"The Book of Haaretz" - a sociological analysis

A point of view on the book "Spa Ha'aretz" by Paul Anderson

General

This work describes a meeting between humans and intelligent flying creatures, on a planet named "Yethari". This name is in the language of the most advanced culture on the planet (p. 24). Yatri was primitive when she was discovered. Its inhabitants "studied the technocratic culture, but did not lick its shoes and did not let it dominate them, but took from it what they wanted and made themselves a power in this corner of the galaxy" (p. 316). Later, the humans and the Hytherians together established a colony on a planet called Avalon" (p. 33,340, 355). Although they could eat many types of food in common "but the food of each race lacked known substances necessary for the members of the other race... The need to maintain two different ecological systems was the main reason for the separation between their living areas" (p. XNUMX).

 

Yetherians:

body structure

The height of a Haytriani is 150 cm, his weight is 25-30 kg, he is able to lift a similar weight in the air without a load and his wingspan during flight is 6 meters (p. 16,25,31,315). The evolution of eutherians into flying animals continued over geological ages where a pair of legs became hands and "a biological turbine system that developed from the whims of an amphibious ancestor" (pp. 25,31,315, XNUMX, XNUMX).

 

Hytherian resembles a bird, wears almost golden feathers and is warm-blooded (p. 32). The head resting on a strong neck protrudes back and has "more than enough room for an excellent brain", covered by a crown, the head is flattened with a snout without external ears. instead of a source "a sharp muzzle full of sharp fangs with nostrils at the end and the bottom of them a mouth, whose delicate lips stood in strange contrast to the sharp fangs". The tongue and palate are purple in color. Since their lips can suck both meat and fruit "their lips are not completely protected from the pronunciation of a human being". "Haitreani's voice has a nice and pleasant sound" but its flexibility is less than that of a human" The eyes of a Heitreani are above the muzzle, large and golden and at their ends are a crown of white and black feathers that are used "as an aerodynamic aid and protection - for the skull that protrudes backwards at the same time". Laithriani has a wide field of vision and a transparent third eyelid, probably to protect against the wind (pp. 16,32,315-316,342,343).

 

"The front part of the wing skeleton contains the humerus, the radius and the humerus, similar to real birds. In flight they lock together, but on the ground, when the wing is folded down, they form a knee-like joint. From their base emerge bones that make up the foot and at the end of nails. Three fingers close to each other, incredibly long, lean back and form a wing bone that supports the rear of the huge wing and can also provide additional cargo on the ground. To take off, a Hytherian operation is usually a handstand during the first wing beat. This lasted less than one second" (p. 25). Hytherian consumes more food and oxygen during flight than a human" (p. 343). For the oxygen supply, a Hytherian uses lungs that are similar to human lungs and in the biological turbine system, which is operated "as a bellows by the muscles of flight and communicates directly with the blood stream, it is this system that gives the Hytherians, the ability to burn fuel as quickly as necessary" (p. 25). This system is made up of six gill-like openings, three on each side of the body and serve as bellows and are driven by the muscles of the body (p. 31). "A Yathrian who cannot fly soon becomes sickly" (p. 41). They are not able to swim (p. 346).

 

Two legs the length and thickness of a human arm, as mentioned, became unique arms, each arm has three clawed fingers and two thumbs on either side. The skin that covers them is amber in color (p. 20,32,316). The tail resembles a black white fan (p. 16,316).

 

Hytherians are creatures of seasonal estrus (p. 37). The female gives birth to live children, although she does not nurse them (p. 32). The color of the feathers can indicate the age of the individual (p. 349). At the time of injury, feathers are plucked from their foreheads and used to stop the bleeding (p. 40).

 

תקשורת

"The Hytherian plumage, which is capable of infinitely changing appearance, can change ripples of expression over the entire body, signals to symbols that many times have more meaning than the power of words to express." At least at the beginning of the relationship between them and the humans, the humans felt themselves as deaf mutes (p. 319,330,341). Since the flexibility of their voice is less than that of humans, in their relationships with humans they have to use a sound device to make their sounds more understandable to the humans (p. 314).

