h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Am I a patriot? I love my country, and I love ALL its people, and also all the critters and plants we have here. But I do not consider myself a patriot. I love people of other countries also. I see all us people as a 'human family'. I know my prehistory and all of us originally came from Africa. But I include in my 'family' the animals and plants as well, since really we are all related ... we are all part of the life of this planet, and nothing like it exists in the Universe. I am sure there is life elsewhere, but it would be independent life, evolved from scratch in a very different place ... it would be likely VERY different from anything we know.

But that life, alien as it might be, would still also be part of our kin, still part of the phenomenon of 'life in the Universe' which is part and parcel of the Universe itself, its laws, and the Universe too is a Unity! So ... I would not necessarily root for the Earthlings against the Aliens! But I think any aliens that are able to come to us will already be evolved beyond the point of narrow patriotism ... I think they will appreciate us and not want to exterminate us.

If we went to an alien planet ... would we want to exterminate the life we found there and replace it with ourselves and other kinds of 'Earthly' life?

We would be extremely stupid if we did that! If we found life elsewhere ... it would be the greatest treasure we ever did find, it would be worth more than anything else we could conceive ... precisely because it would go BEYOND anything we could conceive! The actuality of extraterrestrial life PROMISES to include stuff we never thought of, that we never could even imagine. There would be body forms ... ways of life ... physiological processes ... internal chemistry ... anatomical structures ... ecological interrelationships ... that will surely be very, very different from anything that exists here ... that seem impossible. Because if you look at life on Earth there are (and were) so many things that are so weird, if they didn't exist nobody would have been able to invent them. So the same would be true of life elsewhere!

So ... if we are smart and think of what our biological sciences could learn from studying alien species ... undisturbed, in their natural environment ... exterminating them would be unthinkable.

But beyond that ... we would learn SO MUCH about the potential of life. Every kind of planet on which we find life would show is just what is possible, in a different way ... and there would always be yet other possibilities.

And if we find life that is intelligent enough to produce technological civilisations ... what might we learn from THEM? They will have perhaps a science quite different from ours ... they will have had a completely different history of scientific discoveries. They might have discovered many things we hadn't. They might interpret the laws of physics differently from us.

And what about alien culture? Will they have art? Music? Theatre? TV and movies? What will alien fashions look like? Their vehicles? Their furniture? What will their economic system be like? Imagine it is something way, way different from anything we have ever tried here (and I'm sure it will be) ... and it WORKS. It will sure blow open our ideas about economics! And ... for extra controversy ... how about alien religion? Which of our ideas ... whether of ANY existing religion, or of atheism ... would be able to survive the discovery of a highly evolved alien society with a complex and working civilisation but with VERY, VERY different religious beliefs and ideas from ours?

So anyways there's a lot more I might say about alien life, whether intelligent or not ... but the point I want to make is that we should expand our ideas beyond our own little spheres because we are all part of something much bigger. Let's return to Earth. We should value the different forms of life that ARE HERE for the same reasons I mentioned above. Every kind of life is a different solution to the puzzle of existence on this Planet. We can learn from every one. Every species has a unique lifestyle, fits in its environment and has relationships with other creatures in an unique way ... every creature has a unique combination of working genes, has a unique anatomy, physiology, biochemistry ... all of which we can learn from. But more ... every species is a little piece of the totality of life, giving us a glimpse of the possibilities.

And humans! Every human culture is also a piece of this totality, a way of successfully existing, full of ideas, concepts, 'systems'. I want an Earth with a variety of cultures as rich as possible, as feasible. Not all cultural 'ideas' are good ... but every culture is evolving and I think can grow and become better while staying true to itself.

So ... I love being South African, and being an Afrikaner ... but I'll never put myself or my 'people' over any other. This has been a terrible mistake here, and is a terrible mistake wherever it is made. Patriotism can be said to be a part of the Afrikaans culture, because we've been fed on patriotic propaganda for so long it's a part of the blood of many of us. Along with patriotic feelings for 'our people' there go so many bad things. First of all, our sense of history is skewed. It's wrong to see, or teach, history as being 'centred' around a people, as if this people has a special place in the history of all peoples (and all living things) on Earth. Let us teach 'our' history while acknowledging that 'we' are just a small part of all history.

But with patriotism often history is taught not merely centred on a particular people ... it is even falsified! Actual wrongs committed by 'my' people are not mentioned, or even denied! While the wrongs of other peoples, especially peoples who have historically come in conflict with 'my people', are exaggerated.

This is dishonest, and dishonest in a very dangerous way.

Teaching history where 'my people' are pure and noble, other peoples are inferior ... not really 'people' as we think of the word ... when there's any conflict, then 'they', not 'us', are in the wrong. Patriotism leads to seeing other people, other *peoples*, as enemies. This leads to injustice, sometimes terrible injustice. So 'my people' can then be in the wrong because of being unable to see themselves as ever being in the wrong ... a terrible thing, and even more terrible since I *want* my people to be noble and virtuous! But I want other peoples to be the same! We should all do our best to do what's right regarding ourselves and towards each other.