear smart by deconstructing everything that doesn't fit your moral sensibilities. You only drew on the UN because you didn't find a dictionary that helped you.

@Jagged
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12879450/

Like, genetic testing is a thing that is used every single day with an extreme degree of precision. It doesn't prove racism, or rather the evaluation of people, right or wrong. Merely that people can easily be separated into genetic categories.

[Cthulhu]

Okay. Let's say aliens can't be racist because they do not have human instincts. But love, happiness, friendship, hunger and every other human emotion is also based on instincts. Please explain to me why this argument is only brought up with something you don't like to think about?

SpoilerShow

You don't appear smart by deconstructing everything that doesn't fit your moral sensibilities. You only drew on the UN because you didn't find a dictionary that helped you.

Thanks for evaluating me so highly, I'm quite flattered. Anyway, racism was the thread's topic and that's the reason I analyzed and deconstructed it in order to get to its core. There are also enough dictionaries I could look up (not that I needed to), but I used the scientific definition of group biases in general, not the narrower explanation of a single one.

I'm not saying that fictional aliens can or cannot be racist, or have any other "human" instincts, emotions and concepts, or things comparable to them. You were just so triggered by "racism" that you blended out any other arguments I tried to bring up. I could even say that your replies were biased.
What I'm trying to say is that the aliens are obviously not the same as us, and therefore could have any combination of traits that the author wants them to have. There is no logical need to include racism, or other in-group biases, for example. Those have cultural, as well as biological, foundations that are native to our species. For aliens, however, it would be prudent to construct new ones and root them in internally consistent systems.

Anyway, I'm done, there are more productive things for me to do. Anything is.

[Werra]

Anyway, racism was the thread's topic and that's the reason I analyzed and deconstructed it in order to get to its core. [...]I used the scientific definition of group biases in general, not the narrower explanation of a single one.

1. This thread is about why racism would exist in scifi, not on racism itself. 2. You didn't deconstruct anything. You just said that human actions are dependent on human thought processes and thus aliens can't be racist. Which is either making it impossible to talk about aliens or is selectively applied...or meaningless.
And a specific definition beats a general one when discussing that specific subject.

What I'm trying to say is that the aliens are obviously not the same as us, and therefore could have any combination of traits that the author wants them to have.

What a meaningless sentence. False too, as aliens need to fulfill certain criteria to come into contact with humanity (on their own power), which also let them meet the criteria for all kinds of behaviours. If your people can build a starship, they can learn the difference between the Japanese and the Canadians.

Those have cultural, as well as biological, foundations that are native to our species. For aliens, however, it would be prudent to construct new ones and root them in internally consistent systems.

Our words for behaviour types are archetypal and already apply independently from culture or instincts. Everybody else uses them so. It's been amusing watching you argue against something self evident. You must be a very diligent student in your social sciences course.

[Tamri]

Okay, dove, you won. Stop bringing up the topic.

[Demarquis]

I think the overall point that most of us can agree to is that while it is entirely possible for aliens to be racist, they needn't be, and depending on their psychology, the term might be meaningless when applied to them (or not, depending on their psychology).

[Dan Wyatt]

KILL AND PURGE THE XENOS!!!!
FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!