 

behavior patterns

"Fundamentally, they are territorialists... the reason lies in their development... Hytherian is one of the meat eaters, although he will not withdraw his hand from various sweet fruits. Each prey needs a larger area than a herbivore or an omnivore, despite the fact that meat contains more calories per kilogram than most plant foods" (pp. 24,31, 5,25). "Their creations of territoriality and individuality as well as their results in the form of government, in norms in art and in the soul - arise from the starvation of their bodies" (p. 31, XNUMX). "They live in small groups - single families or extended households - that attack to kill any uninvited stranger who does not obey the instructions to leave" (p. XNUMX).

 

Being flying, they never had to gather in cities to maintain continuous contact... They have a few cities, centers of mines or industry, but their inhabitants are usually slaves with clipped wings" (p. 31). In the homes of Hytherians, there are large spaces and high ceilings (p. 18).

 

Being "pure meat eaters, hunters by birth, perhaps this was the reason that allowed them to allow, more than that, to encourage their young to embark on adventures bordering on promiscuity and to calmly accept the fact that the unfit and unlucky will not return alive (p. 341) and being members of a race whose ancestors lived As eagles their willingness to accept emergency situations "more easily than humans" (p. 312).

 

Due to being creatures of seasonal estrus, "they are not subject to the influence of the sexual urge as humans... the most courageous relationship between a male and a female is their offspring and in them the purpose of all life" (p. 37).

 

One of their artistic forms of expression is air dances (pp. 32,42,312, 327, 312). One of their dances originates from "Vina - a kind of scarf used by some hunters to disguise themselves, so that they look like floating mists to the eyes of their prey on the ground" (p. 315). A wide field of vision is a condition for sanity (p. XNUMX). The pride of hunting is inherent in them from birth (p. XNUMX).

religion

"Some are pious, others less so, others agnostic or atheist. For years they were pagans and practiced the bloody worship of the so-called ancient faith...the new faith...was monotheistic, with rituals and theology, but not as an official teacher, who held high ethical and moral standards...this is a faith with a long tradition...and not static but liberating..."( pp. 32-33). "The new faith... has no convincing explanation for the problem of evil; She says that God allows malice so that we can gain respect by fighting for good" (p. 45). God is perceived by them as a hunter (p. 45). One of the religious forms of expression is an aerial dance (p. 32). The dead are thrown from a great height into Shimon because they do not want to see their beloved flesh rotting (p. 44). They do not believe in life after death because it is impossible "and for what". "According to them, he who has pride will never rob God of honor" (p. 42).

 

expressions

Expressions accepted by Hytherians are "the pride of death" (p. 37), "to give God glory" (p. 37), "from the heights of time" (p. 244), "in the name of the thunder" (p. 342), addressing the individual in the title " The son of the spirits" (p. 357) is considered to have a gentle and dignified face. In their writings, which they composed after establishing contact with humans, it is told about one of them who was looking for archival material about the Earth "even the fragmentary original material, which he has too much to make direct use of, he must ride among the blowing winds, choose first one and then another and hope that in this way he will discover the direction of the main wind stream" (p. 47). About the semi-technical culture that dominated the spaces, they said that "for an infinitely long time it was a wing and a claw to the technocratic culture that humans gave birth to...which is why the ordinary human being, until our time, holds only the edges of reality in his claws" (p. 62).

 

The meeting with the people

When they were first discovered, the most advanced culture of the Hytherians was "at the level of technology of the Iron Age, without the industrial revolution, but a lot of sophisticated minds in an environment with complicated philosophies... When they soon realized what the consequences of the visit of the Earthlings were... they attracted merchants and teachers to them, accumulated funds and sent the most promising of their youth to study On other planets, they acquired several ships and staffed them with local crews" (p. 31). With the help of the latest mechanization, they reduced the employment of the clipped-wing slaves (p. 31).

