So yes, COS is about the future, a future in which we have genetically engineered second class citizens based on animals. They exist because of labor shortages: basically people don't want to work because the standard of living of sitting on your ass at home has gotten good enough that you don't have to (sound familiar btw? Remember this book was written originally in 1990 - and no, that's not the buried trope). I wrote this book long before I had ever even heard of 'furry' or 'furry fandom' btw, it was more in the vein of Cordwainer Smith and his 'animal people'. Though as someone who owned and trained wild cats, and was up on what a lot of Geneticists were doing, and who was following the human genome project, there were some fertile ideas there.
Now, I have gone and dropped hints everywhere, especially in later books in that world, as to why things were the way they were. Multiple races in order to make it harder for them to have things in common to unite against humans. No human 'supermen' because of fears that they would take over (and you wouldn't be able to easily find them), and a few other reasons as to why they were made the way the were. There is even some discussion as to if they are engineered to have certain behaviors, which can be used against them, one way or another, or to control them.
But the one that I thought was the most obvious and which was alluded to constantly but which everyone seems to miss, is based on this old quote:
"Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man." -Aristotle
That is the major background 'trope' in the whole series, it forms so much of the stories, the society, and it is even reflected in the title, which comes from the song 'Types' by Living Color. It is mentioned, more than once, that the government comes in and provides all schooling for the 'animen' for the formative years of their lives. They are taught and trained where they are to be, and what they are to be.
And I must admit that I am incredibly shocked that so many people have missed this. Especially when countries like France have recently embraced this philosophy by mandating government pre-schools for children. Much of our own school system here in the USA have been taken over by a particular political group who are using them to instill certain beliefs and behaviors in students today, which we are now reaping the harvest of, when we see all this micro-aggression bs, and the movement to stamp out free speech coming from our schools today.
Then again, maybe that is why so many of you are missing it, because you're actually living it.
I find it interesting though, that a book I started writing in 1990, which I published in 2011, is still dead on, on politics and what is happening with society, twenty plus years later.
Not so much "didn't catch it" as "of *course* you'd do this if you were raising people to be permanent slaves."
ReplyDeleteRather like fish not noticing water - it made so much sense in-context I never even though of it as a trope in its own right.
I've got to add, however, that if *I* was genetically engineering for obedience I'd probably avoid feline stock. And mustelids.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder if the original designers weren't *big* manga and anime fans with a thing for cat girls.
MadRocketSci:
ReplyDeleteHave Children of Steel, and Portals of Infinity, have not read them yet. Added it to the queue cause it looks like fun.
I think I was reading once (some forum about religion/religious conversion and deconversion) that there are certain critical periods in people's lives (unknown if it actually corresponds to something physiological/neurological or if it is just a cultural artifact related to when you gain enough independence to actually do this) where they tend to embrace overarching worldviews. There are critical periods for indoctrination, conversion, etc. Those critical periods are also times when people tend to reevaluate their lives and try to resolve the contradictions of the worldview that was given to them (pushed on them, one might cynically say) in childhood. Around college age is one of these times. Religions/worldviews/cults seem to have some awareness (maybe if only in the meme-Darwinian sense) of this too, which is why those are prime times for attempts to win converts.
So there is hope, even for people raised in cultures designed to cripple them.
One of the things that has struck me when tutoring kids is that these days they don't have any independence before they are out of grad school and near mid-life. They never have any breathing room to sit down and *think*, because there is never a period in their lives where they are not dependent on some totalizing system that monopolizes their time. (Monopolization of time is a key cult-tactic, btw.) Highschool kids spend their lives on a hamster-wheel of make-work and structured activity, and there's never enough time to do all the things they need to do to show they are worthy of admission/employment. It's freaking creepy, looking at some of these kids who are supposed to have *childhoods* and realizing that none of them do. Anyway, none of these people have actually had lives by the time they need to make major life decisions.
The Silicon Valley work-is-your-life culture seems to be trying to extend this trend even further. (Nothing against hard work, and absolutely nothing against giving your *own* company or endeavor your all, but there is a difference between trying to start a business and working flat out for someone else's business.) "You don't need a *house*, silly prole! You can live at work: We have smoothie bars and bean-bag chairs to sleep on. 80 hour weeks are for slackers."
ReplyDeleteHmmm: Cat-people being raised to be obedient servants. That sounds like it would work *brilliantly*. :-P