 

In their contacts with humans, they forgot that their eyes are not as sharp as theirs (p. 349). According to people who met with them in the first meetings, "You cannot expect from a race that cannot exist, except by killing animals and that has an estrous cycle and by virtue of instinct, is unable to maintain what we know as a nation or a government... You cannot expect them to be very similar to Christians" (p. 33).

 

By building spaceships for themselves, they built inside them wide halls where they float when they are not on duty (p. 312). Leithrians are very interested in "intelligent winged creatures that are so rare in the galaxy" (p. 126).

 

Conclusions

The development of hyetrians into flying animals was evolutionary. Since their ways of thinking and behavior patterns, in part, are different from human thinking and behavior patterns, it can be assumed (although it is difficult to prove this) that their behavior resembled human behavior when they were walking creatures. In any case, it can be seen that the body structure had an effect on the social behavior of the Hytherians. This effect works on several levels.

 

individual level - Being hyetarians are flying animals they need a lot of food. The most essential food for them are walking animals and this is because of the high caloric value of the meat of these animals. To maintain the availability of these animals, Hytherians must also be mobile. Their flying skills increase their mobility by several orders of magnitude compared to the mobility of other animals. Their basic unit of living is not a unit of area but a unit of volume (multiplying the area by the mobility of moving animals in the flight of Hytherians). Their spatial activity led to the development of a territorialist perception and the evidence for this is their residential buildings, which are built with large spaces and high ceilings and when they became familiar with the technocratic culture and learned to build spaceships for themselves, they installed wide halls in their spaceships for hovering during off-duty hours.

 

The exceptions of this society mentioned in this work are biological exceptions, those who have been damaged in their bodies or in their vision or in their wings. Those who lose their spatial vision are considered mentally insane and those whose wings are damaged are considered inferior and are employed in arduous jobs in the cities, in the mining centers and in industry. The winged are employed as slaves, although it should be noted that the institution of slavery was gradually eliminated with the adoption of technocratic technology. However, it is difficult to know to what extent the attitude towards this group has changed.

 

family level - Since Hytherians are seasonal estrus animals, it is clear that the female's desire to conceive depends only on the estrus season. She cannot conceive whenever she wants and therefore ""they are not subject to the influence of the sexual urge like humans". Since the intensity of sexual relations between couples is less than in humans, the emotional connection is copied to the offspring, in whom they see the "purpose of all life". An obvious conclusion is that with the large number of offspring, being independent and losing the fertility of the females, the family unit will disintegrate and therefore the life span of the Hytherian family unit is shorter than the life span of the human family unit. Hytherian society in its basic cellular structure has a greater potential for instability than human society. The fact that Hytherians are hunters at their core increases the potential for instability. In their hunting nature, they "encourage their young people to go on adventures bordering on promiscuity and calmly accept the fact that the unfit and the unlucky will not return home" - the more the family sends its sons on adventures, the smaller the chances that they will return and due to the reduction of the female's reproductive years, the smaller the chances of her having children New offspring and the life span of the family unit is shortened. It is even possible that some kind of biological mechanism is at work here that prevents the explosion of the Hytherian population. If there are too many yetherians in a unit of time, most of the walking animal population will be eaten. The food will become extinct, which will result in the disappearance of the Hytherian race. If this assumption is correct, then the unstable social structure at its basic level, i.e. the family unit, is the next mechanism to maintain the lifespan of the race.

 

Group level - Since Christians have a tritualistic perception and under these conditions it is impossible and actually difficult to control large spaces, as individuals they live in the framework of "small groups - single families or extended households".

 

The colonial buildings - "Being able to fly, they never had to gather in cities to maintain continuous contact." Most of the accepted settlements are in the format of "small groups - single families or extended households". Living in the framework of small groups with individual affinity.

 

culture - Leithrians have a fairly developed culture. Different religious concepts are common among them and they have complicated philosophies. Their culture was greatly influenced in part by their body structure. God is perceived by them as a hunter, their dances are aerial dances and the common expressions in their mouths are built on concepts that explain their physical environment. For example, they watch various events "from the heights of time".

 

The meeting with the people - At the time of their convergence with human culture, the Leithrians had a culture unique to them. They adopted from human culture those items that suited their needs without being enslaved to it. Leithrians have two communication systems, one verbal and one non-verbal. The verbal communication is similar to human, but since the flexibility of the voices of Hytherians is less than that of humans, in their communication with them Hytherians must use a voice device that makes their sounds intelligible to the human ear. The non-verbal communicative messages are conveyed by their feathers. "The Hytherian plumage, which is capable of infinitely changing appearance, can change a ripple of expression over the entire body, signals and symbols that many times have more meaning than the power of words to express." The speed of transmitting non-verbal messages is faster than in verbal communication and therefore the response to them is faster. While the problem of the verbal connection between the Hytherians and the humans was solved using a suitable device, the non-verbal solution depends on the time in which the humans must learn this body language. Obviously, more time is needed for this. more than for learning the verbal language.

 

In their contacts with human society, Hytherians often forgot that their eyes are sharper than human eyes. On the other hand, it seemed to the humans who were in contact with them (at least in the first contacts with them) that due to the Hytherian nature rooted in structure and biological needs, Hytherians are not capable of establishing human social structures such as a nation or government and having a human religious concept.

 

Summary

In this book and in "Living in a Foreign Land" unique societies are described without any similarity between them and at the same time it is possible to conclude from the content universal basic rules from which the uniqueness of each of them is derived. The meeting of these societies with human society occupies only a part of the works and therefore an attempt to formulate rules of conduct for these societies in their encounters with each other would border on the simplistic. The basic rules refer to the following variables:

 

1. Communication - there are linguistic expressions that are in daily use and have normative and/or functional meanings that are borrowed or built on concepts that explain the physical environment.

2. Explosive living resources - conditions of acute shortage of basic living resources (food and water) can lead to the development of communal life.

3. Survival - conditions of extreme scarcity in which intelligent beings live can lead to the development of very simplistic images of reality whose translation into terms of expectations and perceptions will be expressed in the existence or non-existence of phenomena. Every phenomenon either exists or it does not exist, without any intermediate possibilities. This can lead to a reduction in the verbal volume of the language, if the lack phenomenon did not exist in the past; Or for the non-expansion of the verbal volume of the language, if the intelligent race is at the beginning of its evolutionary steps and it will have no possibility, despite its intellectual ability, to overcome the problem of scarcity. The limited volume of the language entails a reduction and even subtle linguistic and behavioral omissions.

4. Life expectancy - the desire to maintain the life expectancy of the race will lead to the development of behavioral and organizational structures that correspond to the biological structure of the intelligent beings.

 

The rules of the encounter between human culture and foreign cultures:

 

1. If the sets of images, expectations and perceptions of the two cultures are identical and therefore they overlap. No communication problems will arise and the behavior expectations of both cultures will be the same.

2a. If the verbal volume of the two languages ​​is the same, each culture will have to find the equivalents of its words in the other language and if the verbal volume of one language is limited, it will have to expand it in order to absorb the full meanings (if possible) of all the words of the other language.

2b. If the sets of images, expectations and perceptions of the two cultures are different and even opposite, there will be communication problems when these cultures meet, even if theoretically both cultures use the same language. For example, if one company understands that "A" is dragging "B" along, it is not necessary that the same rule also exists in the other company. It is also possible that "A" is followed by "C" or that it is followed by "D" as well, or that it is not followed by anything, since different conditions lead to different normative and/or functional behaviors.

3. When the arrays of images, expectations and perceptions partially overlap, in the overlapping part of the arrays there will be no communication problems and in the non-overlapping part the problems described in rule number 2 will arise.

4. There is a possibility that the two cultures understand each other's system, but due to behavioral habits, both or one of them will tend to think each in its own terms during the meetings, and only frequent meetings between them will bring them to think each in the other's terms during the meetings.

5. There is a possibility that each culture will adopt a little and in extreme cases the entire system of the other culture.

 

Sources

Paul Anderson - Sefer Ha'aretz, published by the Crown of Jerusalem, 1981, 358 p.